After My Alpha Chose the Rogue She-Wolf

The training grounds needed scrubbing before dawn. That was my new reality.

I dragged the heavy bucket across the dirt, water sloshing over the rim and soaking into my boots. The sky was still black. No one else was awake yet. Just me and the cold and the smell of sweat baked into the ground from yesterday's drills.

I knelt and started scrubbing. The brush was old, bristles worn down to nubs. It took twice as long to get anything clean. My knees ached. My hands were already raw from yesterday's kitchen rotation.

I didn't stop.

By the time the sun crept over the horizon, I'd finished half the grounds. My back screamed. I ignored it. I hauled the bucket to the supply shed, dumped the dirty water, refilled it from the well, and started on the obstacle course platforms.

That's when I heard her laugh.

Soft. Musical. Honeysuckle drifting on the morning air like poison.

I looked up. Saylor was walking across the upper terrace with Grayson. His hand rested on the small of her back. She leaned into him slightly, her head tilted up toward his face. She said something I couldn't hear. He smiled.

My bond mark pulsed. Cold. Dead. A phantom ache in a place that no longer existed.

I looked back down at the platform and kept scrubbing.

By midday, I was hauling supply crates from the storage building to the pack kitchen. Each crate weighed at least forty pounds. I carried six. My arms shook. Sweat dripped into my eyes.

Inside the kitchen, the Omegas were prepping for dinner. I set the last crate down and turned to leave.

"Vivian."

I stopped. One of the kitchen Omegas—Carla, I think her name was—stood near the sink with a bucket of wash water. She had a smirk on her face.

"You missed a spot," she said, and tipped the bucket.

Water flooded across the floor I'd just mopped an hour ago. Dirty, soapy water spreading in every direction.

The other Omegas laughed.

I stood there. Water soaking into my boots again. My hands still aching from the crates.

Carla crossed her arms. "Better get to it. Dinner's in two hours."

I walked to the supply closet. Got the mop. Wrung it out. Started again.

No one helped.

I kept my face blank. My hands steady. But inside my head, I was counting. Carla. The two Omegas by the prep table. The Delta who'd sneered at me yesterday. I was building a list.

Not for revenge. For memory.

Because when you're at the bottom, the only thing you own is what you remember.

That evening, Saylor appeared at dinner on Grayson's arm.

She wore a soft blue dress that made her look delicate. Breakable. Her hair was pulled back loosely, a few strands framing her face. She smiled at the pack members who greeted her. Shy. Grateful.

I was in the corner, refilling water pitchers.

Her honeysuckle scent filled the dining hall. It clung to everything. The walls. The air. Grayson's skin.

I watched her move through the room. She touched Grayson's arm lightly when she spoke to him. She laughed at something Beta Elena said. She looked down when too many wolves stared at her, like she was overwhelmed by the attention.

Perfect performance.

But I noticed something.

When she passed the pack healer's table, her smile tightened. Just for a second. The healer looked up, started to say something, and Saylor turned away quickly, murmuring something to Grayson about needing air.

He guided her toward the terrace door immediately.

I refilled another pitcher. Set it down. Picked up the next one.

That was the second time Saylor had avoided the healer this week.

Rogues seeking pack protection always submitted to intake examination. Always. It was protocol. The healer checked for injuries, illness, anything that might affect the pack's safety.

Saylor had deflected twice.

I filed that detail next to the others I'd been collecting. Her scent—too uniform, too consistent, like it had been designed rather than born. The way she looked at me sometimes, not with jealousy but with calculation, like she was checking whether I'd found something yet.

And the biggest detail: she had appeared exactly three weeks before the Mate Ceremony. Exactly the right timing to disrupt the bond without giving me time to fight back.

Too precise. Too clean.

I finished the water pitchers and returned to the kitchen. Scrubbed the last of the pots. Wiped down the counters. My hands were bleeding again, small cracks in the skin from the harsh soap.

I wrapped them in cloth and went back to my basement room.

Six feet by eight feet. No window. Mildew smell.

I sat on the bed and pulled out the small notebook I'd kept hidden under the mattress. I wrote down everything I'd noticed today. Saylor avoiding the healer. The way her scent layered too perfectly. The timing.

Then I counted the coins I'd been saving from my Omega stipend. Three weeks of hoarded pennies. Barely enough.

But it would have to be.

I met Roane at the eastern boundary marker at dawn.

The gate rotation changed every hour. I had a twelve-minute window when the guard's attention shifted to the northern perimeter. I slipped out through the gap in the fence I'd found two days ago and walked to the marker.

Roane was already there. Tall. Scarred. He didn't belong to any pack. He didn't answer to anyone.

He looked at me without expression. "You got it?"

I handed him the sealed vial. Inside was a cloth sample I'd scraped from Saylor's laundry—honeysuckle scent concentrated enough for a tracker to work with.

"Find out who she really is," I said. "Where she came from. Who she's connected to."

Roane held the vial up to the early light. Studied it. Then he named his price.

I pulled the coins from my pocket. Every last one. Three weeks of Omega stipend. It wasn't much.

But Roane took it.

"Two weeks," he said. "Maybe less. I'll leave the report at the eastern marker. Same time. Don't come looking for me."

He turned and disappeared into the trees.

I stood there for a moment. The sky was turning grey. I had four minutes to get back before the guard rotation completed.

I slipped through the fence gap and walked back to the pack house. My bond mark pulsed once—cold, phantom, meaningless.

But inside my chest, where my wolf used to be, something stirred.

Not a howl. Not a whimper.

Just a slow, deliberate waking.

I pressed my thumb against my wrist and kept walking.