The Alpha Who Hates Me

MAGNUS

I stood alone in the dark presidential suite long after the door slammed shut behind Finn. My chest rose and fell too fast. My hands would not stop shaking. The taste of him still sat on my tongue, sweet and familiar and wrong all at the same time. I could still feel the shape of his mouth under mine. I could still feel how thin his body had become when I pressed him against the glass.

I wanted to punch the wall until my knuckles bled. I wanted to run after him into the hallway. I wanted to never see his face again.

My wolf, Regulus, was losing its mind inside me.

“Mate” he snarled over and over. “Go after him. Bring him back. He is ours. You scared him. You hurt him.”

“Shut up,” I said out loud to the empty room. My voice sounded rough and broken. “He left us first. He chose to leave.”

Regulus only grew louder. He pushed against my control so hard that my eyes burned and my teeth ached. Every time I tried to remember the cold words of that old rejection message, Regulus howled in pure pain and anger. He did not want me to hurt Finn. He did not understand why I had spoken to Finn the way I did. He only knew that his mate had been right here, close enough to touch, and I had let him walk away again.

I walked to the tall window and pressed my forehead against the cold glass. The city lights blurred below. I could not see Finn on the street anymore. He was gone. Just like before.

The memories came whether I wanted them or not. They always did on nights like this.

Years ago I had stood in almost the same kind of darkness, waiting. It was the night of the big presentation. Both our families and the whole pack were gathered in the great hall. I was supposed to stand in front of everyone as the future Alpha and announce Finn as my mate. I had a small black box in my pocket the whole evening. Inside it was a thin silver necklace with a tiny wolf charm. I had bought it weeks earlier in secret. I planned to put it around his neck right there in front of everyone so the whole world would know he belonged to me.

I kept checking the door.

An hour passed. Then two. My hands started to sweat around the little box. People kept walking up to me with smiles.

“Where is Finn?” my father asked, clapping me on the shoulder.

“He’s coming,” I said. I even smiled. “He promised.”

His mother looked worried. “Did you two argue again?”

“No,” I told her. “He’s just late. You know how he is.”

I believed it. I believed him with my whole heart.

Then my phone buzzed in my pocket.

The message was from Finn’s number.

>I finally understand. What we did was disgusting. I never planned to choose you. Stay away from me.

I read those words over and over until they stopped making sense. The black box felt heavier in my pocket. I never opened it that night. I never gave him the necklace. I never told anyone the truth about what we were to each other. I just stood there while the room kept spinning and the future I had dreamed of turned to ash.

After that night I built a wall around my heart, brick by brick. I told myself every single day that I hated him. I became the Alpha King people feared. I became the cold CEO who never showed weakness. I convinced myself the pain was gone and the bond was dead.

But the second Finn walked into this suite tonight, the wall cracked wide open. Seeing him again proved the hatred had never erased the wanting. My body still knew his. My wolf still claimed him like no time had passed. The bond between us felt even stronger than it had years ago, and that made no sense at all. A rejected bond was supposed to fade until it disappeared. This one was burning hotter than ever.

I turned away from the window and picked up my phone with unsteady fingers. I needed answers.

The first person I called was my head of security.

“Sir?” his voice came through the speaker, sharp and ready for orders.

“The man who just left the presidential suite,” I said. My voice was low and tight. “Name is Finn. I want soft eyes on him. Do not approach. Do not speak to him. Just make sure he does not disappear again. Report every movement.”

“Understood, Alpha. I’ll handle it personally.”

I hung up and called my private doctor next. The one who handled all the special cases for MC Pharma’s supernatural division.

“I need a full pull on a name,” I told him the moment he answered. “Finn. Use the last name he gave when he contacted the company three days ago about the medicine. I want everything medical. Every scan. Every sample. Everything the system has on him.”

There was a short pause on the other end. “That may take a few minutes, Alpha. The files are protected.”

“I don’t care how long it takes. Send it the second you have it. And doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Do not tell anyone else I asked.”

“Of course.”

I paced the suite while I waited. The bathrobe felt too heavy on my shoulders so I tore it off and threw it on a chair. Cool air touched my bare chest. My skin still remembered the way Finn’s hands had shoved against me when he ran. My wolf kept growling that I had scared him, that I had hurt the one person who was supposed to be safe with us.

“He hurt us first,” I muttered to the empty room. “He sent that message. He left.”

The Regulus did not care about old messages. He only cared that his mate had been thin and shaking and close enough to hold, and I had spoken to him like an enemy.

My phone finally buzzed.

The medical file arrived in a secure folder.

I sat down hard on the edge of the bed and opened it under the low light of the desk lamp. Most of it looked normal at first. Height. Weight that was too low. Recent hospital visits listed under the father-in-law’s name. Multiple requests for the rare medicine only we produced. Then I reached the section that tracked wolf signatures.

Every adult werewolf had one. It was like a second heartbeat the scanners could always read. Even a weak wolf or a wolf that had never shifted still left a clear mark in the blood and the energy readings.

Finn’s file showed nothing.

No active wolf signature. No dormant signature either. The line was completely blank. Empty. Like the machine had scanned a human instead of a werewolf.

I stared at the screen until my eyes burned and the words started to blur. That was impossible. An adult werewolf without any wolf signature did not exist. The scanners always found it. Always.

Unless something had been done on purpose. Something to hide it. Or suppress it. Or kill it.

Regulus went silent for the first time all night. Then he let out a low, dangerous sound that raised the hair on my arms and made my hands curl into fists.

I called the doctor back immediately.

“Explain the blank line,” I said the second he answered. My voice came out harder than I meant it to.

He sounded careful, almost nervous. “We noticed it too, Alpha. The system flagged it as an error at first. We ran the scan three separate times on the blood samples he provided when he first contacted us about the medicine. Same result every time. No wolf signature at all. Not even a trace.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I have been doing this work for twenty years. I have never seen a reading like this on an adult werewolf. It is as if the wolf was never there… or someone made sure the machines could not find it.”

I ended the call without saying goodbye and sat very still on the edge of the bed. The little black box with the old silver necklace was still locked in a drawer in my private office at home. I had never been able to throw it away, no matter how many years passed. Now the man who was supposed to wear that necklace had no wolf that any machine could see, and my own wolf was screaming that he was still ours.