After My Alpha Replaced Me with My Sister, I Burned Everything

The world was a blur of gray rain and black tires. I didn't fight when my father’s private security dragged me from the marble floor of the Hayes estate. I didn't scream when they shoved me into the back of a black van with tinted windows. I was hollowed out, a shell of a woman whose soul had been washed down a bathroom drain.

My father, Abram, sat in the front seat, refusing to look at me. Beside me, Indigo applied a fresh coat of lipstick in a compact mirror, humming a tune that sounded disturbingly like the lullaby from my shattered music box.

We arrived at a wrought-iron gate deep in the woods of upstate New York. The sign was rusted, barely legible: *Blackwood Psychiatric Institute*. It didn't look like a hospital. It looked like a prison for the damned.

Inside, the air smelled of bleach and decay. I was marched into an office where a thin man with watery eyes and a smile that didn't reach them sat behind a mahogany desk.

"Dr. Reeves," my father said, his voice devoid of any paternal warmth. "This is the girl. She's... hysterical. Delusional. Violent toward her family."

"I see," Dr. Reeves said, his gaze sliding over me like a slimy touch. He didn't ask for my side of the story. He didn't ask about the bruises blooming on my ribs or the cut on my cheek. He just looked at the thick envelope Abram slid across the desk.

"She needs total isolation," Indigo interjected, leaning forward. "She's a danger to herself. And to the reputation of the Evans pack. No visitors, unless authorized by me. No phone calls. She doesn't exist."

Dr. Reeves thumbed the edge of the envelope. "Standard protocol for severe cases, Miss Hayes. We can accommodate that."

"Dad?" I whispered, the word scraping my raw throat. "Please."

Abram stood up, smoothing his suit jacket. He looked at the wall, at the floor, anywhere but at me. "It's for your own good, Wren. You're sick."

He walked out. He left his daughter in a room with monsters and didn't look back once.

Two orderlies grabbed my arms. I tried to pull away, a spark of panic finally piercing through my grief, but I was weak, starving, and beaten. They dragged me down a long, flickering hallway and threw me into a room that was entirely white. White padded walls, white floor, a cot bolted to the ground.

Before I could stand, Dr. Reeves entered with a syringe.

"Just a little something to help you adjust," he murmured.

The needle pierced my neck. Fire rushed through my veins, followed immediately by a heavy, suffocating ice. My limbs turned to lead. My thoughts, which had been screaming, slowed to a thick sludge. I slumped onto the cot, unable to lift a finger, trapped in my own body.

Time lost its meaning. It could have been days or weeks. I floated in a chemical haze, woken only for forced feedings and more injections. The silence was absolute, broken only by the sound of my own shallow breathing.

Then, the door opened.

The click of heels on the linoleum floor was sharp and rhythmic. I knew that sound. Even through the fog of sedatives, my heart hammered a warning against my ribs.

Indigo stood over me. She looked radiant, glowing with the vitality of a life stolen from me. She wrinkled her nose as she looked down at my unwashed hair and hospital gown.

"Look at you," she sneered, her voice echoing in the small room. "The great Luna Wren. You look like a corpse."

I tried to speak, but my tongue felt too large for my mouth. A low moan was all I could manage.

"Save your breath," she said, walking around the cot like a predator circling wounded prey. "Holden hasn't asked about you once. He thinks you're in a spa in the Swiss Alps, getting treatment for your 'nerves.' He's been quite... distracted. Being with a real woman keeps him busy."

She stopped at the foot of the bed, her expression darkening. "But I can't take any chances, can I? Holden has a soft spot for broken things. If you ever managed to crawl back to him, he might pity you. He might remember the bond."

She snapped her fingers.

Three men stepped into the room. They weren't doctors. They wore the uniforms of the facility's guards, but their eyes held a dark, predatory glint that had nothing to do with medicine. They smelled of stale tobacco and unwashed bodies.

"Dr. Reeves has been paid very handsomely to look the other way for the next hour," Indigo said, her voice dropping to a cruel whisper. "And these gentlemen have been paid to ensure that when you leave this room—if you ever leave—you will be nothing but a ruined, empty vessel."

Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the drugs. I tried to thrash, to scream, but my body refused to obey. I could only stare up at her in wide-eyed horror.

"A Luna must be pure," Indigo said, leaning down so her face was inches from mine. "She must be worthy. By the time they're done with you, Wren, you'll be so defiled that even a rogue wouldn't touch you. Holden will smell the filth on you and reject you on the spot."

She straightened up and smoothed her dress. "Have fun, boys. Make sure she remembers it."

Indigo turned and walked out, the heavy steel door clicking shut behind her, but not locking.

The three men approached the cot. The largest one unbuckled his belt, a heavy, metallic sound that rang like a death knell in the small white room.

I tried to scream, to beg the Moon Goddess for mercy, but the sedatives held me paralyzed, a silent prisoner in my own skin, as the shadows closed in.