My Alpha Credited My Work to His Dead Mate

The rejection fever burned through me like wildfire, turning my bones to ash. Three days. It had been three days since Cullen tore our bond apart, three days of shivering on a cot that smelled of mildew and despair. The scullery maids whispered outside my door, their voices low and pitying, but no one dared enter. Cullen had made it clear: I was insane. I was broken. I was nothing.

From the cracks in the floorboards above, I could hear the thrum of heavy footsteps and the murmur of powerful voices. The summit. The Alpha’s Gala. They were celebrating the alliance, toasting to *my* designs, while I rotted in the dark.

I curled tighter around my sketchbook, the spiral binding digging into my ribs. It was the only proof I had left. The graphite smudges on the pages were fading, just like me.

Suddenly, a silence fell over the house, heavy and oppressive. It wasn't the quiet of peace; it was the silence of a predator entering a room. The air grew thick, charged with static electricity that made the hair on my arms stand up. A scent drifted down the ventilation shaft—pine, rain, and something dark, like crushed obsidian. It was terrifying. It was intoxicating.

***

Upstairs, in the grand hall, Alpha Evander Holmes stood before the easel. He was a mountain of a man, his presence swallowing the light in the room. He didn't look at the champagne or the smiling dignitaries. His gaze was fixed on the blueprints.

"Remarkable work, isn't it?" Cullen preened, swirling his glass. "Sofia's spirit truly guides us."

Evander didn't answer. He leaned in, his nostrils flaring slightly. He didn't smell the expensive cologne Cullen bathed in, nor the floral perfume of the Blood Moon delegates. He smelled graphite. He smelled old paper. And beneath it all, faint but undeniable, was the scent of vanilla and sheer, unadulterated terror.

It was the scent of an Omega in distress. It was the scent of a mate.

His wolf, Shadow, slammed against his ribcage, a feral beast waking from a long slumber. *Found her. Found. MINE.*

Evander turned slowly, his eyes flashing a lethal silver. "This paper," he rumbled, his voice vibrating through the floorboards, "it does not smell of a dead woman."

Cullen faltered, his smile twitching. "I... excuse me?"

"It smells of fear," Evander snarled. Without another word, he turned his back on the future Alpha and marched toward the servants' stairwell.

"Alpha Holmes! You cannot go down there! That is restricted—" Cullen’s protest died in his throat as Evander released a wave of Alpha aura so potent it cracked the champagne flute in Cullen's hand.

***

I heard the door at the top of the stairs crash open. Heavy boots descended, shaking the dust from the ceiling. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Was Cullen coming to finish me off? To throw me out into the rogue lands now that the summit was over?

I tried to scramble backward, pressing myself into the damp corner of the room, clutching the sketchbook to my chest like a shield.

The footsteps stopped outside my door. The wood groaned.

Then, with a sound like a gunshot, the door was ripped off its hinges. Splinters flew across the room, and a figure filled the doorway. He was massive, dressed in a black suit that strained against his shoulders, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, beautiful silver light.

He didn't look at the mold on the walls or the stained cot. He looked at me.

"Found you," he breathed.

The scent of pine and rain flooded the tiny room, washing away the smell of bleach and sickness. For the first time in days, the burning in my veins cooled, replaced by a strange, soothing hum. My wolf—the one Cullen said didn't exist—stirred deep within me, whimpering a single word: *Mate.*

"Get away from her!" Cullen’s voice shrieked from the hallway. He appeared behind the dark stranger, flanked by two guards. "This is my territory, Holmes! That is a defective Omega! She's sick!"

Evander didn't even turn around. He crossed the room in two strides, dropping to his knees beside my cot. He was so large he made the room feel like a shoebox, yet his hands, when they reached for me, were trembling.

"Did he do this to you?" Evander asked, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in my chest. He touched my cheek, his fingers brushing away a tear I didn't know had fallen.

I couldn't speak. I could only nod, shoving the sketchbook toward him. *See me. Please, just see me.*

He looked down at the drawing—the chaotic, desperate sketch of the fortress, identical to the one upstairs but stained with my tears. A growl started deep in his chest, a sound so primal it made the glass in the single window rattle.

"She is insane!" Cullen yelled, stepping into the room. "She thinks she's an architect! She's nothing but a—"

Evander stood up, pulling me with him. He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, tucking my head under his chin, shielding me from the world with his broad chest. The heat radiating from him was a furnace, burning away the cold that had settled in my bones.

He turned to Cullen, and the look on his face promised murder.

"She is rejected," Evander said, his voice deadly calm. "I can smell the severance on her. You broke a bond, boy."

Cullen paled, stumbling back. "I... she... she has no wolf!"

"She has *me*," Evander roared, the sound exploding through the small room. The guards dropped to their knees, whining in submission under the crushing weight of his power.

Evander tightened his hold on me, his nose burying into my hair, inhaling deeply. "Mine," he growled, the word echoing with the finality of a judge's gavel. "She is mine now."

He walked past a terrified Cullen, stepping over the broken door. As we ascended the stairs, leaving the darkness of the scullery behind, I rested my head against his shoulder. For the first time in five years, I didn't feel like a servant. I didn't feel like a ghost.

I felt found.