The Alpha King’s Forbidden Mate

— Cole —

I couldn't settle.

That was the only word for it. I'd been pacing the same stretch of living room floor for the better part of an hour, and Talia kept looking at me with those soft, patient eyes, and I kept not feeling whatever I was supposed to feel.

"Cole." Her voice was gentle. Careful. Like she was handling something that might break. "She's gone. Come sit with me."

I sat.

I put my arm around her the way she wanted and stared at the TV screen and told myself this was what I'd been waiting for. Talia, finally. The girl I'd spent two years thinking about while lying next to someone else.

I told myself that.

It didn't help.

Talia reached up and touched my jaw. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

She smiled — the soft, sad smile she'd always been able to do so well. "It's her, isn't it? You're thinking about her."

I didn't answer.

Which was its own kind of answer.

"She'll be fine," Talia said. She curled closer into my side. "She always is. You know how Omegas are — resilient little things."

I thought about the way Sera had looked at me right before she left. Not crying. Not yelling.

Just — empty. Like I'd already been gone for a long time and she'd only just realized it.

I picked up the Xbox controller.

"Let's play something," I said.

* * *

— Sera —

I told myself I was going back for my things.

That was the only reason. My textbooks. My winter coat. The rest of my clothes. Practical things. Things I needed.

I was not going back because some stupid part of me still wanted to see his face.

I used my key. The door opened quietly.

And then I stopped.

The Xbox was on.

Cole was on the couch, controller in hand, Talia tucked in front of him. And he had his arms around her — both of them — the way he used to hold me when we played golf. His chest against her back. His chin close to her hair. His hands covering hers on the controller.

Showing her how to swing.

I stood in the doorway and watched and felt something inside me go very, very cold.

That Xbox had been my birthday present. He'd shown up at my door with it in a big stupid bow and said, "You need a hobby that isn't medicine." And I'd laughed because who gives their girlfriend a gaming console for her birthday, and he'd said, "Trust me."

And I had.

God help me, I had.

We'd spent entire weekends on that couch. I was the one who hated the gym — too many wolves, too much posturing, everyone clocking the wolfless Omega who had no business being there. So Cole started bringing games home instead. Tennis. Bowling. Basketball. I was terrible at all of them and we both knew it and neither of us cared.

But golf.

Golf I'd pretended to be worse at than I was, just to feel him wrap around me from behind. His arms over mine. His hands covering my hands. His voice low against my ear, saying "like this, watch the follow-through" while I stood completely still and forgot about the club entirely.

I'd thought that was ours.

I'd thought a lot of things were ours.

Talia laughed at something — bright and delighted — and leaned back against Cole's chest, and I watched him smile down at the top of her head with an expression I recognized.

It wasn't borrowed.

It was the same one.

The exact same one.

My stomach turned. Every soft memory I'd been carrying — every quiet Sunday, every whispered joke, every time I'd thought this is real, this is mine — curdled all at once into something rotten. Like reaching into a drawer for something you love and finding it full of rot.

I had treasured garbage.

I had held it close and called it everything.

Talia spotted me first.

Her eyes found me across the room and something quick and sharp flickered through them. Not guilt. Not surprise.

Amusement.

"Hi, Sera." Sweet as anything. She sat up a little, like she wanted a better view. "I didn't know you were cleaning houses now. If Uncle Jack isn't giving you enough, you should tell me — you know he listens to me. I can put in a word."

Uncle Jack.

My father. Who had not called me in four months. Who had a new wife now, a Beta from the Thornhill pack, and was probably going to have the Alpha sons he'd always wanted and forget I'd ever existed.

I pulled my mouth into something that felt like a smile. "No need. I'm just here for my things."

I moved toward the hallway.

"Actually —" Talia's voice followed me, light and easy, like she was asking about the weather. "Could you make the tomato veal before you go? The braised one. I've been thinking about it for weeks." A small laugh. "Cole can't cook to save his life, and I never really learned. We'd pay, obviously. You're so good at it, Sera, honestly."

I stopped walking.

The tomato veal.

My mother's recipe. The one I'd spent three years perfecting in a pack kitchen I was barely allowed to use, learning to cook on scraps and leftovers while the real pack daughters ate in the dining hall. I'd been an Alpha's daughter and I'd lived like the help — worse than the help, actually, because at least the servants got paid.

I'd had to earn every pen and notebook I owned. Twelve years old, scrubbing floors to get fifty cents toward a composition book. Fourteen, running errands for the housekeeper just to afford a highlighter.

Talia had grown up in the same pack and never noticed.

Why would she. I was just the background.

I turned around slowly.

Cole still hadn't looked at me. He was staring at the TV screen with his jaw set, controller loose in his hands. He'd been quiet since I walked in.

Then he spoke.

"It's just a meal, Sera." Flat. Unbothered. Like he was asking me to pass the remote. "Talia wants it. Go ahead and make it."

Something clicked off inside me.

I thought about Dr. Ellis. No stress. No overexertion. Rest.

I thought about the tiny thing inside me that was eight weeks old and had no idea its father was sitting five feet away asking his side piece's new girl to cook dinner.

I thought about every floor I had ever scrubbed to buy a fifty-cent notebook.

I smiled.

A real one, this time. Calm and clean.

"Fine," I said. "I'll cook."

Talia brightened.

"But," I said, turning to her, "you said you'd pay. Right, Talia? As Alpha Zane's future Luna, Uncle Jack's favorite, Cole's — what was it — favorite friend?" I let that land for exactly one second. "You keep your word, don't you?"

She blinked. "Of course I —"

"Ten thousand dollars a dish," I said. "I'll make a full spread. Eight courses. That's eighty thousand total." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it up — the banking app already open, my account number on screen. "I accept transfers. Prepayment, please."

The room went very quiet.

Talia stared at me. Cole had finally looked up.

His expression was one I'd never seen on him before. Not anger. Not amusement.

Something that looked almost like — recognition.

Like he was seeing me for the first time.

Or realizing he'd been looking without seeing for a very long time.

I kept my phone extended. Steady. Eyes on Talia.

"Whenever you're ready," I said pleasantly.

* * *

— Caelum —

I called Zane at nine that evening.

"There's a student on campus," I said, when he picked up. "Sera Lane. Second-year healer. She's had a difficult few weeks and she has no reliable support around her. I want you to check in on her."

Silence on the other end. The specific silence of my son organizing what he actually wanted to say.

"Check in on her," he repeated.

"She's under Greymoor protection. It's a reasonable thing to ask."

"Sure." A pause. "What's her connection to you?"

"She's a student in difficult circumstances. That's sufficient reason."

"Dad."

"Zane."

Another silence. Longer this time. I knew what was coming. He'd always been good at this — at sitting with a question until he found the real one underneath it.

"I saw her photo," he said finally. "In your file on her. And I've been thinking about the watch. The one you've kept since before I was born."

I said nothing.

"She looks like her," Zane said. Quiet. Careful. Like he was carrying something fragile. "She is that woman, isn't she. The one in your heart. All this time."

The line was very quiet.

I could have said yes. The word was there, available, and it would have been the truth.

"No," I said.

"Dad —"

"She's a student in difficult circumstances," I said again, even, final. "Keep an eye on her. That's all I'm asking."

I hung up.

I sat at my desk for a while after, in the quiet of the evening, with the pocket watch on the table in front of me.

I didn't open it.

I didn't need to. I'd had the photograph memorized for twenty years.

No, I had said.

I was a man who had built his entire life on decisions made cleanly, with full information, for the right reasons.

I put the watch back in my drawer and went back to work.