A Hundred Nights in Her Bed and I'm the Alpha King's Hidden Daughter

Mia

The letter sat in my lap like a confession I couldn't finish.

*Father —*

That was all I'd managed. One word and a dash, the pen hovering over the paper for the better part of an hour while the house settled into its late-night silence. What was I supposed to write after that? *I made a mistake seven years ago. I married the wrong wolf. Please let me come home.*

Footsteps in the hallway.

I shoved the letter into the pillowcase, flattened myself against the mattress, and pulled the duvet up to my chin. My breathing went shallow — four counts in, hold, slow release. The way I'd trained myself to fake sleep since the first year of this marriage.

The bedroom door opened. A slant of hallway light cut across the floor, then disappeared.

Caleb Ironclaw moved through the dark the way he always did — quiet for a man his size, confident he owned every square inch of the space. The mattress dipped behind me. His arm slid around my waist, pulling me back against his chest.

"Still up?" he murmured into my hair.

I didn't answer. Kept my breathing even.

His chin settled on the top of my head, and that's when it hit me.

Cedar and white musk. A perfume I hadn't worn in my life. Sweet at the edges, sharp underneath — the kind of scent that clung to wool and skin and didn't let go.

Selene Thorne's signature.

Every wolf in the Ironclaw pack knew that fragrance. She wore it like a second skin, reapplied it twice a day, left traces of it on every chair she sat in and every glass she touched. I'd smelled it on conference room doors, on the back of Caleb's office chair, on the collar of his coat last winter when I'd hung it up for him.

But never this strong. Never at three in the morning, soaked into the fabric of his shirt like he'd been wrapped around her.

My face was pressed against his collarbone. I held still.

"Mira." His voice was low, warm. The voice he used when he wanted something soft from me. "You're not sleeping enough. I can see it in your face."

His hand came up to stroke my hair, and his sleeve brushed my jaw.

The second scent punched through me like a fist.

It wasn't perfume this time. It was deeper, muskier — the kind of scent that lived in the hollow of a throat, behind an ear, at the crease where neck met shoulder. A wolf's body-scent gland. You didn't pick that up from a handshake or a meeting across a desk.

You picked it up from skin pressed to skin. From hours of contact. From marking.

My stomach folded in on itself.

"You smell like outside," I said, keeping my voice thick with fake drowsiness. I shifted, pulling away from him just enough to sit up. "Go shower. You'll get the sheets dirty."

"It's late. Come back