I Faked Death, My Alpha Went Insane

Chapter 1

It all started with a nasty fight. I lost it on Susan, the Alpha's childhood sweetheart, and swore I'd run her out of here myself. That same night, she left the Alpha some tragic goodbye note and disappeared.

The second the Alpha read it, he came unglued. He ordered his Beta, Evan, to haul my parents off and string them up upside down over a ledge, thousands of feet in the air.

"Luna, don't make this any harder than it has to be." Evan's voice was completely flat. "The Alpha just wants to know where Susan is. You were the last one to see her. Where'd you send her?"

Through the thick observation glass, I watched my parents swaying out there in midair. I screamed till my throat went raw, and nobody so much as blinked.

Evan set a digital countdown timer down right in front of me.

The seconds bled away, one after another. In his hand was the remote, the switch with my parents' lives hanging off it.

"You've got one hour to think it over, Luna. Where's Susan?"

Tears poured down my face as I shook my head, frantic.

The ropes holding my parents suddenly dropped an inch.

"No! I swear I don't know anything! I was just talking out of anger! I need to see the Alpha. Let me talk to him face-to-face!"

Sobbing, I lunged forward to grab Evan's pant leg, but he stepped back to dodge me, holding the trigger high out of reach.

"This is the Alpha's final warning. Give up Susan's location, and your parents live. Stop hesitating, Luna. You're running out of time."

Heartbroken, I forced my eyes up toward the top floor—where the Alpha's office was.

I knew he was standing right behind those floor-to-ceiling windows, watching this nightmare unfold.

My head spun with sheer disbelief and betrayal.

Aeon, my Alpha, had cut our mind-link hours ago.

He used to swear Susan was just an old friend, only crashing here for a little while.

He used to swear I was his fated mate, the one woman he couldn't live without.

He used to swear everyone else was just noise, meaningless flings he could walk away from without a second thought.

And yet here he was, holding my parents' lives over my head, all because of one fight I'd had with her.

Was there a single word he ever said that he actually meant?

"Aeon!" I screamed up at the tower. "Is Susan really worth more to you than everything else? Is she worth more than our own unborn baby? Do you even know why I wanted her gone?! She almost made me miscarry! She served me a tonic laced with wolfsbane! She knew damn well it was poison!"

The darkness behind the top-floor glass finally parted as a servant pulled back the heavy drapes.

Aeon stood there, looking down at me as if I were nothing more than a rabid rogue.

His voice blasted cold and clear through the intercom.

"Anna, stop using the baby to guilt-trip me! You know how much I love you. Why do you keep turning that against me, using it to hurt me?

"Susan can't even sleep at night without her meds! Did it ever cross your mind what happens if she has a panic attack out there, all alone?

"You're the Luna, and all you think about is yourself! Susan apologized over and over, she told you it was an accident, so why do you keep going after her?"

Aeon paused, taking a sharp breath and closing his eyes as if he were the one in pain.

"Anna, give me the location, and save your parents."

A bitter, breathless laugh escaped my lips. I looked up at the man standing high above me, my chest aching with a hollow, crushing pain.

"And if I say I don't know... will you really let them fall to their deaths?"

The Alpha set his jaw, his dark eyes locking onto mine.

"Try pushing my boundaries again, and find out."

Tears flooded my eyes, stinging my nose.

Why? How on earth did we end up like this?

Where was the Aeon who used to cherish me more than his own life?

We were never meant to be in the first place. He was the high-and-mighty heir to the Alpha seat, while I was just a low-born pack member.

Yet, he fell for me at first sight.

To win my heart, he shed his designer suits, put on scratchy, rough clothes, hid his identity, and worked as a lumberjack at my father's timber yard for a whole month.

His hands—built to hold the pack's scepter—were bruised and bleeding on the very first day.

Yet he didn't utter a single complaint. He used the few coins he earned with his blistered hands to buy a rare herb my father had eyed in the market.

He had held out his battered, bloody hands to me, eyes shining with pure hope.

"Am I a little closer to your world now?"

When the pack elders got wind of it, they took rattan canes to the backs of my legs, calling me trash, a nobody who'd dragged their Alpha heir down into disgrace.

Aeon burst into the room, threw himself in front of me, and drove a blade straight into his own thigh.

"I'm the one who deserves this!" he roared. "She never tempted me. I was the one forcing my way into her world!"

The night before our Moonlight Mating Ceremony, he knelt down in front of me and begged me to put my mark on him instead.

He swore he'd rewrite the pack laws, so no Luna would ever have to bow to an Alpha again.

And that was the very first thing he did the moment he took over as Alpha.

I truly believed I had found my soulmate.

Until Susan showed up. Until I caught him whimpering her name in his sleep.

I cried, I threw fits, believing he would care, believing it would break his heart to see me suffer.

I never expected all my anguish would be dismissed with one cold line.

"When are you going to stop making a scene over nothing?"

Turns out, I meant absolutely nothing to him.

Evan sped up the timer by another thirty minutes. A swarm of guards rushed in, pinning me face-down to the floor. Driven by raw rage, I shifted into my wolf form and let out a deafening snarl!

"That's your punishment for trying to threaten me," Aeon's voice echoed cold through the speakers. "Three minutes left."

A healer stepped forward and plunged a syringe of forced-reversion serum into my neck. I watched in utter despair as the fluid drained into my veins.

"The suburban manor..." I gasped out, shifting back into human form.

"This morning... I saw that the key to the suburban manor was missing from the study..."

I shut my eyes tightly, drawing on every ounce of strength to protect the tiny life in my womb from the toxic serum.

With a casual wave of Aeon's arm, the healer quickly administered a neutralizing agent.

"Where are my parents?! Lower them down! Why aren't you releasing the ropes?!" I shrieked.

Evan hid the trigger behind his back, indifferent as I clawed at his pants, sobbing for mercy.

The numbers on the timer shrank rapidly. The high-pitched beeps pounded against my chest like a war drum.

"Once the Alpha verifies her location, your parents will be lowered," Evan said coldly. "And don't worry, we'll use the finest herbs to treat their injuries."

"There's no time left!"

"That's your problem, Luna. I'm just following orders."

Evan signaled his men and swept out of the room, leaving me alone in the barren observation chamber.

The reinforced steel door was scratched raw with bloody wolf-claw marks.

Yet, it remained shut tight.

When the final second ticked away, the beeping stopped. No explosion followed.

"Don't let this happen ever again, Anna."

Aeon's harsh voice echoed briefly in our mind-link before he slammed the connection shut once more.

I stumbled wildly out to where my parents had been lowered, throwing my arms around them with the last thread of strength I had left. I didn't even have the energy to cry anymore.

"Thank God... they're alive…"

Their ankles were shredded and bleeding from the ropes. My hands shook violently as I tried to apply ointment, but they gently pushed my hands away.

Tears blurred my vision again. I bowed my head, bracing myself for the blame I deserved.

Instead, my parents pulled me into a tight embrace, gently stroking my hair.

"We're alright, sweetie. These are just light scratches, they'll heal in no time," my dad murmured. "You take care of yourself, Anna. Don't worry about us."

"See? We're right here with you, safe and sound," my mom whispered softly.

The dam broke. All the agonizing heartbreak I had bottled up burst out, and I sobbed uncontrollably in their arms until my eyes ran dry.

After a long silence, I looked into my parents' exhausted eyes and finally voiced the thought I had buried deep in my heart for so long.

"If I sever my mate bond with the Alpha... would you two leave the pack with me?"

Mom wiped the tears from my cheeks, gazing mournfully at my bloody palms.

"Anna, you follow your heart, whatever it's telling you," she said softly. "Your father and I have got your back, always. We'll keep you safe, no matter what."