Bled For the Wrong Alpha

The Mystery Yet to Unravel

AIRA’S POV

I had prepared for many things in the three days I spent planning. This was not one of them.

I moved first.

I pulled free of Vance’s grip, grabbed Ellen’s hand, and dragged her across the walkway before either of them could say a word.

When I was sure we were out of Vance’s sight, I halted, bent a little, and caught my breath. Then without thinking, completely forgetting the character I was supposed to be playing, I looked straight into Ellen’s eyes.

“You said you were going home. What are you doing here?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Ellen gave me that look. The look that said what the hell is wrong with you.

I switched back immediately. The timid, naive Aira who spoke softly and never questioned anything. I grabbed her hand and pulled her close with a playful smile.

“I just wasn’t expecting you to be with Vance.” I leaned in conspiratorially. “Are you guys a thing now?” I shoved her lightly.

It worked. Her face relaxed immediately.

“A thing? Eww.” She wrinkled her nose. “I doubt that guy has a heart or even loves women. If anything he is gay.”

I smiled within myself. Of course he loved women.

He just had eyes for one woman alone.

“I met him to ask for tips about Shawn.” She rubbed my hand warmly. “He is the closest to Shawn so I figured he would know what could entice him. I just feel so bad seeing you go through this unrequited love.”

I almost smirked. A well-crafted lie delivered without a single blink. She was good. I would give her that.

But that wasn’t what was sitting uncomfortably in the back of my mind. In my past life, Vance and Ellen were known enemies. We avoided him completely, all of us, Ellen especially. She couldn’t stand him and the feeling was mutual.

So why were they meeting in secret?

I just nodded and smiled. “You really are the best,” I said as we turned and started walking back toward the pack building.

She asked me why I had been there too. I almost laughed. If she thought she could lie, I could do better.

“Oh, you know.” I shrugged. “You told me not to give up and I heard Shawn was around so I figured I would try again.” Simple and clean. She nodded and didn’t push.

We parted ways soon after and I rushed back home.

Inside my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and let the events of the day slowly unfold in my head. I reached for my diary, the one I had spent my teenage years filling with embarrassing confessions about Shawn. I flipped past all of it until I found a blank page.

I wrote it all down. Shawn not tearing the letter. The soft smile that had sent chills through me. Ellen and Vance meeting in secret at the lake house. The way everything felt slightly shifted from what I remembered.

Maybe it was because I had changed the original sequence. I had waited three days before giving Shawn the letter. Maybe that small change had already started tilting things.

I stared at the page for a long moment then closed the diary.

Regardless of what had shifted, one question refused to leave me alone. What was in my blood that had made Ellen and Shawn so excited? I could still see it clearly, Ellen smearing my blood across her face, her eyes wild and bright, while Shawn stood over a bowl filled with it smiling like a man who had just won everything.

I was just a wolfless omega. The lowest of the low. So why?

I had already tried asking my mother. She had looked at me like I was losing my mind and reached for the phone to call the pack doctor. I had left before he arrived. Some doors were never going to open from that side.

I barely slept that night. Nightmares gnawed at me until I cried out, dragging me through every pain all over again. I hugged my knees until the sun came up, dried tears clinging to them.

But by morning I was more determined than I had been the night before. I went to my father’s old room and searched through everything, hoping something, anything, might give me a clue. All I found were piles of documents that told me nothing.

I wasn’t giving up one bit.

I headed straight to the library.

It was packed as usual. I went straight to the history section and pulled every book I could find about our kind, our bloodlines, our origins. As overwhelming as it was, I flipped through them one after the other, each one making me lose hope a little more.

By the tenth book I was starting to feel the edges of hopelessness creeping in. I turned pages faster, scanning, searching, finding fragments of things that almost meant something and then didn’t.

I closed the last book and sat back.

Nothing.

I pressed my fingers against my temples and stared at the table. There had to be something somewhere. Ellen’s words hadn’t come from nowhere. Finally, her blood is ours. That kind of certainty didn’t come from nothing.

I was about to reach for one of the books again when movement caught my eye.

Shawn.

He was walking with a serious look, his eyes darting around like he feared he was being watched. He moved straight toward a door at the far end of the library and pushed through it without slowing down.

I sighed and was about to return to the disappointment on my desk when another familiar face caught my eye. Ellen.

Same energy. Same nervous eyes scanning the room. She slipped through the same door barely a minute after him.

Something cold settled in my stomach.

I was on my feet before I finished thinking about it. I crossed the library quickly and reached for the door handle.

“Erm… oh, erm, I’m with my friend. She just went in,” I said, forcing a smile.

The guards didn’t budge. Their faces stayed stern, and one of them spoke in a deep, flat voice. “This door is off limits.”

I tried to press further, but they met me with silence.

I stepped back and turned away like I had accepted it.

I hadn’t accepted anything.

I walked out of the library and circled the building slowly, looking for another way in. The walls were solid on three sides. Then I found them on the fourth. Windows. Small but workable.

I bent down and folded up my trousers.

Being locked in that basement in my past life had carved that lesson into me. The world had no mercy for the weak.

I tried to escape the moment I found out I was pregnant. Over and over again. And every single time, I failed.

My fists clenched at the memory. I bit down on my lip hard and pushed it back.

I jumped for the ledge, caught the edge with both hands, and pulled myself up and through in one smooth motion. I landed on the inside without a sound.

The hallway was dim and quiet. I could hear their voices immediately, low and careful, coming from somewhere deeper inside. I moved toward the sound, keeping close to the shelves, stepping carefully, my breathing shallow and controlled.

The closer I got the clearer their voices became. I reached the door they were behind and pressed my ear gently against the wood.

“We have to make sure everything turns out well,” Shawn said.

“Oh, it will, my love.” Ellen’s voice was light in a way that made my skin crawl. “She is obsessed with you. She would die to be yours.” A sharp, chilling laughter followed.

It didn’t sound like her at all… if I hadn’t heard it myself, I would have sworn it wasn’t hers.

I pressed closer, desperate for the next words, my foot suddenly slipped and my back hit the ground hard.

A sound escaped me before I could stop it.

The laughter inside cut off immediately.

“Who’s there?” Shawn called out.

I tried to move. My body wouldn’t cooperate, fear locking every muscle in place no matter how loudly my mind screamed at me to get up. I could hear their footsteps now, deliberate and heavy, crossing the room toward the door.

I was caught. I knew it. I started turning over excuses in my head, anything that could explain why I was lying on the floor in a restricted section of the library in the dark.

The door handle turned. I was already accepting my defeat when suddenly hands dragged me into the nearby alley. My back hit the wall hard, and a hand clamped over my mouth.

“Shh.”