Refuge (MxM)

Liora

I, Liora, seventeen, the only princess of the Royal Pack. The first female alpha in decades.

My life had already been set—years of family education, waiting to become the heir, and eventually marrying a stranger with political value... I’ve always been seen as more my title — more than myself.

So, I made a wager with my father—

"You won, my princess... I will help you hide your identity. You can go to school and find your mate now."

The second my claws sank into my father’s shoulder, he… smiled.

“So I win?” I stood straighter in the settling dust.

Defeat him in combat.

That was our wager.

I had challenged him for so long on the training grounds, and today, I was finally going to achieve success.

If I successed, he would give me the charm that could hide my identity, mask my aura, erase my scent. With it, I could attend school as a wolfless.

Not a princess, not crowned, not a symbol of a title... That’s exactly what I longed for.

“You’re damn right you do,” he muttered, and tossed me the necklace I had dreamed about since I was ten.

The dust and sweat from the training ground clung to us as I caught it without flinching, hearing the voices of the maids behind me.

"...Oh my, Princess Liora actually defeated her father, the Alpha King! He used to be the strongest in the pack!"

"She looks so cool with that indifferent expression... I heard she's a total genius. It's hard to imagine what kind of mate could be worthy of her."

"Shh... Quiet, don't let the princess hear you."

For wolf shifters, a mate is sacred. As the female heir, I had long prepared to sacrifice my marriage for duty. But even I couldn’t help but secretly hope for a mate of my own.

I ignored the maids' whispers and simply hugged my father.

“The charm will mask your scent,” my father said, rotating his sore shoulder. “No one will identify you as royalty. Just another wolfless transfer.”

“Excellent.” I twirled the pendant between my fingers, my true scent masking as soon as it touched my skin. “And the arranged engagement?”

“Terminated. For now.”

My father said,"A few months from now, during the homecoming, I'll go to the school as a board member and reveal your identity. This 'game' will end then. If you haven’t found your mate by then —”

I said: “— Then, I’ll return home and accept an arranged marriage."

I gave my first smile of the day. Raised as the heir through homeschool since childhood, I knew just how hard-earned this freedom was.

“...Thank you, dad.”

“Just don’t fall for some weak-willed beta who writes poetry about the moon.” He sighed again—one of those exaggerated ones he usually reserved for politics and marriage talk.

But I could feel him holding me tightly, giving my back a firm pat.

A few days later, I stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the necklace. For the first time in my life, the charm around my neck labeled me wolfless. A low-class nobody, anonymous.

It was a feeling of ease I had never experienced before.

I couldn’t help but smirk at my fabricated identity: faded jeans, oversized hoodie, hair pulled into a nondescript ponytail.

On the way to school, I was filled with this odd excitement.

I’d anticipated some awkward navigation. Maybe a few polite stares, but a clean, uneventful B-line to the enrollment office.

But the moment I stepped through the school gates, I realized: I may had miscalculated.

The entrance was swarming. A crowd had formed ahead—loud, frenzied, irrational. It looked like a celebrity sighting.

Between the swaying, jumping bodys I then found the source of the disruption, what the girls seemed to be fawning over.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dark hair deliberately tousled. He was holding a bouquet of roses like someone had passed on, or maybe for a suitor.

A few girls were hyperventilating. One was literally fanning herself with a composition notebook.

And then it hit me, and my whole body perked up.

That scent…my mate?

It was faint, but impossible to miss.

My heart fluttered despite my narrowing eyes. No. It couldn’t be. Not so soon.

“Excuse me,” I said, tapping a girl’s shoulder. “I’m new. Could you—”

But she pushed right past me, nearly knocking me off balance as I dropped to one knee.

“Um...!” She recoiled, her nose wrinkling like I’d stepped out of a landfill. “Back off, barehide.”

Ah, slur for wolfless.

“Ugh. Why is this country bumpkin the one who showed up?” A girl with claw-length pink acrylics sneered. “Watch where you’re going, we’re going to miss her!”

I kept my expression neutral as I stood, brushing the dirt from my knees. “Typically, the person at fault offers an apology,” I said evenly. “I assumed that was common practice.”

She spun around, snarling. “Excuse you, furless! You’ll learn to watch your tongue around here!”

Her real claws nearly pierced through her acrylics before her friend stepped in and pulled her away.

“Forget her! Where’s the female alpha? She’s supposed to be here today, right?”

“Wait there!” The girl with pink acrylics pointed behind me as a black, expensive car pulled up. “That must be her! The princess!”

…Princess?

…Female Alpha?!

Just as I froze, he moved.

The popular boy, the one everyone seemed to orbit, the one whose scent had struck me like lightning straight through bone.

He walked toward me through the crowd, casual and unhurried, with a trailing entourage of admirers hanging on his every breath.

I should have stepped back. I should’ve looked away.

But I couldn’t.

We brushed past each other, and the scent hit again. It made my stomach twist and my pulse stutter. It was him.

I knew it in a way that didn’t require logic. It was like the part of me I’d spent years taming suddenly reared its head and roared.

And then his eyes met mine.

I stood frozen, realizing that he must have sensed our connection.

Mate.

...We are fated mates!

But his expression shifted into a frown. His indifferent gaze pushed away toward the school gates of that luxury car.

My brow furrowed as the crowd surged forward, desperate for a glimpse of the ‘princess’.

Visibility was limited at first, but she was hard to miss.

The car door opened and the chattered silenced.

She exited the car with deliberate precision, dressed like she’d stepped out of a curated fashion campaign. The skirt was impractically short, the heels louder than necessary with little bells on their straps, and her perfume so overapplied it lingered in the air like chemical warfare.

Every movement was calibrated for attention, and yet she was beautiful, so none of it was in vain.

Who… was she?

“Look at that car, her outfit, she must have that unique and dazzling nobility!” “Yes, it must be her, it has to be her…!”

Through the whispers of the crowd, my mate walked ahead.

I wanted to speak to him, my hand reaching out for him. “Ah, wait! …Excuse me, we—”

But he looked back at me with a gaze I couldn’t quite understand, like he’d already assessed me in seconds.

No aura. No scent. Novalue.

“Step aside,” he said flatly.

Then, like tossing away trash, he turned without hesitation and walked straight toward the girl by the luxury car.

I watched as he offered the roses to her instead, posture relaxed, voice softened. He smiled.

Effortlessly. Publicly.

"Welcome to our school," he said to the girl. "It's your first day here, would you like me to help guide you...?"

My mate… chose someone else?!