Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the King

The familiar scent of pine and cedar should have welcomed me home, but something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

I stood at the entrance of the Silvermoon Pack house, my wolf stirring uneasily beneath my skin as foreign scents assaulted my senses. Six months. Six months I'd been away negotiating crucial alliance treaties, strengthening our pack's position in the supernatural hierarchy. Six months of sacrifice for our future, and this was what I returned to?

My personal belongings—the crystal vase that had belonged to my grandmother, the silver-framed photo of Promise's first transformation ceremony—were gone from the entryway table. In their place sat cheap decorative trinkets I'd never seen before. The air carried traces of vanilla perfume, sickly sweet and cloying, nothing like the clean mountain air that usually filled our home.

"Where is everyone?" I muttered, my Alpha senses on high alert.

The pack house felt hollow, eerily quiet for what should have been the dinner hour. No sounds of conversation from the dining hall, no children playing in the corridors. Even the ever-present hum of pack life had been reduced to an uncomfortable silence that made my wolf pace restlessly.

I moved deeper into the house, my footsteps echoing against marble floors that had been polished to an unnatural shine. Everything looked different—not damaged, but rearranged, as if someone had been playing house in my absence. The family portraits along the main hallway had been repositioned, and several were missing entirely.

My heart clenched as I noticed Promise's school artwork was no longer displayed on the refrigerator in the kitchen. Instead, expensive wine bottles lined the counter—bottles from my private collection that should have been locked away.

"What the hell happened here?"

The vanilla scent grew stronger as I approached the main hall, and with it came something else—something that made my Alpha instincts flare with territorial rage. Another wolf's scent. Not just any wolf, but one that had been marking territory that didn't belong to them.

I pushed open the double doors to the main hall and froze.

There, in my chair—the ceremonial Alpha seat carved from ancient oak and passed down through generations of pack leaders—sat Selena Howell. The omega servant I'd hired to help with household duties was draped in my Luna ceremonial dress, the sacred white silk that should only be worn during the most important pack rituals.

She looked up at me with cold, calculating eyes, showing no trace of the submissive omega who used to bow her head whenever I entered a room. Instead, she lounged in my chair like she owned it, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, her fingers drumming against the armrest with casual authority.

"Well, well," she said, her voice carrying none of the deference an omega should show to their Alpha. "Look who finally decided to come home."

Around her stood several pack members—wolves who should have been showing me respect, who should have been rushing to greet their returning Alpha. Instead, they avoided my gaze, shifting