After My Alpha Abandoned Me for My Sister

The morning light streamed through the kitchen windows as I carefully placed the last strawberry on top of the chocolate cake. Three years. Three whole years since I'd been bound to Austin as his chosen mate, and today I wanted everything to be perfect.

I stepped back to admire my work. The cake looked beautiful—Austin's favorite dark chocolate with fresh strawberries and a drizzle of honey. My hands trembled slightly as I adjusted the single candle in the center.

"Is that for Alpha Austin?" Elena, one of the pack's cooks, asked as she passed by. Her eyes held that familiar mixture of pity and curiosity that I'd grown accustomed to over the years.

"Yes," I replied softly, unable to suppress the small smile that formed on my lips. "Today marks three years since our bonding ceremony."

Elena's eyebrows rose. "Three years already? Time flies." She glanced around before leaning closer. "You know, I've never seen an Alpha treat an Omega so... attentively before."

I nodded, my heart warming at her words. It was true. Despite my wolfless status—a defect that earned me constant whispers and sidelong glances—Austin had been nothing but tender toward me. His Alpha aura, once volatile and dangerous, had stabilized remarkably since our union. The pack whispered it was because of me.

"I sometimes wonder if maybe I'm not so defective after all," I confessed quietly. "Maybe I'm just... late in blooming."

Elena smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Perhaps." She turned away, busying herself with the morning bread. "Though I've never heard of an Omega's wolf awakening after twenty."

I swallowed the familiar lump in my throat and carefully covered the cake. Twenty-three now, and still wolfless. Still an Omega. Still the object of pity and scorn.

But Austin made me feel like none of that mattered.

I carried the cake carefully through the pack house corridors, my heart fluttering with anticipation. Three years ago, when Whitney fled her arranged mating with Austin, I'd been thrust into her place as a political substitute. I'd expected cruelty, indifference—the treatment I'd received all my life from my adoptive family in the Blood Moon Pack.

Instead, Austin had surprised everyone. His possessive attention, his protective Alpha aura constantly surrounding me, his tender words in private moments... they made me believe that perhaps the Moon Goddess had a different plan for me after all.

His office door stood slightly ajar when I reached it. I balanced the cake in one hand and reached for the door with the other, pausing when I heard his voice inside.

"—has worked perfectly, Marcus." Austin's voice was low, controlled. "Three years of playing the devoted mate, and now Whitney's finally returned."

I froze, my fingers an inch from the door.

"Are you certain she'll fall for it?" Marcus asked, his Beta tone respectful but questioning.

Austin's laugh was cold, nothing like the warm sound I'd grown to love. "She's always been jealous of attention given to others. Three years of watching me fawn