Alpha, My Daughter Will Never Call You Father

Annie held the urn even tighter.

Her tiny body shook in the cold wind.

She was so weak that her scent had all but vanished. No wonder Sebastian couldn't recognize his own pup.

"Mister, what are you talking about?

"I can't find my daddy. I only have my mommy."

One of the guards hesitated before speaking. "Alpha, there's a blizzard outside, and this pup has no adult wolf to protect her."

Sebastian stared at the name "Tina" carved into the urn.

He sneered, utterly sure of himself.

"Her supposedly dead mother is around here somewhere."

He let out a scornful laugh and tore the bills in half.

"She knows how much I value bloodlines. Ever since I threw her out of the pack, she's been using this pup to gain my sympathy."

The scraps fluttered down into the muddy slush.

I stood next to him, too drained to even manage a bitter smile.

So even ghosts could feel the cold.

For four years, I'd tried to reach him through the guards more than a thousand times.

Once, Annie had a fever so high she couldn't maintain her human form. She cried out for her daddy.

There was the time her bloodline flared out of control and the healer rushed her into emergency care.

And there was the time the other pups at the edge of the pack called her a bastard, and she hid in a hollow tree to cry where no one could see.

Again and again, I asked the patrol guards to pass along my pleas for help.

But he only answered five times.

Yes, all five calls had been about Annie.

But every plea had been genuine.

The first time was right after I gave birth to Annie and found out she had bloodline wasting disease.

It ran in his family, and only the blood of a pureblood Alpha could hold it back.

That day, Annie lay on a cold stone bed, her breathing so weak it could stop at any moment.

He'd already destroyed my herbal clinic, leaving me without even a single sprig of blood-clotting herb.

I spent the whole night on my knees outside the wire fence at the edge of the pack.

I begged the guards until one of them finally called him for me.

He picked up.

But he said, "Tina, the last time I fell for one of your lies, I lost my father."

Confused, I rushed to explain, but he cut me off.

"You really think I'll let you fool me twice?"

The last time I contacted him, I was dying.

I was coughing up black blood, and I used the last of my strength to grip the message stone.

I begged him, for the sake of everything we used to have, to give Annie a chance to live.

On the other end, he was lazily swirling a glass of red wine.

"Even if you really did have a pup, its father must be some rogue.

"You want me to claim that bastard?

"Dream on."

Even if he loathed me, even if he couldn't stand my very existence, I'd believed one thing.

After all those calls, I thought he'd at least send a scout to investigate.

But it turned out I'd been fooling myself from start to finish.

Not only had he never checked, but today he'd hung up 999 marigold wreaths.

All so his new love, Daphne Cross, could honor her older brother, who'd died young.

On the Day of the Dead, he used to worry that strong flower scents would bother me, so he'd only ever leave a single white rose by my pillow.

Now, the sight of that altar buried in marigolds hurt more than I could bear.

Sebastian towered over Annie.

He let his Alpha aura loose, holding nothing back.

"Little bastard, talk. Where's Tina hiding?"

The pressure forced Annie's legs to buckle, and her knees slammed down onto the gravel.

My heart twisted hard.

But she stubbornly lifted her face, looking completely lost.

"Mister, how do you know Mommy?"

Sebastian sniffed the air twice more, harder this time.

Finding no trace of the scent he was looking for, his expression darkened with impatience.

"If you won't answer, get off my land.

"Throw her out!"

Two guards stepped forward at once and grabbed Annie by the arms.

"Don't touch my mommy!"

Annie screamed and shielded the urn.

"Mister, telling people to get lost isn't nice!

"And you know Mommy but you're being mean to Annie, so you're a bad man!

"I don't want a bad man's money, and I don't want to stay here!

"Rusty, let's go!"

The old, three-legged dog barked fiercely at Sebastian twice.

Annie hugged the urn, turned, and ran out into the swirling snow.

Within moments, the driving snow had soaked her thin linen clothes.

She ran to an abandoned wooden shed outside the altar grounds, where the wind blew straight through the walls.

She tucked the urn into a pile of hay and planted herself in front of it as a shield.

"Mommy gets cold.

"Annie will keep the snow off Mommy."

I drifted over to hold her, but my arms went right through her thin little back.

The wooden beam overhead groaned under the weight of the snow.

Crack.

A rotten crossbeam as thick as a fence post came crashing straight down toward Annie's head.

I threw myself toward her in terror.

Annie! Get out of the way!