The Mate He Didn’t Deserve

My mother was bitten—later I found out it wasn’t a dog but a mixed-blood Wolfguard owned by my husband Lucien’s mistress.

When I called him, he was on vacation with her, their scents bonded in a way only wolves could notice.

I begged him to come back, but he brushed me off, defending her and claiming the Wolfguard “didn’t mean it.”

Four hours later, the hospital told me my mother was gone—while Lucien posted a photo kissing his mistress, her fresh wolf-mark glowing on her neck.

That was the moment I realized it wasn’t the Wolfguard that should’ve died—it was the five years I’d wasted on him.

Through tears, I finally called the man I’d avoided for fifteen years: my father, Vincent Carver, the Alpha no one in New York dared to cross.

…

…

The white carnations felt cold against my fingertips as I arranged them across the banquet hall tables. Perfect, I thought, just like Lucien—

a Moreau-born wolf raised on perfection, dominance, and image—always wanted everything to be.

My phone buzzed—the hospital’s number flashing across the screen.

“Miss Carver? Your mother’s been admitted. Severe bite trauma. You need to come immediately.”

The lily stem snapped in my hand.

I dialed Lucien’s number, my fingers trembling.

“lara? Baby, I’m in the middle of—”

“My mother’s in the hospital,” I cut him off. “She was attacked by a… a Wolfguard.”

“Oh.” A pause. “That’s… I’m really sorry, but I’m in Montana right now. Brielle needed—”

Brielle.

Of course she was with him.

Even through the phone, I could smell her cloying perfume mixed with his wolf scent—an intimacy you couldn’t fake.

“I have to go,” I whispered.

“Wait, lara—”

I hung up and ran.

The hospital smelled like antiseptic and death—and faint traces of wolf musk from the injured they treated over the years. But nothing prepared me for the doctor’s face.

“Mrs. Carver suffered severe trauma to her left leg,” he said. “The… animal belonged to a Ms. Brielle Vale. It was unregistered, and showed signs of unstable wolf DNA.”

Unstable.

Mixed-bloods were unpredictable. Dangerous. Illegal to keep without proper training.

My blood turned to ice.

“Your mother is diabetic. The infection is spreading rapidly. We may need to consider amputation.”

I typed the message to Lucien with shaking hands: Mom might lose her leg. They said it was Brielle’s Wolfguard.

His reply came thirty seconds later:

Brielle’s having a breakdown about it. Can you call her? She needs someone to tell her it’s not her fault.

I stared at those words until they blurred.

He wanted me to comfort her.

He wanted me to comfort the woman whose creature had mutilated my mother.

I didn’t respond.

Four hours later, my phone lit up with Instagram notifications. Brielle’s story:

A photo of her and Lucien on a ski lift, his lips pressed to her temple, his wolf aura wrapped around her possessively.

Caption: Sometimes you find magic in unexpected places ❄️?

The hospital hallway tilted.

“Miss Carver?” The doctor’s voice sounded like it was underwater. “Your mother went into cardiac arrest. We did everything we could. I’m so sorry.”

I don’t remember driving home.

I don’t remember unlocking the door.

I only remember standing in the middle of our apartment—Lucien’s apartment—surrounded by his scent, sickeningly familiar.

Five years.

Five years of being the perfect human-passing fiancée in a wolf-dominated world.

Five years of shrinking myself so his pack would accept me.

My mother was dead, and he was bonding with another woman on a mountain.

I pulled out my suitcase and started packing.

Then I found my phone and scrolled to a contact I hadn’t touched in fifteen years.

A contact labeled simply: Father.

Vincent Carver.

Alpha King.

A name the Moreau family didn’t know I carried.

A name Lucien had never bothered to ask about.

My finger hovered over the call button.

Everything I’d built with Lucien would crumble the moment I made this call.

But what was left to save?

I pressed dial.

“Hello?” His voice was exactly as I remembered—deep, commanding, dangerous. A wolf who ruled with teeth and power.

“Daddy,” I said, my voice steady for the first time in hours. “I want to come home.”

A long pause.

“Elara.”

He never called me lara.

Only wolves sensed and used true names.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

“Everything,” I whispered. “Everything happened.”

“I’ll send a car.”

“No.” I looked at the engagement ring cutting into my finger—five carats of lies.

“I have some things to finish first.”

“Then finish them,” he said, voice turning to steel.

“And come back to where you belong.”

I hung up and stared at my reflection in the darkened window.

lara—the girl who’d made herself small in a wolf’s world—died tonight.

And Elara Carver, daughter of an Alpha King, opened her eyes.