The Alpha's Regret
He called me "little sister." I called him my forever.I've loved Skyler Voss since I was sixteen—my brother's best friend, my pack's most feared enforcer, and the man who looked right through me like I was invisible. For years, I watched him from the shadows, memorizing the way he laughed, the way he rode, the way he commanded every room he entered.Then came the night of my twenty-first birthday. The night the mate bond snapped into place.The night he looked at me with horror in his eyes and said the words that shattered me: "You're like a sister to me, Wren. You'll only ever be a sister."So I ran. I buried myself in my art, in a new city, in a life where Skyler Voss was nothing but a ghost I refused to let haunt me.Five years later, I'm not the same girl who cried herself to sleep over a man who didn't want her. I'm successful. I'm strong. I'm done.But when a family emergency drags me back to Ironvale, I discover that Skyler isn't done with me. The rejection that once broke me is now breaking him—slowly, painfully, driving him to the edge of madness. His wolf is feral. His control is slipping. And he's looking at me like I'm the only thing standing between him and the abyss.He wants a second chance. He wants forgiveness. He wants me.But I've spent five years learning to live without him. And I'm not sure I remember how to love someone who once made me feel so utterly worthless.
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Chapter: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED - ForeverPresent Day - Six Years After the Mating CeremonyI woke to chaos, as usual.Luna was jumping on our bed, singing a song she'd invented about pancakes. Asher was arguing with Skyler about whether six-year-olds could have coffee. And from my very pregnant belly, baby number three was doing what felt like gymnastics."This is your life now," I told the baby. "Loud, chaotic, and completely insane. Welcome to the family."A kick in response. This one was already opinionated.Due in two months, and I still couldn't believe we were doing this again. Three kids. A full house. Constant noise.I'd never been happier.---"Mama, tell Dad I'm old enough for coffee," Asher demanded."You're six. You're not old enough for coffee.""But Dad drinks it!""Dad is thirty-two. When you're thirty-two, you can have all the coffee you want.""That's forever from now!""Exactly. Now go brush your teeth."He stomped off, muttering about unfair parents. Luna immediately took his place in the argument."I want
Last Updated: 2026-02-19
Chapter: CHAPTER NINETY-NINE - Five Years ForwardFive Years Later"Asher James Mercer-Voss, if you don't get down from that tree right now—""I'm fine, Mom!" my six-year-old son shouted from a branch that was definitely too high. "Dad lets me climb higher than this!""Your father has terrible judgment," I called back, but I was already moving to spot him.From the porch, Skyler laughed. "He's a wolf pup. Let him climb.""He's six. And that branch looks questionable."Our daughter, three-year-old Luna, tugged on my shirt. "I climb too?""Absolutely not.""But Asher—""Asher is older and has a death wish. You're staying on the ground."She pouted, bottom lip jutting out in a perfect replica of Skyler's stubborn expression.---Five years since our mating ceremony. Five years of chaos, growth, and love that kept expanding in ways I hadn't known were possible.The cottage had been renovated twice to accommodate our growing family. The nursery was now Asher's room, filled with books and drawings and rocks he insisted were "special." Luna
Last Updated: 2026-02-18
Chapter: CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT - Passing It ForwardThe young couple stood in Marcus's office, practically vibrating with nervous energy.I recognized the look. I'd worn it myself once."This is Liam," Marcus introduced the male wolf. "And his mate, Sophie. They just completed their bonding ceremony last week."Sophie's mating mark was fresh, still slightly red against her collarbone. She kept touching it unconsciously, the way I had for months after my own ceremony."Congratulations," I said warmly. "How are you adjusting?""It's overwhelming," Sophie admitted. "The bond is so much more intense than I expected. I can feel everything he feels and it's just... a lot."Liam nodded. "We were hoping you could give us some advice. Marcus said you and Skyler might be willing to talk to us about the adjustment period."Skyler and I exchanged glances. When had we become the couple others looked to for guidance?"Of course," Skyler said. "What do you want to know?"---We met them at the cottage that weekend. Asher was napping, giving us time t
Last Updated: 2026-02-18
Chapter: CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN - Full CircleI found myself at the clearing without consciously deciding to go there.The place where everything had started. Where Skyler had rejected me, destroying my world before slowly rebuilding it into something better.Two years ago. It felt like a lifetime.Asher was with my parents for the afternoon—his first solo visit without me hovering nearby. At fourteen months old, he was walking confidently now, chattering in his own language, getting into everything."You need a break," Mom had insisted. "Go do something for yourself."So I'd driven. And somehow ended up here.The clearing looked the same. Trees forming a natural cathedral, sunlight filtering through leaves, the stream bubbling nearby.But everything was different.I was different.---"Thought I might find you here."I turned to see Skyler emerging from the tree line."How did you know?""Bond. And logic. You've been thinking about this place lately."He was right. As Asher's first birthday had approached, I'd found my thoughts
Last Updated: 2026-02-18
Chapter: CHAPTER NINETY-SIX - One YearAsher's first birthday party was pack tradition meets Pinterest chaos.My mother had made a smash cake shaped like a wolf. Sarah had decorated with way too many balloons. The entire pack had shown up, along with half the human community."This is insane," I told Skyler, watching toddlers run wild through our yard. "He's one. He won't even remember this.""But we will. And the pack expects it.""The pack expects a lot of things."But watching Asher in his high chair, cake smeared across his face as he demolished the wolf-shaped dessert with pure joy, I had to admit—this was perfect."He's having the time of his life," Vera said, snapping photos. "Look at that face."Asher grabbed another handful of cake, squishing it between his fingers before shoving it in his mouth. Blue frosting covered everything—his face, his hair, his new birthday outfit."Bath time is going to be fun," Skyler muttered."Worth it for these photos."---One year. Twelve months. Three hundred sixty-five days since
Last Updated: 2026-02-17
Chapter: CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE - Six MonthsAsher's half-birthday arrived with chaos.He'd learned to sit up unassisted, which meant everything within reach went straight into his mouth. He babbled constantly—"ba ba ba" and "da da da" that Skyler insisted meant "dada.""He's just making sounds," I said."He's clearly saying dada. Listen.""Confirmation bias.""Denial."And then, just to spite me, Asher looked right at Skyler and said, "Da!"Skyler's triumphant grin was unbearable."Fine. You win. His first word was dada.""I'll add it to the baby book."---The six-month checkup brought good news."He's in the ninety-fifth percentile for height and weight," Dr. Rivera said. "Definitely got his father's genes.""Great. I'm growing a giant.""A healthy giant. Everything looks perfect. You can start solid foods now if you want."Solid foods. Another milestone."Rice cereal first," she instructed. "Then gradually introduce vegetables and fruits. Watch for allergies."That night, we attempted Asher's first meal.He grabbed the spoon
Last Updated: 2026-02-17
Chapter: Chapter 79 Rowan POV It happens too fast for silence to hold.One second the clearing is steady, contained, the figure already fading back into the forest where only Lyra and I have seen it, and the next—Someone gasps.It is sharp. Loud enough to cut through the noise of the gathering like a blade.Then another.And another.The reaction spreads before I can stop it, rippling outward through the pack like a sudden crack in glass. Conversations falter mid-sentence, laughter dies too quickly, and heads begin to turn toward the same direction.The edge of the clearing.The forest.My jaw tightens immediately.Too late.They saw something.Not the figure clearly, not the way Lyra and I did, but enough. A movement. A shadow. Something out of place where nothing should have been.Fear doesn’t take much to grow.“Did you see that?”“I thought—”“Something moved—”The murmurs rise, overlapping, uncertain but building, and that uncertainty is what makes it dangerous. Fear feeds faster when it doesn’t
Last Updated: 2026-04-29
Chapter: Chapter 78 Rowan POV I feel it before I see it.The shift is subtle, almost impossible to catch if you are not paying attention, but I am. I have been since the moment Lyra walked back into the village carrying something she refuses to name. My senses have not relaxed since, and now they tighten instantly, every instinct sharpening at once.Something is wrong.The gathering continues around me as if nothing has changed. Laughter still moves through the clearing, voices overlap in easy conversation, and the fires burn steady and warm. To everyone else, this is still a night of peace.But the air has changed.It is slight, just enough to unsettle the edges of awareness, like a thread pulled too tight.I stop mid-step, my gaze shifting slowly toward the darker edge of the clearing.The forest.There.At first, I see nothing. Just shadows layered between trees, the natural darkness that always presses in around the light of the fires. But I do not look away. I let my focus settle, let my eyes adju
Last Updated: 2026-04-29
Chapter: Chapter 77Rowan POV The gathering is supposed to feel normal.That’s the intention behind it. After weeks of steady rebuilding and careful balance, the elders suggested it would help the pack to come together again in a way that wasn’t centered on duty or recovery. Something simple. Something familiar. A reminder that we are more than survival.And on the surface, it works.The clearing is lit with low fires, their glow casting warm light across the faces gathered around them. Voices carry easily through the night, laughter rising and falling without hesitation. There is food, shared without tension, and movement that feels natural instead of measured.To anyone else, this would look like peace.To me—It feels like something just beneath the surface is waiting.I stand near the edge of the clearing again, not hidden, but not in the center either. It gives me a clear view of everything without being pulled too deeply into it. My attention moves over the pack automatically, checking, assessing,
Last Updated: 2026-04-28
Chapter: Chapter 76Rowan POV Something is wrong.I don’t need her to say it. I don’t need evidence laid out in clear words or visible signs that anyone else could point to. I feel it the moment she steps back into the village, the moment her presence settles into the space we share through the bond.It’s subtle.But it’s there.And once I notice it, I can’t ignore it.Lyra has always been controlled, especially after everything she went through. Even when she was breaking, even when grief hollowed her out from the inside, there was a kind of stillness to her that felt… consistent. Predictable in its weight.This isn’t that.This feels sharper.Unsteady in a way that doesn’t match anything I’ve seen from her before.When she tells me she went for a walk, I let her say it. I don’t interrupt. I don’t call it out immediately for what it is.A partial truth.Because she’s not lying.But she’s not telling me everything either.I can see it in the way her eyes hold mine just a fraction too long, like she’s me
Last Updated: 2026-04-28
Chapter: Chapter 75 Lyra POV I don’t tell anyone what happened in the forest.Not Rowan. Not the elders. Not even the warriors who would normally be alerted immediately if anything unusual crossed our borders. I keep it buried inside me, locked behind calm expressions and controlled breathing, like it never happened at all.Because if I say it out loud, it becomes real in a different way.And I am not ready for that yet.When I return to the village, nothing looks different. Life continues the way it always does, steady and unaware of the storm that just passed through the forest. Wolves move between tasks, children run through the open spaces, and the scent of cooked food drifts through the air like any ordinary evening.But I am not the same.I feel it in every step I take.I stop at the edge of the main path, forcing myself to slow down before anyone notices something is wrong. My face has to stay neutral. My body has to stay steady. I cannot afford questions right now.Not when I do not have answer
Last Updated: 2026-04-27
Chapter: Chapter 74Lyra POV It hits me all at once, without warning or mercy. One moment I am standing there trying to make sense of what I just felt, trying to hold onto logic and everything I know to be true, and the next moment I cannot breathe. My chest tightens so suddenly it feels like something invisible has wrapped around my lungs and squeezed. The air comes in shallow, uneven pulls that do not feel like enough, like no matter how much I inhale it will never reach where it needs to.My heart is racing too fast, too loud, pounding so hard it drowns out everything else. I press my hand against my chest as if that might steady it, as if I can force my body to slow down, but it does nothing. If anything, it makes me more aware of how out of control I am.Kael’s name crashes through my mind again, sharper this time, dragging everything else with it. I smelled him. I know I did. That was not memory, and it was not grief twisting reality into something it is not. It felt real. It was real.But it cann
Last Updated: 2026-04-27
Billionaire Contract Marriage: Her Quest
They wanted to choose my husband so I bought one instead.
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" You'll be meeting your soon-to-be husband at the next family dinner."
Aunt Melissa's words hit like poison. I choked, shock seizing my breath. Family dinners at my grandparents' estate were always hell- ear-shattering arguments, insults wrapped in concern, smiles hiding knives.
But this? This crossed every line.
Who the hell do they think they were, choosing my husband like I was some pawn in their twisted game?
That's never going to happen.
I built my Empire from the ruins of my inheritance and survived the accident that claimed my parents' lives. Survived Sophie's lifetime of cruelty always my shadow, so desperate to eclipse me.
I didn't survive all that to let them control who I marry.
~~~
Then I saw him.
David Kane.
Six foot three of breathtaking perfection, commanding my manufacturing floor like he was born for it. Dark hair, ice blue eyes, and a body that made me forget to breathe.
The branch manager's son. Nobody important.
That was perfect. If my family wants to force a husband on me I'd bring them one on my own terms.
They forgot who I am.
I am Sophia Ashford. I don't play by their rules and am about to make the most dangerous deal of my life.
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Chapter: CHAPTER 182: GERALD THE FOURTHSophia's POVAlex arrived on a Sunday in July with a box.Not a large box. A shoebox, specifically, with holes punched in the lid with the careful regularity of someone who had thought about ventilation requirements and addressed them properly.Miriam was beside him.She had the expression of someone who had not been consulted about the box and had decided, somewhere between Alex's flat and our front door, that her role in the situation was to be present without contributing to it."Don't," she said to me, before I could speak. "I know. I tried."Isabella was visiting with Catherine. Catherine was in the garden. Isabella was in the kitchen with coffee and the specific expression of someone who had seen this particular configuration before in various forms and was curious about the current iteration.David came to the door.Looked at the box.Looked at Alex."No," he said."He's very healthy," Alex said. "I've done extensive research.""You've done extensive research on a frog.""On th
Last Updated: 2026-04-30
Chapter: CHAPTER 181: THE FOUNDATION AT TWENTY-FIVESophia's POVThe gala was Emma's idea.Of course it was.She'd proposed it eight months in advance with the specific energy of someone who had identified a necessary thing and was presenting it with enough lead time that resistance became impractical."Twenty-five years," she'd said. "That's not nothing. That's a milestone that deserves to be seen publicly.""I don't need a gala.""The foundation needs one. There's a difference." She'd held my gaze with the patience of twenty-five years of knowing exactly when I was conflating the personal and the institutional. "The foundation has eighteen centers across eight countries. It has Claudia's published research and Nora's climate grief program in development and scholarship recipients who are now professionals giving back to the communities they came from. That deserves a room full of people acknowledging it."She was right.She was almost always right about these things."Fine," I'd said."I'll organize everything," she'd said immediatel
Last Updated: 2026-04-29
Chapter: CHAPTER 180: WILLIAM AT SEVENTEENDavid's POVEmma's son called me on a Wednesday evening in June.Not his mother's phone. His own. Which I recognized immediately as significant in the way Nora calling Sophia had been significant three weeks earlier. The Kane-Lawson children knew which conversations went where. They'd been watching this family long enough to understand its specific frequencies.William was seventeen.The particular seventeen that was almost eighteen. The threshold that was less about age than about the specific accumulation of understanding that arrived in that year — the moment a person began to see themselves from the outside for the first time and found the view both clarifying and destabilizing."Can I come over?" he said. "Not tonight. Saturday maybe.""Saturday works. Your mother knows?""I'll tell her." A pause. "It's not — I'm not in trouble or anything.""I didn't think you were.""I just wanted to talk to you specifically." Another pause, carrying the self-consciousness of a seventeen-year-o
Last Updated: 2026-04-28
Chapter: CHAPTER 179: NORA'S CHOICESophia's POVNora called on a Sunday in May.Not Emma's phone. Her own. Which meant she'd made a decision about who she was calling and had chosen deliberately.I answered on the second ring."Are you free?" she said. "To talk properly. Not quickly.""I'm free.""Can I come over?"She arrived forty minutes later. Twenty-one years old, Emma's eldest, with her mother's watchfulness and Jake's warmth and something of her own that had been becoming more defined with each passing year. She was in her third year of environmental science. She'd spent last summer on a research vessel in the North Atlantic collecting ocean temperature data. She'd come back from it changed in the specific way people came back from experiences that had confirmed something they'd needed confirmed.She sat at the kitchen table.David made tea and found reasons to be elsewhere.Nora watched him go. "He always does that.""He knows when rooms need two people.""Isabella said the same thing once." She wrapped her han
Last Updated: 2026-04-28
Chapter: CHAPTER 178: CLAUDIA'S PAPERSophia's POV The email arrived on a Tuesday morning in April. Claudia sent it without preamble. No subject line explanation, no preceding call, no message attached. Just the link and a single line beneath it. 'It's published. Thought you should see it.' I opened the link. *Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.* *Bibliotherapy as Attachment Intervention: A Three-Year Outcome Study of the Rooted Programme in Bereaved Children Aged 6–12.* *Author: Claudia A. Kane-Ashford.* I read it twice. Then I called David into the study and read it a third time with him beside me. --- The paper was sixty-one pages including appendices. Claudia had been working on it for three years alongside the program's practical development. I'd known this in the abstract way you knew things about your children's work when they were diligent about keeping you informed without requiring you to follow every step. She'd mentioned the outcome data collection. The research partnership with Dr. Priya Sh
Last Updated: 2026-04-27
Chapter: CHAPTER 177: WHAT ALEX BUILDSSophia's POVAlex called on a Thursday morning in March.Not the regular call. The other kind. The one that came with a particular quality of contained excitement that he'd had since childhood — the forward momentum managed carefully, the enthusiasm present but held back until he was certain the thing deserved it."Can Dad come to the site?" he said. "This week if he can. I want to show him something.""Not me?"A pause. "You too. But I want Dad specifically."I understood. There were things between David and Alex that had their own register. Their own frequency. The specific conversation of a father and son who had found each other properly in Alex's adolescence and had been building the relationship ever since with the same deliberateness Alex brought to everything he constructed."I'll tell him," I said."Thursday afternoon if possible. The light is right at four."He'd planned it around the light.Of course he had.---The site was in the northeastern part of the city.A former in
Last Updated: 2026-04-26
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