The Lycan Alpha's Forgotten Mate

Anais POV

Pain. It was the first thing that registered-a dull, throbbing ache that radiated from my hips down to my toes. The second was the scent. It wasn't the mildew and stale soap of my small room in the Omega quarters. It was rich, overpowering-like crushed mint leaves buried under heavy snow.

Alpha.

My eyes snapped open. Instead of my peeling ceiling, I was staring at vaulted architecture and a crystal chandelier catching the morning light. I tried to sit up, but the silk sheets tangled around my bare legs.

Bare. I was completely naked.

Panic clawed at my throat. I turned my head, and the scream died instantly, frozen by pure, primal terror.

Sleeping inches from me, face buried in a black pillow, was Dimitri Barrett. The Alpha heir. The man rumored to have Lycan blood running through his veins.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Being in the Alpha's suite was forbidden for a wolfless Omega like me. Being in his bed was a death sentence.

I scrambled backward, desperate to put distance between us. As my hand clutched the sheet, a flash of silver caught my eye. A ring. A heavy, intricate band set with a glowing moonstone sat on my finger. It hadn't been there yesterday.

"D.B.," I whispered, reading the initials engraved on the metal.

Suddenly, the air in the room grew heavy, suffocatingly dense. The temperature plummeted.

Dimitri's eyes opened. They weren't just blue; they were the color of glacial ice, and right now, they were burning with a murderous confusion.

"Who are you?"

The voice wasn't just sound; it was power. The Alpha's Command slammed into me, paralyzing my muscles. I opened my mouth to answer, but only a whimper came out. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

Dimitri sat up, the sheet falling to his waist, revealing a chest sculpted by war and violence. His gaze fell on my hand, then to his own. He was wearing a matching ring.

His face twisted in horror. He reached out and grabbed my wrist.

Zap.

A jolt of electricity, hot and sharp, shot up my arm the moment his skin touched mine. It wasn't static; it was the Mate Spark. My breath hitched, and for a second, the fear vanished, replaced by a dizzying sense of belonging.

But Dimitri didn't look like he belonged. He looked like he wanted to kill something.

"Don't touch me!" he roared, his voice laced with a trauma I didn't understand. He shoved me, hard.

I flew off the high mattress, hitting the cold hardwood floor with a painful thud. Tears blurred my vision as I curled into a ball, trying to hide my nakedness.

"Stay," he commanded, his chest heaving.

Dimitri POV

Mine! Mate! Why did you hurt her?

Ragnar, my inner Lycan, was thrashing against the walls of my mind, his roar deafening. I ignored the beast, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. My head felt like it had been split open with an axe.

Why was there a woman in my bed? Why did she smell like rain-washed lilies-a scent that made my mouth water and my stomach churn simultaneously?

"Dimitri."

The Mind-Link sliced through my skull. It was Bryson.

"Where the hell are you? The Elders are pacing. Father's memorial started twenty minutes ago."

I froze. Memorial?

I searched my memory, grasping for the events of last night, for the funeral preparations, but there was nothing. Just a black void. I had missed it. I had missed the most important ceremony of the Pack.

"I'm coming," I snapped, severing the link.

I looked down at the bed. On the pristine black sheets, a single, stark smear of crimson blood glared back at me.

The air left my lungs. I had broken my one rule. I never touched women. I never let them close enough to trigger the memories of my mother. But that blood... I had taken her. I had claimed a wolfless Omega.

Revulsion coiled in my gut-not at her, but at myself.

I looked down at the girl shivering on the floor. She was pathetic. Weak. A liability.

"Get out," I snarled.

She flinched, her large brown eyes filled with tears. "I... I don't have any clothes, Alpha."

I didn't care. I just needed her scent gone. I Mind-Linked a guard. "Bring a set of Omega rags to my suite. Now."

Minutes later, I kicked the bag of cheap clothes toward her. "Put them on. If you are still here when I step out of the shower, I will hunt you down."

The armored SUV tore down the asphalt, the engine growling in sync with my mood. The rain had started, turning the world grey and miserable.

You abandoned her, Ragnar growled, pacing in the back of my mind. She is ours. Go back.

"Shut up," I muttered, gripping the steering wheel until the leather creaked. "She is a mistake. A blank spot in my memory."

We passed the boundary line, the stretch of road connecting the Pack lands to the human town.

Then I saw her.

She was walking on the shoulder of the road, barefoot. The grey dress hung loosely on her small frame, soaked through by the freezing rain. She was hugging herself, stumbling over the gravel.

Something in my chest snapped.

It wasn't affection. It was a dark, twisting possession. She was wearing my ring. She carried my scent. And she was out here, exposed, like trash thrown to the curb.

I slammed on the brakes. The SUV screeched to a halt, blocking her path.

Anais froze. When she saw the black car, terror washed over her face, and she turned to run toward the woods.

"Get her," I ordered.

My warrior, Marcus, didn't hesitate. He jumped out, intercepting her easily. She screamed-a raw, desperate sound that grated on my nerves-as he dragged her back and shoved her into the backseat next to me.

The door slammed shut, locking us in.

She pressed herself against the door, shivering violently, smelling of fear and lilies.

I leaned in, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper that vibrated with the Command.

"When I give you an order, you obey."

She looked at me, trembling, trapped in the gaze of a predator she couldn't escape. Good. Fear was better than the sparks. Fear I could control.

Anais POV

The black SUV had vanished into the rain, leaving me shivering on the cracked pavement of the Omega sector. Marcus, the Alpha's warrior, had dumped me here with a warning glare that promised violence if I spoke a word of what happened.

I stumbled toward the small, peeling door of my home. My legs felt like lead, weighed down not just by exhaustion, but by the lingering, electric hum of his touch.

I pushed the door open. The familiar scent of lavender soap and dried herbs usually brought me comfort, but today, it felt suffocating.

My mother, Amber, was pacing the small living room. Her head snapped up the moment I entered. Relief washed over her face, instantly replaced by a look of sheer horror as her nose twitched.

"Anais?" She rushed forward, grabbing my shoulders. Her grip was bruising. "Where have you been? I've been calling-" She stopped, her eyes widening as she inhaled sharply. "By the Goddess. You smell like... like winter. Like him."

She recoiled as if I were radioactive. The scent of the Alpha heir-crushed mint and ice-was clinging to every pore of my skin, overpowering the damp wool of the cheap grey dress Dimitri had thrown at me.

"Mom, I..." My voice cracked. I didn't know where to start. The white room. The blood. The amnesia.

"Did he hurt you?" Her voice rose to a frantic pitch. "Did Alpha Dimitri force you?"

"No! I mean... I don't remember!" I cried, wringing my hands.

That was when the light from the hallway bulb caught it. The moonstone ring.

Amber froze. She snatched my hand, staring at the heavy silver band engraved with the Alpha's initials. Her face went the color of ash.

"Take it off," she hissed, clawing at my finger.

"I can't! It won't move!" I pulled back, tears streaming down my face.

"Do you know what this means?" Amber whispered, terror trembling in her voice. "If the Pack sees a wolfless Omega wearing the Alpha heir's ring... they won't just kill you, Anais. They will make an example of us. We are invisible. We are supposed to be nothing."

"I didn't ask for this!" I screamed, the panic finally shattering my composure. I ripped my hand from her grasp and bolted for my room, slamming the door and locking it.

I slid down against the wood, clutching my chest. The ring pulsed on my finger, warm and heavy, a shackle binding me to a monster I couldn't remember meeting.

Beatrice POV

The steady beep... beep... beep of the heart monitor was the only music I needed.

I stood over the withered form of Alpha Grafton Barrett. The man who had once commanded armies was now reduced to a husk, his skin grey and papery.

"You held on longer than I expected, my love," I whispered, smoothing a stray hair from his forehead. My voice was soft, the picture of a grieving Luna, but my eyes were dry.

I leaned down, my lips brushing his ear. "You thought you could give the Pack to that stray? To Dimitri?"

Grafton's eyelids fluttered, but he was too weak to wake. The silver tincture I'd been slipping into his evening tea for the past year had done its work beautifully. It was a slow, agonizing rot from the inside out.

"Bryson will be Alpha," I promised him, a cruel smile curving my lips. "And your precious Dimitri? I have a special surprise for him. The Elders will never accept a wolfless Omega as Luna. Your precious Lycan's bond with that trash is a mockery to the Moon Goddess. It will be his undoing, my love. I will make sure of it."

The door handle turned. I straightened instantly, my face falling into a mask of tragic devastation just as the door burst open.

Dimitri POV

The smell of death hit me before I even crossed the threshold. It was a cloying, metallic stench that made Ragnar, my inner Lycan, howl in grief.

"Father!"

I rushed to the bedside, Bryson right on my heels. Alpha Grafton was convulsing, his body arching off the mattress as the machines screamed a flatline warning.

"Do something!" I roared at the Pack Doctor.

"We can't, Alpha! His heart-it's giving out!" the doctor shouted, his hands glowing with healing magic that fizzled and died against Grafton's skin.

I grabbed my father's hand. It was cold. So cold.

"Dimitri..." Grafton gasped, his eyes flying open. They were milky, unfocused. He looked at me, desperate to speak, but a violent cough tore through him, spraying dark, almost black blood onto the white sheets.

And then, he was gone. The machine let out a long, singular tone that signaled the end of an era.

"No," I whispered. The silence in the room was deafening.

Beatrice let out a wail and collapsed onto Bryson's chest. My brother held her, his face twisted in sorrow, but his scent... his scent was steady. Too steady.

"How did this happen?" I demanded, turning on the doctor. The Alpha's Command rolled off me, shaking the glass vials on the shelves. "He was strong. He was an Alpha!"

Bryson stepped forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Dimitri, stop. The doctor... he told me last week."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Told you what?"

"Father was sick," Bryson said, his voice thick with unshed tears. "It was a rare condition. Chronic silver poisoning. Someone had been exposing him to it for months, maybe years. He forbade us from telling you. He didn't want you to worry while you were handling the border disputes."

Silver poisoning?

Ragnar snarled in my head. Lies? Or betrayal?

"He kept this from me?" I looked back at the lifeless body of the man who raised me.

"He wanted to protect the Pack from panic," Bryson said smoothly. "He wanted to protect you."

I stared at my father's black blood. Silver poisoning wasn't an illness; it was murder. An inside job.

Grief hardened into something cold and sharp in my chest. I had woken up with no memory, mated to a wolfless nobody, and now my father was dead from a secret poison.

The walls were closing in. And I didn't know who held the knife.

Dimitri POV

The mourning ceremony was a blur of black veils and hollow condolences, but my mind was miles away, locked in the cold silence of my private study.

The revelation of the silver poisoning had planted a seed of madness in my brain. Murder. My father had been murdered, and somehow, my memory loss was the key.

I poured a glass of whiskey but didn't drink it. Instead, I stared into the amber liquid, forcing my mind back to the night before I woke up in that bed with the girl. The fog in my head was thick, unnatural.

Think, Dimitri.

A flash of memory pierced through. My father's private quarters. The fire crackling. He had handed me a crystal goblet.

"Drink, my son," Grafton had said, his voice raspy but firm. "It is holy water from the Moon Goddess's spring. To strengthen the bloodline. To prepare you."

His eyes... they hadn't been proud. They had been apologetic.

I slammed the whiskey glass down, shattering it. The shards bit into my palm, but I didn't feel it. He had drugged me. My own father had drugged me to ensure I would... what? Sleep with a wolfless Omega?

Why? Ragnar, my inner Lycan, paced restlessly in the back of my mind. Pack. Protection. Mate.

"Lies," I hissed.

I needed proof.

I waited until the moon was high and the Pack House was silent with grief. The door to my father's study was sealed with the Elders' yellow tape, forbidden to everyone until the official reading of the will.

I didn't care. I ripped the tape and kicked the door open.

The room smelled like him-aged oak, tobacco, and the underlying metallic tang of the sickness that took him. I tore through his desk, tossing papers aside, until my fingers brushed against a uneven seam in the wood of the bottom drawer. A hidden compartment.

I pried it open with my claws. Inside lay a single scroll made of ancient beast skin, pulsing with a faint, silver light.

I unrolled it, and the air left my lungs.

Sacred Bonding Contract.

The words seemed to burn into my retinas. It was a binding magical agreement, detailing the union of Dimitri Barrett and Anais Moreno. And there, at the bottom, was the jagged, unmistakable signature of Alpha Grafton Barrett, witnessed by the High Elder.

"You planned this," I whispered to the empty room, my voice trembling with a rage so cold it felt like ice. "You sold me. You sold your own son to a wolfless nobody."

I looked at the moonstone ring on my finger-the one I couldn't take off. It wasn't an accident. It was a shackle.

A growl ripped from my throat. I grabbed the parchment, intending to shred it, to burn it, to reject this insanity right here and now.

"I, Dimitri Barrett, reject-"

The words died in my throat. The scroll flared with blinding white light, burning my fingertips. Runes of the Moon Goddess surfaced on the skin, glowing with absolute power.

Protected. The magic whispered in my mind. Irrevocable for one full cycle of the seasons.

I threw the scroll across the room. It hit the wall and rolled shut, mocking me. I couldn't reject her. Not yet.

If I couldn't break the bond, I would break the person who helped tie the knot.

"Bring the Omega girl to the cells. Now." I projected the order through the Mind-Link, my voice booming like thunder in the heads of my warriors.

The dungeons were cold, smelling of rust and old misery.

Anais was strapped to a wooden chair in the center of the interrogation cell. She looked small, pathetic in the harsh light of the torches. Her grey dress was torn, and she was shivering violently.

When I stepped in, the air pressure in the room dropped. My Lycan aura flooded the space, heavy and suffocating.

"D-Dimitri?" she squeaked, her eyes wide with terror.

Ragnar let out a low whine. Mate. Hurt. No.

I shoved the beast down. "That is Alpha to you."

I stalked forward, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at me. Her skin was soft, and a spark of electricity-that damned mate bond-zapped my fingers. I ignored it, leaning in until our noses almost touched.

"Who are you working for?" I snarled, letting the Alpha's Command lace my voice. It wasn't a question; it was a compulsion.

Anais gasped, her pupils dilating as the Command hit her. She tried to pull away, tears spilling over her cheeks. "No one! I don't know what you're talking about!"

"My father is dead," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "He drugged me. He bound me to you with a contract that predates our meeting. You expect me to believe a wolfless Omega just happened to be the beneficiary of the Alpha's greatest betrayal?"

"I don't know!" she screamed, sobbing. "I don't remember anything! I was with my friends... we went to the bar... that's all!"

"What friends?" I tightened my grip on her jaw.

"Ayesha... and Michael," she choked out. "Please... you're hurting me."

Ragnar roared in my head, clawing at my skull. Stop! She is ours!

I released her as if she were burning me. She slumped back against the chair, weeping brokenly.

She was either the greatest actress I had ever seen, or she was truly a pawn. But pawns could still be used to topple kings.

I turned my back on her, walking toward the iron door.

"Rot here until your memory returns," I threw over my shoulder.

"Dimitri, please!" she wailed.

I slammed the heavy door, cutting off her voice, but not her scent. It clung to me, mint and fear, maddeningly addictive.

I pulled out my phone and dialed my Gamma.

"Find Ayesha and Michael," I ordered, staring at the stone wall. "Bring them to me. If she won't talk, maybe her friends will bleed the truth for her."