Mistaken for a Rogue: The Alpha's True Heir

I was eight years old when my father, Alpha Derek, raided the rogue bunker to save my mother.

I thought I was finally safe.

But because I reeked of the wolfsbane chemicals used to hide my scent, my mother looked at me with pure disgust.

"Get that thing away from me! It smells like him!" she shrieked.

To protect his traumatized mate, my father didn't check my DNA. He threw me into the garage to sleep on oily rags.

For months, I was the true Alpha's daughter, yet I was forced to eat dog food while they pampered a fake orphan named Kylie in my place.

When Kylie ordered the guard dog to tear my arm open, my mother stood at the window.

Instead of saving me, she let the maid close the curtains so she wouldn't have to see the blood.

I only became useful when my father got into a critical car crash.

They drained my rare "Moon Blood" to save his life, then immediately signed papers to ship me off to a labor camp to get rid of the "stain" on their family.

They thought I was a dirty rogue.

They didn't know the chemical smell was masking the rarest bloodline in a century.

I am not a rogue.

I am a White Wolf.

And just as my grandfather discovers the DNA results and falls to his knees in regret, the most powerful pack in the North has already arrived to claim me as their queen.

Chapter 1

Derek POV:

Blood and rain. That was the only scent in the air tonight.

My wolf, a massive black beast within my soul, was pacing restlessly, clawing at the edges of my mind. We were deep in the Appalachian Mountains, raiding a Rogue nest. Rogues were wolves without a pack, traitors and criminals who had lost their humanity. And eight years ago, they had taken my pregnant mate.

"Alpha, the perimeter is clear," my Gamma reported through the Mind-Link, his voice echoing directly in my head.

"Find her," I growled, my voice rough. "Leave no Rogue alive."

We breached the rusted iron door of the bunker. The stench hit me instantly-a mix of rotting meat, unwashed bodies, and fear. My warriors moved like shadows, lethal and efficient. I didn't care about the Rogues. I only cared about Nora.

I found her in the deepest cell. She was curled in a corner, her once-golden hair matted with filth.

"Nora?" I whispered.

She flinched, her blue eyes wide with terror. Then, recognition dawned.

"Derek!" She screamed my name and launched herself into my arms. I caught her, burying my face in her neck. She smelled of fear and damp earth, but underneath, she was still my Luna. My mate.

I have you, Nora. You are safe, I projected the thought into her mind, using the soothing tone of the Alpha.

She sobbed, clinging to me. But then, something tugged at her ragged shirt.

I looked down. A small, emaciated child stood there. She couldn't have been more than eight years old. Her skin was gray with grime, and her hair was a tangled mess of mud. But it was the smell that made my stomach turn.

She reeked.

It wasn't just the smell of dirt. It was a chemical assault on the senses-acrid and burning, like industrial solvent mixed with necrotic flesh. It was the scent of a Rogue who had gone feral, but amplified. It smelled of concentrated Wolfsbane, a poison to our kind, designed to mask everything else.

The child reached out a trembling hand toward Nora. "M-Mama?"

Nora stiffened in my arms. Her nose twitched, inhaling that foul odor. Her eyes dilated, the trauma of her captivity hijacking her brain. To a wolf, scent is identity, and this child didn't smell like family. She smelled like the cage. She smelled like the torture.

"No!" Nora shrieked, shoving the child away. "Get away! It smells like them! It smells like him!"

The child fell back onto the concrete floor, her eyes wide with confusion.

I snarled, my instinct to protect my mate overriding everything else. I stepped between Nora and the filthy creature. The child looked at me, her eyes a strange, shifting violet color, but I saw only a threat to my Luna's sanity.

"Get that thing out of here," I commanded my warriors. My voice was low, laced with the Alpha's authority that compelled obedience. "It is upsetting your Luna."

"But Alpha," a young warrior hesitated, looking at the small girl. "She called her-"

"I said get it out!" I roared. The power of my voice made the walls vibrate.

Two warriors grabbed the girl by her thin arms. She didn't scream. She just looked at me, and then at Nora, who was burying her face in my chest, sobbing hysterically.

We walked out of the bunker and into the waiting convoy of SUVs. I placed Nora gently in the back seat of my armored Cadillac.

"Is it gone?" she whimpered. "The smell... it's everywhere."

"It's being handled," I promised, kissing her forehead.

Through the rearview mirror, I saw the warriors tossing the girl into the trunk area of the trailing SUV, treating her like contaminated cargo.

Eliza POV:

The world was dark and smelled of gasoline.

I was curled up in the back of a big car, surrounded by spare tires and tool kits. My stomach churned. I had never been in a car before. The motion made me dizzy.

I wanted to vomit. I tried to hold it in, but the car went over a big bump, and my empty stomach rebelled. I retched, spitting up bile onto the carpet.

Immediately, the car stopped. The driver, a big man with a scar, slammed his hand on the steering wheel.

Alpha, the girl is sick. She's messing up the interior, the driver said. I couldn't hear him speak, but I felt the air grow heavy.

Suddenly, a crushing weight slammed into my shoulders. It felt like gravity had increased tenfold. I gasped, unable to breathe. It was the Alpha Aura. I knew what it was because the bad man, Burt, used to talk about how Alphas could crush you with just their presence.

The man in the front car-my father?-was doing this. He was punishing me for being sick.

I curled into a tighter ball, shaking. I'm sorry, I thought, though I didn't know how to send the words. Please stop.

The pressure lifted just enough for me to breathe, but the fear remained.

Hours later, the cars stopped. The trunk opened, and I was blinded by bright lights. We were in front of a castle. It was huge, made of stone and glass.

I scrambled out, my legs wobbling. I saw my mother standing by the front door. She looked clean now, wrapped in a soft blanket.

Next to her stood a girl about my age. She was wearing a pink dress with lace. She had shiny blonde hair and held a teddy bear.

"Oh, my poor baby," a woman-my grandmother, Dionne-cooed, but she wasn't looking at me. She was hugging the girl in pink.

"This is Kylie," a man in a white coat said. He was the Pack Doctor. "Her parents were Gamma unit warriors. They held the line so we could breach the bunker to save you, Alpha. They died protecting the rescue route. She has no one left."

Nora's face softened, gratitude warring with grief. She knelt down and hugged Kylie, needing something pure to hold onto. "You smell like sunshine," Nora whispered, inhaling deeply. "And vanilla."

I took a step forward, hoping my mother would look at me. "Mama?"

Nora's head snapped up. The moment she caught my scent, her face twisted in disgust. It was the same look she gave the rats in the bunker.

"Dionne," Nora choked out. "Keep that... that thing away from me. The smell makes me want to retch."

My grandmother, a tall woman with cold eyes, looked down at me. Her lip curled.

"You are an Omega runt," she spat. In our world, Omegas are the lowest rank, usually servants or weaklings. "You do not belong at the front door. You are polluting the air."

She pointed a manicured finger toward the side of the house, where the shadows were deep.

"Take her to the servants' entrance," Dionne ordered a maid. "And scrub her until her skin is raw. If she still smells like a Rogue, she sleeps in the kennel."

The maid grabbed my wrist. Her grip was hard. I looked back at my parents. My father had his arm around Nora and the girl in pink, leading them into the warmth of the golden light.

The heavy oak doors slammed shut, leaving me in the cold.

Eliza POV:

My bedroom was a garage.

The maid had dragged me here last night. It smelled of oil, cold metal, and old tires. There was no bed, just a pile of rags in the corner.

"Stay here," the maid had said, wrinkling her nose. "The Alpha doesn't want you inside the main house until you're clean."

I was so hungry. My stomach felt like it was eating itself. I hadn't had real food in days.

Morning light filtered through the dusty windows. I heard movement outside. A man came in with a high-pressure hose.

"Stand up," he barked.

I stood, shivering in my thin, dirty rags.

"Strip," he ordered.

I hesitated. I was eight, but I knew shame. The man didn't wait. He turned on the hose.

The water hit me like a physical blow. It was freezing, icy needles piercing my skin. I gasped, falling to my knees on the concrete.

"Scrub!" he yelled, throwing a stiff-bristled brush at me. "Get that Rogue filth off you!"

I scrubbed. I scrubbed until my skin turned red, then raw, then bled. The water mixed with pink swirls of my blood on the floor. But no matter how hard I scrubbed, the chemical smell of the Wolfsbane-the poison Burt had soaked me in for years to hide my lineage-clung to my pores. It was seeped into my very marrow.

After the man left, I put on a gray servant's dress they had tossed at me. It was too big.

I wandered toward the house, drawn by a smell. Food.

I found the kitchen. It was enormous, filled with stainless steel and the aroma of roasting meat. My mouth watered.

Then I smelled something else. Peanuts.

Panic flared in my chest. My throat felt tight just smelling it. I remembered Burt giving me a peanut butter cracker once, and my throat had closed up until I passed out. He had laughed and said I was defective.

I saw a chef crushing peanuts onto a salad. He was about to serve it.

"No!" I ran forward. "Don't! It's poison!"

I didn't know if anyone else was allergic. I just knew it was bad. I tried to grab the bowl.

"Get away, you little rat!"

The chef, a burly Beta, didn't see a child trying to help. He saw a dirty, smelly beggar trying to steal food.

He shoved me hard.

I flew backward, crashing into a metal prep table. My skin sizzled where it touched the table. Silver. The table had silver inlays.

"Ahhh!" I screamed. Silver burns were agonizing for wolves. It felt like a hot iron branding my skin.

The butler, a tall man named Abernathy, walked in. He looked at me writhing on the floor, then at the chef.

"She tried to steal the Alpha's lunch," the chef lied.

"I didn't!" I wheezed, clutching my burning side. "The nuts... poison..."

Abernathy sneered. "No one in the Moon Shadow Pack has a peanut allergy, girl. Stop lying for attention."

He gestured to the door. "Get out. You are not allowed in the kitchen."

That night, I sat outside on the cold stone patio. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, I could see the dining room.

A crystal chandelier hung above a long mahogany table. My father, Derek, sat at the head. My mother, Nora, sat to his right. And across from them sat Kylie.

They were eating steak. Thick, juicy steaks. Kylie was laughing, telling a story. My mother was smiling at her-a soft, loving smile I had never seen directed at me. My father was cutting Kylie's meat for her.

My wolf whimpered inside me. It was a sound of pure heartbreak. That is our pack, she cried. Why are we outside?

I was starving. The hunger was a sharp pain, twisting my insides.

I saw a maid carry a trash bag out the side door. She dumped it into a large bin.

I waited until she went back inside. Then, I crept over. I was the Alpha's daughter, but I was digging through garbage like a rat.

I found a beef bone. It was cold and covered in coffee grounds, but it had meat on it. I gnawed on it frantically, swallowing chunks of gristle and fat.

My stomach, shrunken from years of starvation, couldn't handle the rich, spoiled fat.

Ten minutes later, I was curled up on the lawn, retching violently. My body convulsed, rejecting the garbage.

The patio door slid open. Light flooded the grass.

"What is that noise?" Nora's voice was shrill. "Derek, make it stop! It sounds like a dying animal!"

The Pack Doctor stepped out, followed by my father. The doctor looked at the vomit and the bone.

"Gluttony," the doctor pronounced, looking at me with disdain. "She gorged herself until she got sick. Typical Rogue behavior. No self-control."

Nora appeared behind Derek. She looked at me, trembling on the grass, covered in vomit.

"She's disgusting," Nora whispered. "She's a monster. I can't sleep with that creature near my house."

Derek stepped onto the grass. His eyes were glowing a menacing amber-his wolf was near the surface.

"Eliza," he said. He used the Alpha Voice. It hit me like a physical weight, pinning me to the vomit-covered ground.

"You are a stain on this family," he growled. "You have one warning. Stay out of sight. If you disturb your Luna's recovery again, you won't just be sleeping in the garage. I'll put you in the cells where you belong."

Eliza POV:

The next day, my father dragged me into his study.

"You need to understand what you are," Derek said coldly. He didn't look at me as a daughter. He looked at me as a liability.

He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at the large screen on the wall. It showed the interior of the pack's holding cells. They were dark, damp, and terrifying.

"This is where Rogues go," Derek said, his voice low and dangerous. "This is where traitors rot. You carry the stench of the man who tortured my wife. You are walking on thin ice, girl."

He didn't show me blood or gore, but the threat was clear. He was showing me my future if I stepped out of line.

"Your blood is tainted with the same filth as his," Derek leaned down, his face inches from mine. "You smell like him. If you ever show aggression toward Nora, or toward Kylie... I will treat you like the enemy you smell like."

He threw me out of the office.

I was moved to the basement. It was the Omega quarters, a row of damp cells. I wasn't allowed to eat with the staff. I was given a bowl-a dog bowl-filled with gray mush.

Days turned into weeks. I became a ghost in my own home.

One afternoon, I was scrubbing the floor in the hallway. Kylie walked by. She was wearing a new diamond necklace.

"Oops," she said, dropping a vase. It shattered next to me.

Before I could move, she screamed. "Help! She's attacking me!"

She picked up a shard of the vase and slashed her own arm. Then she threw the shard at me. It struck my forehead, blood trickling into my eye.

"Zeus!" Kylie whistled.

Zeus was the Pack's guard dog, a massive Doberman with latent wolf blood. He was trained to kill on command.

The beast came bounding around the corner. He saw Kylie bleeding and me standing there. He didn't hesitate.

Zeus launched himself at me. His jaws clamped onto my forearm.

"Ahhh!" I screamed as his teeth met bone. He shook his head, tearing my flesh. I fell back, kicking, trying to protect my throat.

"Kill her, Zeus! She's a Rogue!" Kylie laughed, her sweet face twisted into a cruel grin.

Through the haze of pain, I looked up toward the second-floor landing. I saw the curtains twitch.

Nora was there. She had stepped out at the sound of screaming.

"What is happening?" Nora cried out, her hands shaking. "Is that... is that blood?"

Dionne appeared instantly at her side. She grabbed Nora's shoulders and spun her around, blocking her view.

"It's nothing, Nora," Dionne lied smoothly. "Just the gardener disciplining a stray dog. Don't look. It will only upset you."

"But I heard a child..."

"You're hearing things again, darling. Come away." Dionne pulled the heavy velvet curtains shut, sealing me in with the beast.

The bond snapped.

I felt it in my chest. A thread that had been holding me to this world, to her, severed. My inner wolf threw back her head and howled a sound of absolute despair. She gave up.

Zeus lunged for my throat. I closed my eyes, waiting for the dark.

"ENOUGH!"

A roar shook the house. It wasn't just a shout; it was power. Ancient, weathered power.

Zeus whimpered and dropped to his belly, whining in submission.

I opened my eyes. An old man stood there. He had silver hair and leaned on a cane, but his aura was suffocating. It was Hadley McCall, the Elder, my grandfather.

He looked at my mangled arm, then at Kylie, who was suddenly trembling.

"Get the doctor," Hadley ordered the servants who had gathered. "Now!"

The doctor came, but he didn't use anesthesia. He stitched my arm while I lay on the cold floor. I didn't cry. I stared at the ceiling, feeling nothing. The pain was far away. I was already dead inside.

Suddenly, the house alarms blared. Red lights flashed.

"Alpha down!" a warrior shouted, running into the hall. "Alpha Derek has been in a car accident! He's critical!"

Nora ran down the stairs, screaming Derek's name. She ran right past me, stepping over my blood as if it were just a spill on the carpet.