The Alpha's Regret: Murdered By Her Mate

"Sign it," Simon growled, slamming the document onto the rickety table.

As the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack and my fated mate, he wasn't asking. He was commanding me to give my Wolf Essence-the source of my life-to my dying sister, Laila.

"If I give her my essence, I will die," I whispered, my body already trembling from the hidden poison coursing through my veins.

But Simon only looked at me with cold, amber eyes.

"Stop lying, Zora. You're just jealous because she is the future Luna and you are nothing. Sign it, or I will reject you publicly right now."

Broken and hopeless, I signed my life away.

I died the moment the silver scalpel touched my skin on the operating table.

It was only during the autopsy that the surgeon screamed in horror.

She discovered my organs were liquefied by chronic Wolfsbane poisoning.

And worse, she found that I had no essence to give. My primary essence had already been stolen five years ago-carved out of me by Laila herself to fake her own power.

Simon fell to his knees in the morgue, the realization shattering him.

He had forced his true mate to die to save the monster who had been killing her all along.

In a fit of madness, he executed Laila and then drove a silver dagger into his own heart, desperate to find me in the afterlife.

"I'm here, Zora," his ghost wept, kneeling before me in the realm of the dead. "Please, forgive me."

I looked at the man who had watched me rot without seeing me.

"No," I said.

And I turned my back on him forever.

Chapter 1

Zora POV:

The attic smelled of wet rot and old misery. I lay curled on the thin mattress, my body trembling not from the draft, but from the liquid fire coursing through my veins.

Wolfsbane.

*It wasn't a quick death. It was a slow, sadistic eviction.* It hunted down the wolf first, dissolving the spirit before coming for the flesh. My wolf, once a vibrant, golden thing in my mind, was silent. She was curled into a tight, shivering ball in the back of my consciousness, fading like a dying ember in the rain.

The door burst open, the handle slamming into the plaster with a violence that made my teeth rattle.

Simon Knightley filled the frame. His broad shoulders blocked out the hallway light, casting a long, jagged shadow over me. He was the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack, the predator at the top of the food chain. He used to smell like storm clouds and ozone-a scent that made my knees weak with want. Now, it just smelled like danger.

"Get up, Zora," he growled. It wasn't a request; it was a vibration that shook my bones.

I tried to push myself up, but my arms were wet noodles. The poison had eaten too much of me. I coughed, the taste of copper and ash coating my tongue.

"I... I can't," I rasped.

Simon stepped into the room. His amber eyes were flat, dead things. He didn't see a mate. He didn't see a dying woman. He saw an obstacle.

"I didn't ask if you could," he said, his voice dropping to that terrifying Alpha register. "I am commanding you."

The air in the room turned to lead, crushing my lungs. *The Alpha Command wasn't something you fought; it was gravity.* My body betrayed me, bypassing my brain and my pain. My muscles jerked into motion, puppeteered by his voice. I stood up, swaying like a drunkard, tears of exertion blurring my vision.

He slapped a document onto the rickety table. "Sign it."

I looked down. The words swam, but the bold header was clear enough: *Voluntary Essence Donation Agreement*.

"Laila is critical," Simon said, his tone as clinical as a scalpel. "Her body is rejecting the treatments. She needs a transfusion of Wolf Essence. Yours."

Wolf Essence. The metaphysical organ near the kidneys, the battery for shifting and healing. Without it, you weren't just human; you were a husk.

"Simon," I whispered, forcing my eyes to meet his. "If I give her my essence... I will die. I'm already sick."

He scoffed, a sharp, dismissive sound. "Cut the act. You're not sick, you're weak. You've always been jealous of Laila because she's the genius, the future Luna, and you're just the broken twin who can't even shift."

"I'm not lying," I pleaded, clutching my chest where the burning was an inferno. "Please. Just look at me. Really look at me."

"I am looking at you," he spat. "I see a selfish coward. Sign the paper, Zora. Or I drag you to the pack square right now."

My heart stuttered. "What?"

"I will initiate the Rejection Ceremony publicly," he threatened, stepping into my personal space. "I will reject you as my mate in front of the entire pack. And then, I will mark Laila on the spot."

The threat hit harder than the Command. To be rejected was agony. To watch your mate mark your sister-the architect of your ruin-was a hell I couldn't survive. It would shatter my soul before my body even gave out.

My mother, the former Luna, appeared in the doorway. She didn't look at my grey skin or my shaking hands. She looked at the paper.

"Has she signed it yet, Simon?" she asked, checking her watch. "Laila is in pain. Every second this parasite wastes is an insult to the pack."

"Mother," I choked out. "I'm dying."

"You've been 'dying' for years," she sneered. "You're just dramatic. You have no wolf, Zora. You have no purpose. At least give your essence to someone who actually matters."

I looked from my mother's hateful eyes to Simon's cold stare. There was no love here. No mercy. I had held on for five years, hoping the truth would surface, hoping Simon would remember the girl he saved under the bridge. But he was blind.

My inner wolf gave a faint, final whimper. *Let go,* she seemed to say. *Let it end.*

I picked up the pen. My hand shook so violently I could barely grip the plastic. If I signed, I would die on the operating table. But at least I would die as Simon's mate, even if only in name. It was the only scrap of dignity I had left.

I scratched my name onto the line.

The moment the pen lifted, the crushing weight of the Alpha's Command vanished. I collapsed back onto the mattress, gasping for air like a fish on a dock.

Simon snatched the paper. He didn't check on me. He didn't offer a hand. Instead, his expression softened, but not for me. His eyes glazed over as he opened a Mind-Link.

*It's done,* I heard him project. *The cruelty of the mate bond let me hear his thoughts, even if he blocked mine.* *I have the donor form. Hold on, Laila. I've got you.*

*There was no tenderness for me. Only for her.*

A healer rushed in, followed by my father, the former Alpha.

"Get her to the prep room," my father barked, not even glancing at me. "Don't let her run away again."

Run away? I couldn't even walk.

As the healer grabbed my arm roughly, dragging me up, I looked at my family. They were already turning away, rushing down the stairs to be with Laila.

I closed my eyes and let the memory wash over me. Five years ago. The night of our eighteenth birthday. The night Laila had chained me up with silver and carved me open like a thanksgiving turkey to steal my first essence. The night she stole my destiny as the White Wolf.

They didn't know. They thought she was the prodigy. They thought I was the waste.

And now, they were going to finish what she started.

Zora POV:

The hospital corridor was blindingly white. The smell of antiseptic stung my nose, warring with the metallic tang of blood that constantly coated my tongue. I was shuffling toward the prep room, escorted by a warrior guard as if I were a flight risk, when a hand slammed against my chest.

Simon.

"Where are the notes?" he demanded.

I blinked, swaying. "What notes?"

"The research notes on the Wolfsbane antidote variants," he snapped. "Laila needs them. She said she left the final calculations with you to double-check because she was too weak to hold a pen."

I let out a dry, rattling laugh. It hurt my ribs. "You mean the research I did? The research she's been presenting as her own for three years?"

Simon grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "Don't you dare slander her! Laila is the youngest potion master in the history of the Silver Moon Pack. You're just her assistant. Now give me the notebook."

"It's in my bag," I whispered, pointing to the worn canvas tote the guard was carrying.

He ripped the bag from the guard's hand and rummaged through it until he found the leather-bound notebook. It contained months of my work. My handwriting. My genius.

My mother walked up behind him, her heels clicking sharply on the tile like gunshots. "Did you get it?"

"Yes," Simon said, clutching the book like a holy relic. "She tried to claim it was hers again."

My mother looked at me with pure disgust. "You are pathetic. Stealing your sister's glory even when she lies on her deathbed. The pack comes first, Zora. Laila is the future. You are nothing but a stain we have to wipe away."

Just then, the door to the VIP suite opened. Laila was there, sitting in a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse. She looked pale, beautiful, and fragile-the perfect victim.

She saw Simon holding the notebook and offered a weak, trembling smile. "Oh, Simon... thank you. I was so worried Zora would... lose it."

She looked at me then. Her blue eyes didn't hold sickness; they held triumph. She let her gaze travel down my body, mocking my inability to shift, mocking the weakness that she had caused by poisoning me for months.

She leaned back into Simon as he rushed to her side. I saw her hand brush his arm, and I saw the spark of static electricity. *It wasn't the mate bond-it was stolen magic. She was siphoning the energy from the essence she had butchered out of me five years ago to mimic the connection.*

"I'm done," I said, my voice hollow. "Take the book. Take the essence. Take everything."

I turned and walked toward the prep room, ignoring the guard. I needed to sever the last threads.

Inside the small waiting room, I found the few personal items I had left. A scarf I had knitted for Simon for the upcoming winter. A photo of my parents from before I turned eighteen.

I walked over to the bio-hazard incinerator in the corner.

I threw the photo in. Then, I held the scarf. It was soft, made of the finest grey wool. I had poured my love into every stitch, hoping he would wear it and finally smell me on it.

I dropped it into the flames.

"Goodbye," I whispered.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea hit me. I doubled over, retching. *Thick, black sludge splattered onto the pristine white floor.* My inner wolf howled-a sound of pure agony that echoed in my skull. The wolfsbane had reached my heart.

The door banged open. Simon and Laila were there again. Laila was crying hysterically.

"She ruined it!" Laila screamed, pointing at me. "She changed the numbers! The dosage is wrong! If I had used this, I would have killed the test subjects!"

Simon stormed over to me, stepping right in the puddle of my toxic blood without even noticing it. He grabbed me by the hair, forcing my head up.

"You vicious little snake," he snarled, his face inches from mine. "You tried to sabotage her work? You tried to make her look incompetent to the Council?"

"I didn't..." I gasped, blood bubbling past my lips. "Those are... the correct... formulas..."

"Liar!" Laila shrieked from her wheelchair. "You want me to fail! You want Simon to hate me!"

My mother entered, took one look at the scene-me on my knees, bleeding black, Simon holding me by my hair-and made her judgment instantly.

"Apologize," she ordered. "On your knees, Zora. Apologize to your sister, the future Luna, for your treachery."

I looked at my mother. I looked at the man who was supposed to be my soulmate.

"No," I said.

Simon growled, a deep, animalistic sound. "Do not defy us, Zora."

"I won't apologize for the truth," I said, a strange calm washing over me. "And I won't apologize for dying."

Simon shoved me backward. I hit the wall with a thud.

"Get her prepped," he commanded the nurses hovering nervously in the hallway. "Cut the essence out. I'm done dealing with her."

Zora POV:

They didn't just want my life; they wanted my name.

While I was being prepped, stripped of my clothes and put into a thin, humiliating hospital gown, my phone buzzed incessantly on the side table. It was the Pack Forum.

I picked it up with trembling fingers.

*Breaking News: The Truth Behind the Potions.*

There was a post from Laila's account. It claimed that I had been blackmailing her, forcing her to include my "flawed" theories in her work, which was why the Academy had flagged her recent paper for plagiarism. She spun a tale of a jealous, non-shifting sister who wanted to drag the pack's genius down into the mud.

The comments were a landslide of hatred.

*"Useless Omega."*

*"She should be banished."*

*"Why is she even still in the pack?"*

The door opened, and Simon didn't walk in-he stormed in. He didn't speak. He grabbed my arm, his grip bruising, and dragged me out of the room.

"Simon, stop! I can't walk fast!" I cried out, stumbling. My bare feet slapped against the cold linoleum.

"You're going to fix this," he growled, not slowing down. He dragged me like a rogue, like garbage, right into the main waiting area where my family and a few pack elders were gathered.

He threw me onto the floor. I landed hard on my knees, the impact jarring my spine.

I looked up and saw Laila holding a phone. The red light was on. She was livestreaming.

"Tell them," Simon commanded, his voice booming so everyone in the room-and everyone watching online-could hear. "Tell the pack that you lied. Tell them you sabotaged Laila out of jealousy."

I looked at him, searching for the boy who had saved me from a storm five years ago. The boy who had wrapped his jacket around me and promised I was safe. That boy was dead.

Laila started coughing, a delicate, pitiful sound. "I can't breathe," she wheezed, clutching her chest. "Her scent... it's so bitter. It's choking me."

It was a lie. I had no scent left. The poison had stripped it away. But Simon reacted instantly.

"Do it now, Zora! Or I swear by the Moon Goddess, I will throw you into the dungeon. *You can rot in the dark before I let you near a surgery table.*"

*The dungeon meant dying alone, in slow, excruciating agony. The surgery was a guillotine-quick, final. The anesthesia would be my freedom.*

I looked at the camera lens. I looked at the thousands of viewers.

"I..." My voice cracked. "I am jealous of my sister."

"Louder," my father said from the corner, arms crossed.

"I am jealous," I said, my voice dead. "I lied. Laila is the genius. I am... I am nothing."

"And?" Laila prompted, a cruel glint in her eyes.

"And I am sorry."

Laila lowered the phone, ending the stream. She instantly stopped wheezing. She looked at me with a beatific smile, the picture of grace. "I forgive you, Zora. Even though you hate me, I still love you. That's why I'm letting you save me."

"See?" my father said, nodding at the elders. "Laila has the heart of a true Luna. Zora has finally learned her place."

"Good," Simon said. He looked at me with pure disdain. "Get her out of my sight. The surgery starts in ten minutes."

He turned his back on me to hug Laila.

I lay on the floor for a moment, too weak to move. The Mind-Link was buzzing with the collective thoughts of the pack.

*Did you hear her admit it?*

*Disgusting.*

*She deserves to die.*

I closed my eyes, blocking them out.

Laila leaned down, pretending to help me up. Her lips brushed my ear.

"You know," she whispered, her voice like silk wrapped around a razor blade. "Even the Moon Goddess has abandoned you. Simon is mine. He was always mine. And now, your life is mine too."

I pulled away from her, using the wall to stand. I didn't say a word. There were no words left. I just turned and walked toward the operating theater.