The Alpha's Cruel Bet On His Unborn Heir

For eight months, my Alpha husband Derek smiled as he rubbed my swollen belly, discussing nursery names.

I thought he was excited. Then I found the hidden medical file: Vasectomy. One year ago. Irreversible.

He believed my pregnancy was a betrayal. But instead of confronting me, he planned a public execution of my dignity.

At the pack gala, he and his mistress drugged me with Wolfsbane. Paralyzed and helpless, I was forced to listen as they took bets from the crowd on who the "real" father was.

When the pain started and I felt the life slipping from my womb, I screamed for him through our Mind-Link.

"Let the bastard die," he replied coldly, severing the bond.

I miscarried on the ballroom floor while they laughed.

They thought I was broken. They were wrong.

I sent him a box containing the remains, accompanied by a forged DNA test proving the child was his.

I watched from the shadows as his sanity shattered under the weight of "killing his own heir."

Now, he sits in a maximum-security asylum, howling in grief for a son that never truly belonged to him.

I sip my champagne in First Class, leaving the wreckage behind.

The sterilization had worked perfectly. The baby wasn't his.

But as long as he suffers, the truth doesn't matter.

Chapter 1

Aleida POV:

Antiseptic usually smells like safety. It means hospitals, healers, and the sterile cleanliness of a pack clinic.

But here, in my husband's private study, it smelled like a lie.

I was shuffling through Derek's paperwork-monthly filing for the Alpha. My belly, heavy with eight months of life, brushed against the mahogany desk. My back ached, a constant reminder of the future Alpha growing inside me.

My wolf pricked her ears.

Something is wrong, Aleida.

I paused. My enhanced senses picked up a faint, chemical odor clinging to a yellow envelope tucked at the bottom of a stack of merger agreements. Old, but distinct.

I pulled it out.

It was a medical record from a private clinic in Zurich. The date was exactly one year ago.

Patient: Derek Hubbard.

Procedure: Silver Seal Sterilization.

Notes: Complete blockage of the vas deferens using liquid silver injection. Irreversible. Probability of conception: 0%.

The paper slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the floor.

I stared at it.

Silver.

We are wolves. Silver burns us. It stops our healing. For an Alpha to inject liquid silver into his most private parts... it was a commitment to childlessness that bordered on madness.

If Derek was sterile a year ago...

I looked down at my swollen stomach. The baby kicked, a strong, vibrant thump against my ribs.

If Derek was sterile, then in his eyes, this baby-our baby, the heir to the Obsidian Pack-was impossible.

A cold numbness spread from my chest to my fingertips.

For eight months, Derek had smiled at me. He had touched my belly. He had discussed nursery colors.

He had been acting.

He knows, my wolf whined, pacing anxiously in the back of my mind. He thinks we betrayed him.

I didn't scream. The shock severed the connection to my voice. I grabbed my car keys. I needed to see him. I needed to explain. Maybe the surgery failed? Maybe the Moon Goddess granted us a miracle?

I drove the SUV toward the Hubbard Enterprises skyscraper, the glass tower that served as the modern headquarters for our pack.

Derek? I reached out through the Mind-Link.

Silence.

Usually, his voice would be a warm hum in my head. Now, it was a wall of static. He had blocked me.

Panic began to claw at my throat. I parked haphazardly and ignored the confused looks of the lobby staff as I waddled toward the private elevator.

When I reached the top floor, the Alpha's office door was closed.

I raised my hand to knock, but my wolf ears twitched. The expensive soundproofing was no match for a Luna's desperate focus.

"She looks like a whale, Derek," a voice sneered. It was Edison, Derek's Beta and supposed best friend. "It's disgusting watching her waddle around, acting like she's carrying royalty."

My hand froze in mid-air.

"It's almost over," Derek's voice came. It was cold. Colder than the winter wind. "The legal team has the papers ready. Once she drops the pup, she's out."

"You have the patience of a saint, Alpha," Edison laughed. "Living with a cheater. Sleeping in the same bed as a woman carrying a Rogue's bastard."

The air left my lungs.

Rogue's bastard.

That was what he thought. Because of the surgery. He was so arrogant, so sure of his own medical procedure, that he decided his Fated Mate was a whore.

"It's not about patience, Edison," Derek said. I heard the distinct clink of crystal tumblers. "It's about punishment. She drove Elsa away. She manipulated the pack to get that ring on her finger. Now, she's going to pay."

"So, what's the bet standing at?" Edison asked.

"Ten high-grade energy crystals," Derek replied smoothly. "I'm betting the father is that stray Rogue we killed near the border last month."

"I'm betting it's the pizza delivery boy," Edison guffawed. "She always looks hungry."

Laughter. They were laughing.

They were gambling on the paternity of my child. They were turning my pregnancy, the most sacred time for a she-wolf, into a locker room joke.

A sharp pain shot through my abdomen. The baby thrashed, as if sensing my distress.

They want to kill us, Aleida, my wolf growled, her hackles raising. This isn't a pack. This is a slaughterhouse.

I stepped back from the door. My legs were shaking so hard I thought I would collapse.

I couldn't go in there. If I walked in now, emotional and pregnant, they would just mock me. Or worse. Derek was an Alpha. If he used his Command on me while I was this fragile, it could hurt the baby.

I turned around and walked back to the elevator. Every step felt like walking on broken glass.

I wasn't just a rejected wife. I was a target.

I pulled out my phone. My hands trembled as I dialed a number I had found on a dark web forum for desperate she-wolves weeks ago, thinking I'd never need it.

"This is the clinic," a raspy voice answered.

"I need an appointment," I whispered, tears finally spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. "To terminate. Immediately."

I would not let my child be born into a world where his father bet on his lineage like a horse race. I would destroy everything before I let them hurt him.

Aleida POV:

I sat in my car in the underground parking lot, the engine off, the darkness wrapping around me like a shroud.

I hadn't left the building yet. I couldn't. My body was frozen, caught between the instinct to flee and the instinct to fight.

I cracked the window open just an inch. My hearing strained upward, focusing back on that office on the top floor.

"She's going to be an Omega when this is done," Edison's voice drifted down, faint but clear to my focused senses. "No, lower. She'll be Rogue trash. We'll strip her of the pack name."

"She deserves worse," Derek said. The hatred in his voice was a physical blow. "Do you remember when Elsa left? Crying her eyes out?"

I remembered.

Elsa, Derek's adopted sister. The pack darling. Two years ago, she had come to me, weeping, saying the pressure of the pack was too much, that she wanted to study art in Paris but had no money.

I had given her my savings. I had helped her pack. I had driven her to the airport.

"Aleida forced her out," Derek continued, rewriting history with every word. "She threatened Elsa. She paid her to leave so she could have me all to herself. She broke our family apart."

My jaw tightened. Elsa had lied. She had taken my money and spun a story of victimization to keep Derek's sympathy.

"And now," Derek said, his voice dropping to a dangerous growl, "Elsa is coming home. Just in time to see the usurper fall."

"The timing is perfect," Edison said. "The Gathering is in two days. Elsa's return ceremony."

"We'll make it a double feature," Derek said. "Welcome Elsa, and unveil Aleida's infidelity. I want everyone to see the DNA test when that bastard is born. I want the rejection to be public."

"Let's raise the stakes," Edison suggested, his tone dripping with slime. "Double the pot. We bet on when she breaks. I give her ten minutes into the party before she starts crying."

"Five," Derek said.

"You know," Edison added, and I could hear the leer in his voice, "It's a shame you got snipped, Alpha. But I have to admit... before she got so big, I sampled the goods a few times while you were away on business. She wasn't bad."

I gagged. Bile rose in my throat, burning and acidic.

A lie. A filthy, disgusting lie. I had never touched another man. I had been faithful to Derek with every fiber of my being, with every instinct of my wolf.

"Did you?" Derek sounded indifferent. "Well, she's community property now. Or she will be soon."

My wolf howled. It was a sound of pure agony, echoing inside my skull.

He doesn't claim us. He shares us.

The bond-the sacred tie that the Moon Goddess weaves between mates-was being dragged through the mud. Derek wasn't just rejecting me; he was dehumanizing me. He was stripping away my dignity as a Luna, as a woman, as a mother.

I gripped the steering wheel until the leather creaked.

I wiped the tears from my face. They were useless. Tears wouldn't save my baby. Tears wouldn't clear my name.

I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. My eyes, usually a soft hazel, were flashing gold. My wolf was surfacing, fueled by a rage that burned hotter than the sorrow.

"No," I whispered to the empty car.

I wouldn't just run away. I wouldn't just disappear into a clinic and erase the evidence.

They wanted a show? They wanted to gamble on my life?

I would give them a show.

I canceled the call to the underground doctor.

"Hold on, little one," I murmured, rubbing my belly. "Mommy has a plan."

I would go to that party. I would face Elsa. I would stand before the entire Obsidian Pack.

And I would use their own laws, their own arrogance, to bring this skyscraper crashing down on their heads.

I started the engine. The roar of the motor sounded like a war cry.

Aleida POV:

I was sitting on the couch in the living room of the Alpha's mansion when Derek came home.

I had practiced my expression in the mirror for an hour. Soft. Tired. Oblivious.

"Aleida," Derek said. He walked in, smelling of brandy and Edison's cheap cologne. He held a mug in his hand. "I brought you some warm milk. For the baby. It helps with the calcium."

He smiled. It was the smile of a predator watching a trapped rabbit.

"I'm not thirsty, Derek," I said, keeping my voice steady.

His eyes narrowed slightly. The air in the room grew heavy. A low, vibrating pressure pressed against my skull.

Alpha's Command.

"Drink it, Aleida," he said softly. "It's good for you."

My hand moved on its own. My body betrayed me, obeying the biological imperative to submit to the Alpha. I took the mug. My wolf snarled in protest, but the Command was like iron chains around my limbs.

I took a sip. It tasted sweet, masking a bitter, metallic aftertaste.

Sedatives.

"Good girl," he said, patting my head as if I were a dog. "Rest now."

I feigned drowsiness almost immediately. I let my eyelids flutter and slumped back against the cushions.

Derek watched me for a moment, then pulled out his phone. "She's out. Come in."

I kept my breathing slow and rhythmic, peering through the slit of my eyelashes.

The back door opened. Edison walked in, followed by a woman I hadn't seen in two years.

Elsa.

She was more beautiful than I remembered, but her scent had changed. It was cloying, like rotting flowers.

"Is she asleep?" Elsa asked, looking at me with undisguised loathing.

"Like a log," Edison laughed.

Elsa reached into her designer bag and pulled out a small vial. inside, a liquid glowed with an eerie, phosphorescent blue light.

"Wolfsbane Submission Serum," she announced proudly. "I had it brewed by a witch in New Orleans."

My blood ran cold.

Submission Serum was illegal. It forced a she-wolf's inner wolf into a coma while leaving the human mind awake but paralyzed. It was used by traffickers. It was used for torture.

"Will it work on a pregnant bitch?" Edison asked.

"It's better," Elsa smirked. "It heightens the nerve endings. She won't be able to move a muscle, but she'll feel everything. Every touch. Every pain. Ten times the intensity."

Derek nodded, looking at the vial with approval. "Perfect for the party. I want her frozen when I announce the rejection. I want her to scream inside while she can't make a sound."

"And the inspection?" a new voice asked.

I almost flinched. A fourth person had entered. A man I didn't know. He smelled of dirt and old blood. A Rogue.

"Go ahead," Derek said, waving his hand toward me. "Check the merchandise. If you like what you see, you can bid on her after the ceremony."

The Rogue stepped closer. I felt his rough, calloused hand grab my chin. He turned my face side to side. His other hand moved down, groping my breast roughly.

It took every ounce of my willpower not to Shift. My wolf was screaming, clawing at the walls of my mind, desperate to rip his throat out.

Wait, I told her. Wait.

"She's ripe," the Rogue grunted. "I'll pay top dollar for the first hour."

"Get in line," Edison chuckled.

Elsa stepped forward. "Open her mouth."

Edison forced my jaw open. Elsa used a swab to collect saliva from my tongue.

"I need to test the dosage against her DNA," she said. "We don't want to kill her. Not yet. We need the 'Pot of Gold' to come out first."

She pointed a manicured nail at my stomach.

Pot of Gold. That was what they called my baby. A bargaining chip.

Derek checked his watch. "Get out. She'll wake up in an hour. We need to be ready."

They left, filing out the back door like rats scuttling into the dark.

As soon as the door clicked shut, I opened my eyes.

I stumbled to the bathroom and stuck my finger down my throat, retching up the milk before the sedative could fully digest.

Then, I went to Derek's study.

I didn't need to guess. Weeks ago, when I first suspected Derek was hiding assets, I'd installed a simple keylogger on his desktop. I pulled up the logs.

I logged into his computer. I found the hidden camera feeds. He had installed them to spy on me, but tonight, they had recorded his conspiracy.

I downloaded the footage.

Then, I saw a flashing icon on his taskbar. An encrypted chat app. He hadn't even bothered to log out.

I clicked it open. The group name made my blood freeze.

"The Luna Auction."