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Todos los capítulos de When The Alpha Wanted What Wasn’t His: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

69 Capítulos

1

ZoeyYou would think being born the beta’s daughter would mean something. You would think it would mean protection, respect, maybe even mercy. You would think wrong.The dirt is cold against my cheek when I hit the ground, the taste of iron flooding my mouth before I even register the sound of my ribs cracking. Someone laughs nearby. Someone always laughs.“Get up, Zoey.”Reagan’s voice slices through the morning air, sharp and bored, like he’s already disappointed in me before I’ve even failed again. I spit blood into the dust and force my palms under my shoulders, my arms shaking so badly I almost collapse again.“I said get up,” he repeats, louder this time. “Or are you done already?”I drag myself upright, my vision swimming as pain detonates through my side. Something inside me shifts wrong, grinding instead of bending, and my breath comes out in a wet, broken hiss. I don’t scream. I learned a long time ago that screaming only makes them try harder.“I’m up,” I manage, forcing my

2

ZoeyBy the time Sasha presses my spine back into place, the pain has already dulled into something distant and humming, like it belongs to another body entirely. Her fingers are warm and unyielding as they work along my ribs, precise in the way only someone who has broken and fixed the same bodies for decades can be.“Drink,” she orders, shoving a chipped ceramic mug into my hands before I can argue.The liquid inside is dark and steaming, the smell sharp enough to make my eyes water. I wrinkle my nose but obey, swallowing before my instincts can talk me out of it. The taste is bitter and earthy, like bark soaked in smoke, and it burns all the way down my throat.“What is that?” I ask once the cup is empty, staring at the stained bottom like it might reveal its secrets if I glare hard enough.Sasha chuckles as she takes it from me, already moving to rinse it out. “Pain duller. Muscle relaxer. Something to keep you from biting me if I have to reset anything again.” She casts me a side

3

Wesley The smell hits first.Burnt fur. Iron. Old blood that’s already turning sour in the dirt. Magic clings to the air like smoke that refuses to clear, heavy enough to sting the back of my throat every time I breathe in.I wrinkle my nose and turn my head, but it doesn’t help. The scent is everywhere. It’s soaked into the canvas of the healer’s tent, into the ground beneath our boots, into my clothes and my hair and probably my fucking pores.“Don’t throw up,” Falcon mutters beside me. “You’ll never hear the end of it.”“I’m not going to throw up,” I snap, even though my stomach is rolling. “I’m just… processing.”“Yeah,” he says dryly. “That’s what you said last time.”We stand shoulder to shoulder, staring at the aftermath like idiots who survived when we easily could’ve ended up on one of those cots. The healer’s tent is packed so tight it barely feels like there’s air left inside. Bodies cover every surface. Cots, benches, the ground. Where there’s no space, they’ve laid peopl

4

ZoeyBy the time I reach the end of the west corridor, my hands are numb from cold and my brain feels like it’s been running on fumes for days.Someone asks me what day it is earlier, and I blink at them like they’ve asked me a trick question. Monday? Thursday? Full moon? I don’t know. The days blur together when all you do is unlock doors, flip breakers, bleed radiators, and drag furniture around until your shoulders ache and your lungs burn.“Zoey,” someone calls down the hall. “Did you check the south wing yet?”“I did,” I shout back without stopping. “Hot water works. Lights too. One of the windows doesn’t close all the way.”“Of course it doesn’t,” the voice mutters.I don’t bother correcting them. Everything in this place is half-broken and forgotten. Just like the people who live here.The boarding school looms around me, all long corridors and high ceilings, built for children who were meant to grow up safe. Now it houses the ones no one wants to deal with. The unranked. The i

5

ZoeyThe heat inside me doesn’t fade when I step back from the doorway.It changes.It tightens, pulls inward, and then twists into something heavier, something sharp enough to hurt. My body reacts before my head can catch up, before logic can remind me to breathe or move or pretend this didn’t just happen.She has a mate.The knowledge settles into my chest like a stone, dragging everything else down with it. She is marked, claimed in the way our kind understands down to the bone. She belongs to someone who looked at her and chose her, who wrapped himself around her without hesitation or doubt. She has something solid and unquestioned, something that does not flicker or disappear.Something I do not have.Something I have never had.And she knows it.I see it in the way her mouth curves when she notices me in the mirror, in the lazy satisfaction in her eyes even as her breath breaks and she moans his name like it’s a promise she gets to keep. She doesn’t look embarrassed or interrupt

6

Wesley Here I was, thinking nothing could possibly make this situation worse.I’d already walked half the perimeter of this dead-quiet town just to burn off the restless energy crawling under my skin. The welcome ceremony wasn’t for hours, and standing still felt like asking my wolf to riot inside my head. So I wandered. No destination. No plan. Just movement.That’s when I noticed the lake.It was calm in a way that didn’t feel natural, like it was holding its breath. The surface barely moved, even with the breeze slipping through the trees. And right in the middle of it—floating effortlessly—was her.For a second, my brain refused to register what I was seeing.She looked unreal. Not in a dramatic, overdone way, but in that quiet, unsettling way that makes you question if you’re actually awake. Pale skin catching the light. Hair so light it almost blended with the water’s reflection, like moonlight tangled in ripples. She wasn’t swimming toward shore. She wasn’t splashing around. S

7

Wesley My mother comes back from the far side of the hall, her expression already telling me everything before she even reaches me. She’s smiling, polite, composed, but there’s tension in the way her shoulders stay stiff, like she’s been holding herself too carefully the whole time.She pauses in front of me and adjusts my collar without asking, fingers brisk and practiced, like she’s done this a thousand times before. “Straighten your shirt,” she murmurs. “You look like you slept in it.”“I didn’t,” I mutter.“That’s not the point,” she says quietly. “We can’t afford you looking careless tonight.”There it is. Tonight isn’t about comfort or ceremony. It’s about image. It’s about survival.“I wasn’t trying to be late,” I say, lowering my voice. “I just needed air.”She gives me a look that says she believes me but doesn’t approve. Somehow, it’s easier to explain myself to her than it ever is to my father. With him, every sentence feels like a test I didn’t study for. With her, it’s j

8

Zoey I don’t know why I can’t keep my eyes off him. Maybe because he was willing to stand there while I practically drowned. If that’s how they do things in his pack, it’s amazing anyone has survived. Around here, if we spot another wolf in trouble, we help them.Unless that wolf is me, but that’s a different story. He had no way of knowing who or what I was. How much of a disappointment I am. He didn’t care that I needed help—no, he was too interested in watching me, probably making bets with himself to see how long it would take for me to go under and stay there.He’s nothing. Nobody. Even if he is standing next to a man who’s clearly the alpha. I can smell it on him, but it’s more than that. It’s the energy that radiates off him, energy I sensed back at the lake. Is he the alpha’s son? That might explain why he thought my near drowning was entertaining. Probably gets off on watching weaker wolves struggle. He’s going to have a great time hanging out with my pack, if that’s true.

9

Wesley “What’s up with you?” Falcon asks.Strangely, he didn’t respond favorably at all. It must be some sort of record, something I should write down for the sake of posterity. When surrounded by dozens of slobbering, aroused females, my wolf hardly responded.He only wanted her. Or maybe that was me being interested in her. What’s her story? Why hasn’t she shifted? It’s clear she would’ve been exiled by this age if she wasn’t the beta’s daughter.Falcon smirks, eyeing me up. “I asked what your problem is? All you’re doing is muttering one-word answers. I know this place isn’t interesting in, like, any way at all. Can you at least wait until we get to the house before you pass out from boredom?”He growls in response. “Here I was, hoping to get my dick wet while we’re here, but no. There are parties all over the place tonight—even the elders are doing whatever old people do when they get together. But we have to go to the house and behave ourselves or else.”“We have to make a good

10

Wesley Human women go crazy over us—their so-called alpha men don’t come anywhere close to the real thing.“They have their uses,” I remind him. Neither of us wants to say it, but it’s right there between us. We have to stop this before it spins out of hand and bleeds into the human world. Or else we’re all fucked.The blood scent gets stronger with every step we take until I can almost taste it in the air. We’re almost back where we started, walking past the meeting hall toward the long stone building a few hundred yards away. I understand it’s used as a dormitory of sorts for unshifted and unmated wolves—immediately, my thoughts turn to if she lives here? Then I ask myself, what the fuck do I care?Even from a distance, I can hear two men arguing.“That’s not enough this time. They’re going to kill her, Danny l. It’s different now.” He’s straining, hardly able to contain himself, like his wolf is clawing to get free. That would be dangerous when he’s in a mood like this, facing off

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