The Mad Alpha's Substitute Bride

Each building in the healing center is divided into several rooms where healers treat shifters with a combination of both healing magic and human medication and equipment. Edith takes me down the corridor to the last room and closes the door behind her before asking grimly, "What happened?"

I shrug, and she gives me a stern look. "That’s not an answer, Alice."

"What are you going to do if I tell you?" I sit on the edge of the examination table, my voice dry. "Can you make sure it doesn’t happen again? Because I guarantee it will."

She studies me for a few long moments, and I see the heaviness in her gaze. "Did you piss off Willow?"

It doesn’t surprise me that she has come to that conclusion. Edith is well aware of Willow’s hatred of me. While I have been knocked around by other shifters, these sorts of injuries only come to pass when Willow’s father decides to step in. The last time Thomas brought me into line, I was unconscious for a week. He was actually quite gentle this time, I must say.

I give the healer a humorless smile. "All I have to do is breathe, and it pisses off Willow. Along with half the pack. Do you have any medication for that?"

Edith picks up a tray of cotton swabs and disinfectants and comes to stand in front of me. In an uncharacteristic move, she smooths her hand over my head. "I wish I could tell you that it will get better, but it won’t."

I lower my gaze, my throat feeling thick with despair that I try my best to keep at bay. "I know." I try to shrug nonchalantly, but my body doesn’t comply.

"Here." She reaches into her pocket and hands me a small box. "I know it’s your birthday tomorrow. I got you this."

My birthday?

I give her a puzzled look before realizing she’s right. I never keep track of my birthdays. I don’t celebrate them. There’s nothing to celebrate about my existence.

As Edith snaps on her gloves, she glances at me. "Well? Aren’t you going to open it?"

I look at her cautiously. "You’ve never given me a gift before."

"It’s not every day a wolf comes of age." Edith offers me a small smile. "It’s not much, though, so don’t have any high expectations. My mother gave it to me when I came of age. Tomorrow, you turn twenty-two. This is the most meaningful gift I could give you. I don’t have children of my own, so I thought you might appreciate it."

I open the box, touched by the fact that she is giving me something that a mother would pass on to her daughter. It’s a silver ring. A plain-looking band. There’s nothing remarkable about it, but as of right now, it is the most precious thing I own. When a female wolf comes of age, she is gifted a piece of jewelry by her mother or some other female elder of the family to signify her entering adulthood.

I don’t have a habit of crying, but I lower my eyes, feeling overwhelmed. "It’s perfect. Thank you."

Edith unwraps the binding on my hand, and her lips press together into a thin line when she sees the infection. "Thomas did this?"

I nod. "He stabbed a letter opener into my palm. I don’t know why it got infected—"

"I’ll fix it." Edith’s voice is strained.

I expect her to apply some ointment, but to my surprise, she uses her healing ability. I close my eyes as the warm, comfortable wave of healing energy passes through me.

Some of the pain begins to diminish. As Edith uses her ability to reverse the damage, I wonder if I should celebrate my coming-of-age birthday. When a female wolf comes of age, she is no longer bound to the wolf pack she is associated with. She’s old enough to leave if she wants, and she’s also old enough to take a mate. I have never had anything to celebrate before, but now...?

I could leave the Moonlight Pack. I could go live in a human territory.

It’s not like I can shift, after all. I could start a different job, a new life. No wolf will ever accept me as their mate, and after the tumultuous life I have experienced, the idea of somebody loving me and wanting me is nothing short of a fantasy. I’ve been told my whole life how unwanted and undesirable I am. Why would that ever change? It won’t.

Shifters usually have fated mates, but I’ve always been told that fated mates are connected through their wolf spirit. I don’t have a wolf spirit, which means I don’t have a fated mate.

As a little girl, I used to dream about having my own mate. The child I was desperately wanted someone to love her and protect her, her very own prince charming. But as I grew older, I began to realize that nobody would ever protect me and that a fated mate was not in the cards for me. So, that was just another dream I tucked away in a corner of my mind to gather dust.

But what I can do is get away from here and all these people. I want to go someplace where nobody knows me, where nobody will look at me and judge me. Where nobody will care whether I have a wolf spirit or not.

"Why are you smiling?" Edith asks, and I realize that I can no longer feel her healing warmth. I look down at my hand and see a scar in the middle of my palm.

I frown. "Why is there a scar?"

Edith is silent, an uncomfortable expression crossing her face. "Edith?"

She is spared the task of answering me when the door of the examination room is pulled open, and another wolf shifter rushes in. Unlike me with my red hair and blue eyes that make me stand out from other shifters, Mary has short, dark hair that playfully touches the edge of her shoulders and beautiful brown eyes. Willow may be a blonde beauty, but Mary is just as pretty, her features exquisite.

"Alice!" The young healer throws herself at me, and Edith grabs her by the back of her coat.

"Stop right there."

Mary gives her a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I got carried away. I just checked my phone, Alice. I was in the middle of a session. Are you hurt? Wait, of course you are! You look terrible! I mean, not terrible like that, but—"

Edith clears her throat. "Take a breath, Mary. I’ve done most of the healing. You can take over now. And think before you speak. You’re not making sense again."

Mary flushes. "Thanks for healing her, Edith."

The older woman gives her a stern look. "Don’t thank me for doing my job."

She walks out of the room without so much as a goodbye, but it doesn’t bother me. The senior healer is a little abrupt, but she’s kind to me, which is what matters.

Once the door closes behind her, Mary hugs me. "What happened? Who did this?"

"Thomas," I tell her before diving into what happened at Benny’s yesterday and the resulting meeting in the beta’s office.

Mary doesn’t look shocked, but there is pain in her eyes. "I’m sorry, Alice."

"It’s okay." I watch her pick up a cotton swab and dowse it in saline before cleaning the blood from my face. "It is what it is."

My friend leans back and says regretfully, "I wish you didn’t sound so matter of fact about it."

I just give her a tight smile, saying nothing further.

Mary and I became friends when she moved into my apartment building a couple of years ago. She would often come home late from her training sessions at the healing center, and one night, I offered to share my dinner with her. I had been eating a burrito on the staircase by myself, and I had an extra one in the plastic bag next to me. I had fully expected her to turn me down and insult me. But instead, she dropped her backpack, sat down next to me, and held out her hand.

From then on, we would have dinner together most nights. I’d found a friend.

I show Mary my palm. "Edith healed me, but there’s a scar left."

I expected her to look surprised, but her eyes turn dark. She drops the cotton swab, grabbing my hand to take a closer look. "What did he do here?"

I tell her about the letter opener, and when Mary looks up at me, her eyes are filled with horror. "There is only one thing that leaves scars on the body of a wolf shifter. That letter opener must have been coated with wolfsbane, Alice. I don’t know how you survived all the way here. From your hand, the wolfsbane would have reached your heart within half an hour."

My whole body goes cold. Thomas tried to kill me? The beta of my pack actually wanted to murder me?

My head is spinning again, and I clutch Mary’s arm. "You must be wrong. I mean, I know he was angry with me, but trying to kill me—"

Mary’s face is as white as a sheet. "There’s no mistaking it. Even I can’t heal wolfsbane completely. It’s very toxic to our kind. You’re lucky Edith was around. Any other senior healer wouldn’t have healed you. They would have refused."

Not simply because it’s dangerous but because they wouldn’t have cared enough. I can read between the lines of what Mary is saying.