Fated to the Wrong Alpha

The conference room smells like polished wood, burnt coffee, and too many wolves pretending they’re civilized. City lights smear themselves across the glass walls, all neon and distant sirens. Inside, everything is too bright, too sharp. My uncle sits at the head of our side of the table, suit perfect, silver hair immaculate. Maelor Voss, Alpha, diplomat, man who believes people are chess pieces if you just squint hard enough. I’m the piece he pushed to the front row tonight. “Border casualties on both sides,” Maelor says smoothly, palms open. “We’re here to ensure there are no more.” Across from us, Corren Lyall sits like he owns the city. Technically, he owns a third of it. This tower is his. The floor we’re on is his. The air feels like it’s his, too. He’s broader than I expected, suit jacket pulled over a body that looks like it was built more for tearing throats out than wearing Armani. Dark hair pushed back, jaw shadowed as if he didn’t bother shaving for the meeting. Calm eyes. Too calm. He doesn’t look at Maelor when he answers. He looks straight at me. “Three of my wolves are in the ground,” he says, voice low. “One never came home. Tell me again how we’re both equally eager for peace, Voss.” My wolf bristles at the challenge in his tone—at the way his gaze lingers on my throat, like he’s testing if I’ll bare it or bite back. “Alpha Lyall,” I say before Maelor can smooth things over, “you lost wolves. We did, too. None of them asked for this fight.” A flicker crosses his face—surprise, maybe, that the pretty little diplomat speaks without waiting for permission. His eyes sharpen, focusing on me fully. And then everything inside me explodes. Heat slams into my chest, my ribs, my spine. My wolf lurches forward with a desperate, feral snarl. Mine— The instinct hits like a freight train. My heartbeat trips; my breath stutters. The room narrows to the breadth of his shoulders and the scent of storm and iron rolling off his skin. Mate. I don’t mean to inhale. I do anyway. The bond snaps taut between us like a wire pulled too tight, humming, burning. My vision whites out for a heartbeat, the rest of the room dropping away. Under the suit and the polish and the careful control, his wolf surges forward to meet mine. Then something hooks into that new line and rips. Pain tears through my chest so violently I almost double over. It’s not just mine—I feel his at the same time, a mirror agony slamming into his ribs, into his heart. Like someone is taking a knife to our connection, sawing it half-open as soon as it dares to form. My nails dig into my palms under the table. I clench my jaw hard enough my teeth ache. Not right. Wrong. Wrong. Across from me, Corren’s hand spasms on the tabletop. His fingers curl against the glass, a crack spiderwebbing under his palm before he controls it. His eyes are wolf-bright, feral for a heartbeat, then slammed cold again. The echo of his pain still reverberates in my own chest. Someone did this. Someone already put their hands in our bond once. “Aeryn,” Maelor murmurs under his breath, warning threaded through my name. I force my shoulders to relax. My lungs work, dragging in air that tastes like metal. My wolf paces and snarls, every instinct chanting mine, mine, mine while the raw edges of that half-broken bond throb. I meet Corren Lyall’s gaze and see the same question there that’s screaming in my own veins. What did they do to us? Before either of us can speak it, a soft cough cuts through the tension. Orrik Dae, representative of the external clans, smiles from the far end of the table. The smile never touches his eyes. “If we may step back from the brink,” he says, voice smooth as oil on water. “The Council is…concerned. Border skirmishes draw attention we would all prefer to avoid.” “That tends to happen when people die,” Corren says. “Yes,” Orrik agrees mildly. “Which is why we need something…symbolic. A gesture that says your packs choose unity over bloodshed. Something the humans will recognize.” His gaze slides, unhurried, from Corren to me. “Something binding.” My stomach drops. Maelor shifts beside me. I don’t have to look to know his expression—calculating, already ahead. “No,” Corren says, the word edged in wolf. “If you’re suggesting another arranged—” “Not another,” Orrik interrupts gently. “A temporary one. A political engagement. A promise to stand together while tensions cool.” The room goes very still. Orrik turns his full attention on me, and I suddenly feel every eye in the room land on my skin. “Aeryn Voss,” he says, like he’s reading a line that was written long before tonight, “and Corren Lyall.” Silence drops like a stone. My wolf slams against my ribs, not in protest, but in a dangerous, hungry lunge toward him. That half-formed, half-torn bond strains, aching. Fake, Orrik said. My pulse hammers in my ears. “This is absurd,” I manage, my voice thinner than I want. “You can’t—” “You want peace, don’t you?” Orrik’s smile widens by a fraction. “A fake engagement. Public. Reassuring. No need for…true binding.” His eyes glint. “Pure theater.” My uncle’s fingers brush my sleeve under the table, a silent command: stay quiet, let him negotiate. Across from me, Corren’s jaw flexes. “You’re asking us to turn a war into a wedding.” “A show of unity, Alpha,” Orrik replies. “On paper only.” On paper only. My wolf laughs, bitter and wild, inside my skull. Because whatever tried to snap between us and got ripped open a minute ago? That wasn’t paper. Someone already stole what we were supposed to be. Now they want us to pretend.