Share

His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter
His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter
Author: Elin

Chapter 1

Author: Elin
"I'll have the mating dissolution papers drawn up," my father says. "All Elias has to do is sign."

He agrees to help me.

"The plane will be there on the third," he continues. "Be ready."

The third of next month.

I hang up and let my back slide down the cold stone wall. The hallway is empty. I sit on the floor, drained.

After a long moment, I push myself up. Then I call Ivy Donovan and a few other friends. We head straight to a bar.

The bar is loud and dark. Ivy slides into the booth across from me, her dark eyes scanning my face.

"Wren," she says carefully. "The Blackwood pack has so many rules. You haven't been out like this in months. If Margaret finds out you're acting so wild..."

I throw back my drink in one burning gulp.

"She won't find out," I say. "Because I'm leaving Elias. I'm ending the mating bond."

Ivy's glass nearly slips from her hand. "What? You... you've loved him most. How hard you worked to chase him. How can you just--"

"I don't love him anymore." I cut her off. "And I'm never going to love him again."

The words hang in the air.

And then--

The music cuts out.

The lights flicker, then blaze to full brightness. Harsh. Unforgiving.

The front doors swing open. Dozens of wolves in black suits file in--trained, silent, efficient. They begin clearing the bar.

"Everyone out. Now."

Patrons are ushered out amid confused complaints and scattered protests. Ivy is escorted out by a polite but firm enforcer.

The bar falls silent. Empty.

Harper, the Blackwood pack's head of security, walks to my booth. He bows slightly, but his voice brooks no argument.

"Mrs. Blackwood. The elder requests your presence."

I lean back in the booth, swirling what's left of my drink. I don't even look up.

"Not going. Tell her I won't be bound by Blackwood rules much longer."

Harper's expression doesn't change. He raises one hand.

A wolf steps up behind me. Silent.

I don't see the blow coming.

Something hard strikes the back of my neck.

Darkness swallows everything.

I wake with my hands bound behind my back, kneeling on the cold stone floor of the Blackwood manor's main hall.

Margaret Blackwood sits on her high-backed chair on the dais. Her silver hair is pinned tight. Her eyes are sharp as talons.

"Wren." Her voice cuts through the silence. "How far will your lawlessness go? You're a Beta--don't you have any decency? You can't even measure up to Chloe, and she's an Omega."

Chloe.

Even now, she compares me to that soft, simpering Omega.

The words stab into my chest. This is what Elias wanted, isn't it? Me--his legitimate mate--reduced to a backdrop that makes Chloe look good.

How ridiculous.

"Drag her away," Margaret orders coldly. "Pack discipline."

Wolves grab my arms. Drag me through the manor to the punishment hall in the east wing. Stone floor. Iron rings on the walls.

They bend me over a frame. Tie my wrists.

The heavy wooden rod comes down on my back. On the backs of my legs. Dull, brutal thuds.

Fire spreads across my skin. Cold sweat soaks through my clothes.

But I lock my jaw. I don't make a sound. My eyes stay dry and fierce--a small animal that refuses to break.

Until the pain exceeds what my body can take.

Darkness takes me.

I wake to the smell of antiseptic.

Hospital. I'm lying on my stomach. Bandages wrap my back. My wounds throb.

The door is cracked open.

Voices drift in from the hallway.

"Thank you, Elias." Chloe's voice. Soft. Grateful. A little scared. "But... you did all that to keep Mother from being angry about the statue I broke. Wren has such a strong personality. When she wakes up... will she blame me?"

Elias's voice is calm. Steady. "Don't worry. I'm here. She won't do anything to you."

Chloe starts to cry softly.

I see it through the crack in the door. The way Elias looks at her. A flicker of tenderness in his eyes.

"Stop crying," he says quietly. "From now on, if you have any trouble in the pack, come to me. I'll protect you."

Inside the room, I watch through the gap.

Every image is a red-hot blade, stabbing into my heart. Twisting.

But that's fine.

This time, I'm leaving him.
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App

Latest chapter

  • His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter   Chapter 8

    I didn't see it happen.But Ivy told me. And later, I read the reports. The private nurses talked. The orderlies talked. The story leaked, because stories like that always leak.This is what I learned.Elias Blackwood had been living in a private care facility for months.Not a hospital anymore. A peaceful place in the countryside, far from pack politics, far from the manor, far from everything he had once been.He was in a wheelchair now. Both legs gone below the knee. His body had healed, but his mind had not.He didn't speak.Didn't eat much. Didn't engage with the nurses. Didn't respond when his mother called or when former pack members came to visit.He just sat.In his room. By the window. In the garden when the weather was good.His eyes were open but empty. Like the wolf inside him had curled up and died.The nurses learned to work around him. They changed his bandages. Brought his meals. Wheeled him outside when the sun was warm.He never thanked them. Never complained. Never

  • His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter   Chapter 7

    I heard about it weeks later, through Ivy, who heard it from a cousin, who heard it from a Beta who worked with the rescue team.A German polar expedition team had been mapping a remote section of the Icelandic highlands when they spotted something half-buried in the snow.A man.Blue. Still. Almost dead.They dug him out. Checked for a pulse. Found one--so faint they almost missed it.They airlifted him to the nearest hospital in Reykjavik.It took them hours to identify him. No wallet. No phone. Just frozen clothes and a face barely recognizable under the frostbite.Someone finally matched his fingerprints to an international database.Elias Blackwood.Alpha of the Blackwood pack.The wolf who had spent months hunting me across the globe had almost died doing it.The doctors worked on him for two days.They saved his life.But his legs--the ones that had knelt in the frozen mud, that had refused to carry him after me--were too damaged. The tissue had died. The nerves had frozen solid

  • His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter   Chapter 6

    The search didn't stop.I heard about it through the pack grapevine, through Ivy, through the occasional message from someone who still remembered me. Elias Blackwood had turned finding me into his only reason for existing.He followed every lead. Every rumor. Every ghost.The first real trace came from Paris.Someone sent him a photograph--a grainy street shot, taken from across a boulevard. A woman in a trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat, walking a small dog under the bare branches of autumn trees.Just a back. Just the way I walked.But Ivy told me he knew it was me before he even opened the full image. He said my posture was carved into his bones.He canceled a territory summit--the most important meeting of the year--and flew to Paris on his private jet.He went to a gallery. The one I had mentioned once, years ago, during a rare moment when he actually listened to me talk about something I loved. The owner remembered me. Said I had just left. Said I mentioned something about a bo

  • His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter   Chapter 5

    I wasn't there when he kicked the door open. But Ivy told me everything later--pieced together from witnesses, from pack gossip, from the enforcers who saw it happen.Chloe was sitting at her vanity, touching the scar on her arm. The scar from the burn. The scar made from my skin.She heard the crash and turned.Elias stood in the doorway. His eyes were red. His wolf was so close to the surface that his fangs had dropped."Elias?" Her voice was soft. Confused. That same sweet voice that had fooled everyone for years. "What's wrong?"He crossed the room in three strides.Before she could scream, his hand closed around her throat.He lifted her off the ground."You lied to me," he snarled.Chloe clawed at his hand. Her face turned red, then purple. Tears streamed down her cheeks."You've been lying to me this whole time," he said, each word a blade. "All the things she was accused of--the fire, the poison, the broken heirloom. Was it you?""Yes," she choked out. "Yes, it was me. I did it

  • His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter   Chapter 4

    Days later, at a pack gathering filled with perfume and expensive liquor, word reached me through Ivy.I was three territories away, in a hotel room with thin walls. But pack gossip travels fast."You won't believe this," Ivy said."Tell me.""Marcus Webb. You know him. Alpha of that tiny coastal territory. Always running his mouth."I knew Marcus. Loud. Crude. The kind of wolf who thought every woman was fair game."He walked up to Elias at the gathering," Ivy continued. "Had a drink in his hand. And he said--I'm quoting--'I heard your Luna ran off. What a shame. I always liked her fire. If you're done with her, I wouldn't mind taking her off your hands.'"My stomach turned."Elias didn't say a word," Ivy said. "He just punched Marcus in the face. Broke his nose. Then he kept hitting him. Glass shattered. Marcus was screaming. It took four enforcers to pull Elias off."I said nothing."He looked insane, Wren. Red eyes. Veins popping. They'd never seen him like that."The old Wren woul

  • His Substitute Mate Is the Alpha’s Daughter   Chapter 3

    Compensate me?Ice floods my veins. My whole body shakes with rage and despair."Get out." I point at the door. My voice is shrill. Broken. "All of you, get out. You want me to give her my skin? Over my dead body."Elias's jaw tightens. "Wren. Don't be difficult.""I'm difficult?" I laugh--a horrible, hollow sound. Tears spill down my face. "Elias. My feelings. My pain. The things that matter to me. Are they really worth nothing to you? Can you just sacrifice anything of mine whenever you want?"I try to move. To run.He catches my wrist. Holds it in an iron grip."Stop this." His eyes are cold. Commanding. "Dr. Vance. Prepare the sedative."I struggle. Scream. Fight with everything I have.But I can't break free.He looks down at me--at the eyes that used to be so bright, so full of life. Now they hold only shattered despair and deep, burning hatred.Something flickers in his expression. A strange pain. An unfamiliar panic.Almost without thinking, he raises his free hand and covers m

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status