The Billionaire alpha's secret

Chapter 5

Leonidas’ POV

The past seven years had been brutal. That was the simplest way to describe it. Brutal.

But the truth? They had hollowed me out.

It had been easier when Selena was still in the pack house. Easier to stay angry. Easier to lash out. Easier to pour the storm inside my chest onto someone who could absorb it. Every time she walked the halls of the ancestral Drakonis estate, every breath she took under my roof felt like defiance. Like a reminder of Calista. Of betrayal. Of blood. Of the night everything burned.

I fed my hatred to her the way a wolf feeds on prey. It kept me alive. Or at least, it kept me standing.

But eventually, even that wasn’t enough.

Seeing her every day, breathing the same air, catching the faint scent of her wolf—it became dangerous. There were moments when my control slipped. When my Alpha instincts snarled too close to the surface. I knew if I didn’t end it, I would cross a line I couldn’t uncross.

So I released her.

I handed her the dissolution papers before the Council, stripped her of the Luna title, and told her she was no longer part of the Drakonis pack. I told her I never wanted to see her again.

I expected relief.

Instead, I got silence.

The rage didn’t fade. The emptiness didn’t ease. The pack house still felt suffocating. At night, when the city of Thessaloniki quieted and even the wolves settled into stillness, my thoughts betrayed me.

Selena.

Even now, her name lingered like smoke.

And every time it surfaced, heat spread through my chest. Anger. Frustration. Something dangerously close to regret. I despised that she still occupied space in my mind. Even buried under resentment, she was there.

I told myself I hoped fate had been cruel to her. That the gods had dragged her through the mud. That she had suffered.

Because I was suffering too.

In these seven years, I had become a shadow of the Alpha I once was. I drowned myself in pack affairs and corporate empires, expanding Drakonis Industries across Attica and beyond. Shipping routes. Energy deals. Political alliances with other Lycans of Crete and Epirus. I practically lived in my office tower overlooking the Thermaic Gulf.

The ancestral estate felt cursed.

As if her scent still clung to the marble corridors. As if her presence had seeped into the stone.

I considered demolishing it more than once. Burning it down and rebuilding something new. But the Drakonis estate had stood for centuries. My mother, Thalia, would have torn me apart before allowing such disgrace to our bloodline.

And despite everything, loyalty to my name still ran deeper than my hatred.

So instead, I stayed away.

I became a creature of glass offices and boardrooms. An Alpha with a title and no soul. Occasionally, I would visit private Lycans-only clubs in Athens. Find someone. Bring her back. Pretend for a few hours that I wasn’t empty.

But it never lasted.

The whiskey wore off. The women left. And I was still just Leonidas. Alone. Bitter. Hollow.

Ten years ago, I had taken my revenge. I forced Selena into a cold mating bond under pack law, stripped of affection, stripped of warmth. I punished her for Calista’s death. I made sure she felt the cost of taking my mate from me.

I had won.

So why did it feel like defeat?

Why did I wake each morning with dread coiled in my stomach? Why did power taste like ash?

At thirty-five, I was one of the most influential Alpha businessmen in Greece. My face appeared in economic journals. My name carried weight in both human and Lycan councils. Young wolves admired me. Rivals feared me.

And yet I couldn’t remember the last time I felt peace.

Coffee kept me alert. Work kept me controlled. My office couch had become my bed more nights than I could count.

Even my mother had noticed.

“You look older than your father did at forty,” she told me recently. “This is not how an Alpha should live, Leonidas.”

She was right.

But what was I supposed to do? Meditate under a full moon and rediscover my spirit wolf?

I didn’t believe in healing.

I didn’t believe in second chances.

And I certainly didn’t believe in love anymore.

Calista had been my true mate. The only woman I had ever loved. And Selena had made sure even that memory was stained with blood.

Marriage was nothing more than a political tool now. If my mother continued pressing me for an heir, I would select a suitable she-wolf from a strong bloodline and make it official. Duty. Nothing more.

That was the exact thought running through my head as I stepped out of my car in front of the towering marble façade of the Helios Lycan Foundation Hall in Athens.

Golden banners bearing ancient sigils hung from the columns. Torches burned along the entrance despite the modern lights. Photographers and reporters clustered behind velvet ropes, waiting for powerful Alphas and heirs to arrive. Men in tailored black suits. Women in shimmering gowns that concealed lethal wolves beneath silk and diamonds.

The entire event felt theatrical.

I adjusted my cufflinks, sealed my expression into its usual cold mask, and walked inside.

The only reason I had attended was because my mother was close to the foundation’s matriarch. The Drakonis family had pledged a generous donation—enough to engrave our name in marble and earn polite nods from rival pack leaders.

Social gatherings were not my territory.

I preferred negotiation tables. Strategy rooms. War councils.

Not champagne, music, and fake smiles beneath crystal chandeliers.

I still did the necessary rounds.

An Alpha of the Drakonis bloodline couldn’t appear at a Council gala and vanish without acknowledgment. I exchanged controlled greetings with the Alpha of Crete, nodded politely at the Thessaly delegation, endured hollow compliments from corporate allies tied to our Lycan trade routes. Every conversation felt rehearsed. Every smile calculated.

Once I had fulfilled my obligation, I moved toward the open bar carved from dark volcanic stone.

The plan was simple: stay long enough to be seen, make sure the Drakonis name echoed in the right ears, then leave and return to my office tower overlooking the Thermaic Gulf. Work was cleaner than people. Predictable. Loyal.

I slid onto a stool and tapped the counter lightly.

“Mocktail,” I told the bartender. “No alcohol. I have pack matters to handle afterward.”

He nodded with quiet respect and began blending crushed pomegranate and citrus over ice. I stared past him into the crowd as I waited.

Same powerful bloodlines. Same inflated egos. Same polished smiles hiding territorial instincts beneath silk and gold. The air hummed with restrained dominance, pheromones colliding in subtle waves. It was exhausting.

I took a slow sip and let the cold dull the buzz around me.

Just another empty night. Another Lycan charity gala. Another reminder that I was living inside the echo of a life I no longer recognized.

Then I heard it.

“Honored Alphas and esteemed guests, please welcome our next award recipient—Miss Selena Daneli, this year’s laureate of the Helios Lycan Humanitarian Crest for her work with displaced and disabled cubs across the Aegean territories.”

My grip on the glass faltered.

What?

My head snapped toward the stage so abruptly my neck cracked.

Selena?

Her name tore through my mind like a siren call.

I turned fully toward the platform.

And there she was.

Walking beneath the golden chandeliers as if she had always belonged there. She wore a deep gold gown that caught the firelight, her posture straight, her expression calm and composed. There was nothing fragile about her. Nothing uncertain.

She looked respected.

The applause rolled through the grand hall, echoing against marble pillars etched with ancient Lycan sigils.

And I sat there, stunned.

So she was back.

After seven years of silence. After seven years of wondering whether fate had finally punished her. After convincing myself that exile had broken her.

She was smiling.

Celebrated.

The woman I had blamed for Calista’s death was being honored for protecting orphaned cubs.

The irony was almost grotesque.

My jaw tightened as I watched her move across the stage with effortless grace. She carried herself like a leader. Like someone who had built power quietly in the shadows.

Where had she been all this time?

I lifted my glass again, needing the cold to steady the sudden storm rising inside me.

But I never got to drink.

Because something else happened.

Something that made my blood run cold.

A small boy—no older than six—ran up the steps toward the stage.

I froze.

Not because children were unusual at Lycan gatherings. Heirs were often presented publicly.

But the moment I saw his face, the air caught in my throat.

It was like looking into a memory.

The bone structure. The strong jaw. The shape of his mouth. The proud tilt of his chin I had seen in portraits of my younger self hanging in the ancestral Drakonis estate.

The resemblance wasn’t subtle.

It was undeniable.

My pulse pounded in my ears.

Then I saw his eyes.

Bright blue.

Not mine.

Selena’s.

And his hair—blond, catching the golden light.

I stared, every cell in my body going still. Even my wolf, usually restless beneath my skin, went silent in stunned recognition.

Selena turned just in time to catch him as he reached her. She pulled him close with practiced ease, smiling down at him as her fingers brushed through his hair.

The gesture was natural. Intimate. Familiar.

Something inside me shattered.

I stood so abruptly the stool crashed backward onto the marble floor. The sound echoed, but I barely registered the curious glances from nearby guests.

There was no doubt.

No confusion.

No room for denial.

That boy was mine.

I felt it in my blood. In the ancient pull of Alpha lineage recognizing its heir. In the way my wolf stirred with violent, possessive certainty.

Selena had given birth to my son.

And she had kept him hidden from me for seven years.

Seven years.

My hands curled into fists at my sides.

How dare she???!!!!