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

Last Updated : 2026-01-26

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

Last Updated : 2026-01-26

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

Last Updated : 2026-01-26

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

Last Updated : 2026-01-26

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

Last Updated : 2026-01-26

All Chapters of When The Alpha Wanted What Wasn’t His: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

1

2

3

4

5