The Alpha's Fake Mate Is The Phantom Healer

Evangeline POV:

When I was born, the Pack Seer branded me a "cursed star." Combined with the fact that I was born without an inner wolf, making me a complete and utter piece of trash, my biological mother, Hortense, threw me away to a dilapidated cabin on the edge of the Hopkins territory on the very day of my birth.

For eighteen years, she never looked at me once. Yet today, to save her precious daughter Amanda from marrying the bloodthirsty, dying Alpha of Shadow Ridge, she actually had me drugged to ruin my innocence with a disgusting, ugly rogue, all to force me to act as her substitute bride!

The drug they slipped into my dinner was burning through my veins like liquid fire, perfectly mimicking the ferocious, primal urge of a werewolf's Heat. I had managed to slip away from their watchful eyes and stumbled back to my own dark bedroom in the cabin, locking the heavy wooden door behind me with a muffled click.

The room was pitch-black. No lamps were lit.

I leaned my back against the solid door, sucking in ragged breaths to steady my racing pulse. I thought I was safe, but the moment my guard dropped, a suffocating scent hit me-rich, sharp cedar blended with the icy clarity of wild mint.

My stomach dropped.

Deep inside my chest, in the hollow place where society claimed I was defective, a deafening roar tore through my soul.

Mate.

A wave of terrifying yet absolute completeness washed over me, so sudden and sweet that my knees instantly buckled. Before my hands could brace against the wood, a massive silhouette lunged from the shadows.

A wall of pure muscle slammed into me. Hard hands shoved me flat against the doorframe, pinning my wrists to the wood. The instant his skin grazed mine, an electric shock arced down my spine. Blue sparks seemed to detonate behind my eyelids.

The undeniable reactions of the mate-bond recognition: the distinct scent, the physical surge, the soul's peace, the inner wolf's roar, and the electric spark upon touch. They had all just struck me at once.

"Where am I? Who are you?" his voice was a gravelly scrape, dripping with agony and untamed fury.

A sliver of moonlight sliced through the window, illuminating his profile. My breath hitched.

He possessed a breathtaking, lethal handsomeness. He had a chiseled jawline and piercing glacial-blue eyes that exuded an intoxicating blend of danger. But his pale skin was slick with cold sweat, and thick, black veins pulsed dangerously beneath the skin of his neck.

Silver poisoning. He was dying from severe, deep-tissue silver rot.

Before I could spit out a warning, the man's control shattered entirely. The drug in my system and the ferocious instinctual rut triggered by the mate-bond wiped out whatever sanity he had left.

His mouth crashed down on mine. It was a brutal, territorial claim.

I bit my own tongue, using the sharp spike of pain to snap my mind clear. My right fingers slipped to my concealed waistband, pulling out three slender silver acupuncture needles. I flicked my wrist.

But he moved with monstrous speed. His hand caught my forearm mid-strike, his grip nearly fracturing my bone. "Trying to kill me, little stray?"

Suddenly, his body seized. A strangled groan tore from his throat. The silver poison in his veins clashed violently with the surging adrenaline of the bond. His spine arched in agony, thick drops of cold sweat dripping from his temple onto my collarbone.

I stopped fighting. Instead, I wrapped both arms around his broad, sweat-drenched shoulders. My fingers pressed firmly into the nerve junctions along his upper vertebrae, driving the needles in and channeling a steady pulse of vital energy straight into his inflamed pathways.

The man stiffened violently. The bloodlust in his gaze receded, replaced by absolute shock. "What... did you just do?"

"Shut up and stop moving," I hissed.

Using his momentary paralysis, I twisted my hips, flipped him onto his back, and straddled his waist. I looked down at the handsome stranger, my hair tumbling over my shoulders. "Right now, Alpha, I'm the one in charge."

Yet I had underestimated the terrifying backlash of the mate bond. The direct contact, combined with the drug my mother had given me, sent a bolt of molten heat straight down into my belly, burning away the last of my sanity.

He saw the flush spreading across my chest. His lips curled into a wicked, predatory grin. His large hand rose, wrapping around the back of my head, dragging me down toward his face.

"Looks like you're the one who needs the cure," he rasped.

Sanity snapped. In the dim silver of the midnight room, civilized thoughts vanished. There was no gentle courtship-only the raw, relentless hunger of two apex predators colliding in the dark.

When the pale gray light of dawn crept through the cracked window, my eyes snapped open. Every muscle in my body ached as if I had been run over by a truck.

I turned my head. The mysterious Alpha lay beside me in a deep, exhausted slumber. The toxic black veins on his chest had receded significantly.

I rolled out of my own bed, grabbed my clothes from the floor, and dressed quickly. I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out three heavy gold coins, and dropped them onto the pillow next to his handsome face with a soft clink.

"Consider this a generous tip for a premium service," I muttered to myself, a cold smile touching my lips.

Before I could take another step toward the bathroom...

CRACK.

The heavy wooden door burst open, the lock splintering under a brutal kick. Wood shards sprayed across the room like shrapnel.

Evangeline POV:

Mildred Tucker, the chief enforcer of the Hopkins Pack, marched into my cabin, flanked by four hulking warriors.

Her beady eyes darted across the disheveled room before locking onto the bed. She froze for a fraction of a second when she saw the breathtakingly handsome, muscular man sleeping there instead of the ugly rogue she had hired.

But her Beta arrogance quickly overrode her confusion.

"Well, well," Mildred sneered, her cruel mouth twisting into a victorious grin. "The wolfless trash finally gave herself to the filthy rogue we arranged!"

She puffed out her chest, looking down her scarred nose at me. "Lady Hortense sent me to drag your ruined hide back to the estate. You are taking Lady Amanda's place in the mating alliance with that broken monster from Shadow Ridge!"

She pointed a thick finger at the bed. "Kill that alley mutt. Leave no witnesses!"

The four enforcers drew their silver-alloy blades, stepping forward with murderous intent.

My eyes turned colder than ice. I didn't retreat. I pulled a poisoned silver dagger from my boot and stepped directly into their path, shielding the bed.

"This is the man I slept with," I said, my voice dead and cold. "Who dares to touch him?"

Mildred let out a harsh, barking laugh. "You have no inner wolf, Evangeline! You are nothing! Break her legs!"

Two enforcers lunged at me. I ducked under the first blade, driving the hilt of my dagger brutally into his ribs, and kicked the second one's knee, shattering the joint with a sickening pop.

But before the other two could rush the bed, the atmospheric pressure in the room suddenly turned into lead.

The mysterious stranger hadn't even gotten out of bed. His glacial-blue eyes snapped open, gleaming with a terrifying, absolute lethality.

He didn't lift a single finger. He merely released a fraction of his Alpha's Command.

"Kneel."

The single word was spoken softly, but it carried the crushing weight of a collapsing mountain.

The charging enforcers froze mid-air. Their bones cracked audibly under the pure psychic pressure. They slammed onto the floorboards, coughing up blood, completely paralyzed by the sheer dominance of a true apex predator.

Dead silence fell over the bedroom.

Mildred stared at her elite guards twitching on the floor. The smug arrogance drained from her scarred face, replaced by raw, primal terror.

I walked over to her, planting the hard heel of my combat boot onto her trembling hand.

"Go back and tell Hortense," I whispered sweetly, my eyes burning with a dangerous light. "If she wants me to act as Amanda's substitute bride, she can crawl here and beg me herself."

Mildred scrambled out the ruined doorway, weeping in terror, leaving her paralyzed men behind.

I turned back to the room. The mysterious Alpha was sitting up, watching me with cold, evaluating intensity.

"You fight well for a supposed wolfless runt," he murmured, his deep voice carrying a rough morning rasp.

"And you wake up quite energetic for a man dying of silver rot," I shot back smoothly, crossing my arms.

A dangerous glint sparked in his eyes. He swung his long legs over the mattress and stood up, closing the distance between us with the silent grace of a predator. He stopped mere inches away, his calloused fingers reaching out to tilt my chin up.

"You used my body to survive your heat, tipped me with pocket change, and now you want to dismiss me?" he asked softly, a predatory smirk playing on his lips.

I didn't back down. I pressed the sharp tip of my poisoned dagger firmly against his taut abdominal muscle. "You nearly broke my waist last night. If anything, you owe me medical bills."

He let out a low rumble of amusement, completely ignoring the blade. "We will meet again, little stray."

Without waiting for my retort, he grabbed his dark shirt, shrugged it on, and vaulted effortlessly out the open window, vanishing into the morning mist.

Arden POV:

I stood before the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of my penthouse office at the Shadow Syndicate headquarters, looking out over the territory of Shadow Ridge.

The lingering pain of the silver poison throbbed deeply within my chest, but the agony that usually felt like molten lead had diminished to a bearable hum.

My mind kept flashing back to the image of that silver-haired woman in the dark cabin. The scent of wild honey and winter snow still lingered on my skin, maddening and intoxicating.

Mate. My inner wolf paced restlessly, growling with deep, primal possessiveness.

The heavy oak doors were pushed open. My Beta and head of security, Jc, walked in with a military-grade tablet.

"Alpha. We investigated the girl from the border cabin as ordered," Jc reported, his tone serious. "She is Evangeline Hopkins, the wolfless daughter Lady Hortense threw away years ago."

I poured two fingers of neat bourbon. "A wolfless runt who can dismantle elite enforcers and expertly suppress deep-tissue silver rot? The Hopkins Pack is full of blind fools."

Jc hesitated for a moment before continuing. "There is more, Alpha. We intercepted encrypted comms from the Hopkins estate. Lady Amanda, your supposed pure-blooded fiancée, has been secretly sharing a bed with the Crown Prince."

A surge of murderous intent instantly bled into my ice-blue eyes. The glass in my hand cracked.

"Because Amanda lost her purity and fears your reputation," Jc said grimly, "they plotted to drug Evangeline and have a filthy rogue ruin her innocence in that cabin, just so they could force her to take Amanda's place as your substitute bride. You... you inadvertently took the place of the rogue they hired."

The temperature in the room plummeted below freezing.

A low, lethal growl vibrated in my chest. They dared to treat me, Alpha Arden Lindsay, as a dumping ground for their ruined trash? They thought they could humiliate me by sending a woman they believed was defiled by a rogue to my mating bed?

"Amanda Hopkins is a manipulative leech," I sneered, the sheer fury awakening my ancient Lycan blood. "I originally planned to make them break the engagement themselves. But now? I will play their game. I will make the Hopkins Pack pay a devastatingly bloody price."

Suddenly, a blinding bolt of agony tore through my heart.

I staggered, dropping to my knees as the crystal tumbler shattered against the floor. Thick, black veins pulsed violently up my neck. My rage had accelerated the dormant silver poison, violently breaking through the temporary barrier Evangeline had woven.

"Alpha!" Jc rushed forward in panic.

"Get out!" I roared through clenched teeth, forcing my mental shields open to lock down the agony.

I tasted copper as blood welled from my bitten lip. The silver was fighting back with a vengeance.

"Jc," I gritted out through the Mind-Link, my eyes glowing with fierce determination. "Scour every clinic, every underworld network. Find the Phantom Healer."