The Alpha's Daughter Nobody Claimed

The shop hummed with fluorescent light and Roxie's own shallow breathing as she lay flat on her back beneath Alpha Carver's truck. Cold concrete pressed through her t-shirt. A flashlight jutted from between her teeth, and her hands moved across the engine like fingers reading braille - slow, careful, certain. Eleven minutes had ticked by since she'd wriggled underneath, though she hadn't noticed. Honestly? The whole world could've caught fire up there and she wouldn't have looked up. *Come on,* she thought. *Talk to me.* The problem wasn't the fuel injectors - the ones the first mechanic had circled in red ink, practically preening with false confidence. It wasn't the crankshaft sensor either, the thing mechanic number two had blamed after two hours fumbling with a diagnostic reader that looked like it hadn't been calibrated since the last lunar eclipse. And it definitely wasn't *irreparable*, the word the third guy had scrawled and underlined twice, like giving up needed extra emphasis to feel legitimate. Roxie pressed her fingertips against the chain tensioner. It gave. Just barely - but it gave. *There you are.* The smallest shift. The kind that didn't throw a code, didn't rattle or bang or scream for attention. Just a slow, silent slip, building week after week until the engine's whole rhythm fell apart in ways nobody bothered to explain. Three mechanics, and not one of them had thought to check what happened when every part ran right at the edge of its limit - like stacking plates on your fingertips and calling it fine. *Idiots,* she thought, almost fondly. *Not one of you looked at the thing that actually mattered.* Her breath fogged the metal above her. She slid out from under the truck and spat the flashlight into her palm. The shop sat hushed around her, the specific quiet that only belonged to places waiting for someone to fix something. Four hours until the ceremony. She'd known that when she crawled under here. She'd told herself there was time. There still was. Probably. She crossed to the parts wall. The replacement tensioner sat exactly where she'd left it six months ago - third shelf, second bin from the left. Nobody touched anything after Roxie organized it. Small victory, but hers. She had the part in her hand before she'd even finished the thought, already running the install sequence through her head. Forty minutes later, she wiped her hands on her jeans and hit the ignition. The engine turned over instantly - no hesitation, no stutter. The sound filled the shop, clean and even, like a breath held too long finally let go. Roxie stood there, hands loose at her sides, just listening. Not pride, exactly. Something steadier. The quiet certainty of having solved a thing nobody else could even name. The door creaked. Footsteps followed - light, precise, heels clicking against concrete. She didn't need to turn around to know. "Roxie." Petra's voice rang out, calm in that practiced way of hers. "The ceremony starts in four hours." "I know." Roxie turned, flashlight still clutched in one hand. Petra stopped beside her, taking in the ruined shirt, the grease-streaked hands, the smudge across Roxie's jaw. "You're covered in grease." Warmth radiated off her - not just from the outfit she'd clearly chosen with care for tonight, but from the way she carried herself, always ready, always hoping someone would match her excitement for things they were supposed to care about. Roxie glanced down at her palms. "Yeah. That tracks." Petra shook her head, smiling in that resigned-but-fond way she always did when Roxie disappeared too far into a problem to notice her own state. "Did you get it running?" "Now it runs." Roxie tilted her chin toward the truck. "The mechanics said it was irreparable." "The mechanics missed the timing chain." Petra let out a slow breath, somewhere between amusement and disbelief. "Alpha Carver will be pleased." "Alpha Carver's going to want to know why it took this long," Roxie muttered, yanking the rag from her back pocket and scrubbing at her hands. Grease smeared across the fabric, some of it catching on the inside of her wrist. "I found the problem in eleven minutes." Petra laughed - a warm sound that made the empty shop feel a little less lonely. "Not everyone finds things in eleven minutes, Roxie." "They should check the timing chain first." "Not everyone thinks like you." Petra's smile softened. "Now go shower. Put on the dress your sister picked. Be at the grounds by sundown." Roxie hesitated, glancing back at the truck one more time. The engine was still running, steady and sure. She reached over and killed the ignition. The silence that followed felt different somehow - layered, like the hush after a storm passes. "I'll be there," she said. Petra arched an eyebrow. "On time?" "I'll be there." *Would it kill her to trust me just once?* Petra made a soft, skeptical sound and pulled out her phone, thumb already scrolling - probably rearranging her whole schedule around Roxie's inevitable lateness. Roxie didn't say thank you. She didn't have to. Petra understood anyway. "Go," Petra said. "And get the grease out from under your thumbnail. Please." Roxie looked down. Sure enough, a stubborn black line sat wedged beneath her nail. She grunted in response. Petra lingered by the door, watching Roxie gather her things. "You know, you could ask for help sometimes." Roxie glanced up, surprised. "With the truck?" "With anything." "I do fine." "You do." Petra's smile turned softer, quieter. "But you don't have to do it all alone." Roxie didn't answer that. She hung up her rag and flipped off the shop lights instead. Petra's footsteps faded down the hallway, swallowed by the empty building. Outside, the sun hung low, painting the lot gold. Behind her, the truck sat fixed and silent in its bay, waiting for its owner. Roxie crossed the gravel without thinking about the ceremony at all - only about the timing chain, about how a thing could slip so quietly, for so long, that everyone stopped noticing the wrongness and just... called it normal. *Funny how that works,* she thought. *You don't see the c***k until the whole thing breaks.* She thought about Damian the way she thought about load-bearing walls. Not with longing. Not with fear. With orientation - like checking a compass out of habit. The mate bond had existed since she turned sixteen, a fixed point she'd shaped her whole future around. Four years spent building her life to fit its outline, never once questioning it. Not romantic. Not some dreamy fairy-tale thing. Structural. Damian was as much a part of her internal architecture as the packhouse wall was part of her sense of home. He hadn't claimed her publicly. She tried not to dwell on it - filed it under *patience*, under the complicated business of becoming someone the pack expected to matter before she felt ready for it. Damian was careful. Careful people moved at their own speed. *I don't need him to say it. The structure's already there.* The bond tugged at her gently, a direction she barely registered anymore, like a song always playing somewhere in the background. Damian was in the packhouse. Had been all morning. Normal. She took the back stairs, dodging the chaos in the main hall. The scent of fresh flowers and bursts of laughter drifted through the kitchen door. She didn't stop. She wanted a shower, food, and twenty quiet minutes before she had to become the version of herself people expected to see at ceremonies. Her room looked exactly as she'd left it at six that morning - tools scattered everywhere, her project notebook flipped open to last night's sketches, afternoon light slanting across the workbench and the pile of catalogued engine parts. She stood in the doorway a moment, just breathing it in. The order. The rightness of things left where she'd put them. There was no mirror in her room. She'd taken it down at fifteen to make room for more shelving. When she needed to check her hair, she used the one in the hallway, and even then, she didn't care much what stared back. She showered, scrubbing her hands and nails until the water ran clear. The dress Bianca had left on her door was green, simple, chosen with the kind of confidence that came from always knowing exactly what would look right. Roxie pulled it on, stood in front of the hallway mirror for maybe four seconds, decided *acceptable* was good enough, and went to find food. The house buzzed with noise - voices rising and falling from the kitchen, hallways strung with streamers and flowers. Roxie slipped through quietly, avoiding conversation, and ate bread and cheese standing at the counter, eyes half-closed, trying to find her center. The pack's energy hummed all around her, but she felt strangely apart from it. Distant. On the hallway table, she set down a clean wrench - the one she'd apparently carried in her pocket all morning without noticing. She studied it a moment, thumb tracing the handle. Then she left it there and walked back to her room. *Last time I do this as just... me,* she thought, though she couldn't have said why the thought surfaced. The ceremony would start at sundown. The workshop sat dark now, the truck fixed and silent in its bay. Roxie stood in her doorway - hands clean, dress pressed, the faint ghost of grease still clinging to her skin. This was the last decision she made as the person she had been until tonight. She did not know that yet.