Fated to the Wrong Alpha

Chapter 4 – Ghosts and Rumors

Lyall wolves don’t stare.

They glance. They assess. They file your existence away like a risk assessment and move on. It’s almost worse than open hostility.

Breakfast is a long wooden table in a sunlit room that smells like coffee, bacon, and a dozen different packs worth of tension. Corren takes the head seat without comment. To his right: Dael, unreadable. To his left: Lyssa, already halfway through a stack of pancakes. Scattered along the benches: warriors, a few elders, a pair of kids arguing over syrup.

I take the open chair halfway down. Jarek sits at my side, posture loose and eyes sharp. We are the visiting delegation. We are also the spectacle.

Conversation dips when we sit. Then, like a tide, it rolls back in—only now my name floats on top of it.

“…that’s her?”

“…Voss’s niece…”

“…fake engagement, you think—”

“—if she’s anything like Elira—”

The name hits the air like a dropped glass. The room goes tight around it.

Across the table, a woman clears her throat. Older than me by a few years, ash-blonde hair twisted into a simple knot, posture straight with the kind of tired grace that doesn’t come from rank, but from being everyone’s support system.

“Coffee?” she asks, lifting the pot toward me. Her smile is small and polite, but her eyes are careful. “I’m Nyra. I…fill in where a luna is needed.”

“Thank you.” I slide my mug forward. “I’m Aeryn.”

“I know.” A quick, wry twitch at the corner of her mouth. “We all know.”

Of course they do. I’m not just a guest. I’m the woman whose name just got stitched next to their alpha’s in front of the Council.

She pours, then hesitates. “If anyone’s giving you trouble, let me know.”

Lyssa snorts. “She’ll be fine. The only person who scares them more than my brother is the idea of emotions.”

“That’s because you’re everyone’s emotions distilled into one tiny menace,” Dael says dryly.

There’s a ripple of laughter. It doesn’t reach everyone.

At the far end of the table, two warriors are speaking in low voices. They’re not quiet enough.

“…told you, he did it. No body, no proof—”

“Shut up,” another hisses. “You want him to hear you?”

My wolf pricks her ears. I tilt my head, listening.

“Three days before the wedding,” the first one murmurs, “she comes through here all smiles, all shining bond. Then poof. Gone. You think she just changed her mind?”

“Accidents happen,” the second mutters.

“Not to brides who sleep next to alphas,” the first shoots back. “He wanted out. He got out.”

Elira. The missing ghost that haunts this house.

My chest tightens. I’m not jealous of a woman I’ve never met. I am, however, very aware that I’m walking through the echo of a story where everyone thinks the last heroine died in Act Two.

“Don’t,” Jarek mutters under his breath.

“I’m not—” I start.

“Aeryn.” His eyes flick to mine. Don’t pick this fight at breakfast.

He’s right. Doesn’t make me like it.

Corren hasn’t said a word. He eats mechanically, listening to the room like only an alpha can. When one of the whisperers laughs a little too loudly, Dael’s gaze snaps over, flat and dangerous. The conversation dies.

“So,” Lyssa says brightly, as if nothing just curdled in the air. “What did they tell you about him back home?”

My fork pauses halfway to my mouth. “Who?”

She gives me a look. “My darling brother. The big bad wolf.”

“Lyssa,” Corren warns.

“What?” she says innocently. “If she’s going to fake-marry you, she deserves a fun backstory.”

I sip my coffee, buying half a second to edit. “They said you were…effective.”

Jarek coughs into his cup.

Lyssa lights up. “Oh, that’s new. Usually it’s ‘ruthless’ or ‘dangerous’ or ‘mysteriously single with a trail of bodies.’”

“Lyssa,” Corren says again, sharper.

His sister leans toward me, conspiratorial. “We both know they told you worse. I’m just curious how much of it you believed.”

“Enough to be here,” I say lightly. “Not enough to run.”

Her grin turns approving. “Good answer.”

Nyra’s gaze flicks between us, something like relief softening her shoulders. Maybe she expected me to crumble. Maybe she’s seen too many women do exactly that.

When breakfast breaks up, people drift out in small knots, the way packs always do. I rise with Jarek, smoothing my blazer, already thinking about the meeting in Corren’s study.

“Aeryn.”

His voice catches me at the doorway. I turn.

“We’ll go over the parameters of this engagement at three,” he says. “Public appearances. Duration. Boundaries.”

Boundaries. My wolf bristles at the word when it comes to him.

“Fine,” I say. “Will that include a section on ex-fiancées and ghost stories, or is that an advanced topic?”

A muscle jumps in his jaw. For a moment, the alpha mask slips, and I see something rawer underneath.

“I didn’t kill her,” he says quietly.

The room hums with the unspoken implication: But someone killed something in both of us.

“I know,” I reply, surprising both of us.

I’m a diplomat. I read wolves for a living. Whatever else Corren Lyall is…he’s not lying about that.

His shoulders ease by a fraction. “Then maybe we can get through this without tearing each other apart.”

The bond between us thrums, disagreeing.

We’ll see, my wolf thinks.

We’ll see.