My Alpha Used Wolfsbane to Steal My Wolf

Three days before the ceremony, I found the collar.

Remington's study door was unlocked—unusual, but not impossible. He'd asked me to retrieve the ceremonial documents from his desk that morning, his tone clipped, distracted. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room smelled like him: dark cedar and smoke, the scent that used to make my heart race. Now it just made my chest tight.

The documents weren't on the desk. I checked the top drawer, then the second. Empty. The bottom drawer was slightly ajar, which was strange—Remington kept everything locked. I pulled it open.

Two collars lay inside, nestled in black velvet.

The first was heavy, silver-lined, engraved along the band in clean script: *Palmer's Bitch.* The interior was darker, stained with something that made my stomach turn. Wolfsbane residue. I knew the smell from the pack healer's locked cabinet—acrid, wrong, the kind of scent that made even human noses itch.

The second collar was delicate, studded with diamonds that caught the morning light. Beautiful. Expensive. Made for someone meant to be displayed.

I stood there holding them, my hands shaking, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Then the mind-link fragment bled through—Remington's voice, lazy and amused, tangled with Hallie's laughter.

*"Three years and she still thinks she's a late bloomer."*

Hallie's voice purred back, syrupy and pleased. *"The dosage is perfect, Alpha. She'll never shift."*

The link cut.

I set the collars down carefully, my hands steadier than they should have been. Three years. Three years of meals I'd cooked myself, of tea Hallie brought me with that sweet smile, of mornings I woke up nauseous and blamed it on stress. Three years of waiting for my wolf to surface, of apologizing to Remington for being broken, of enduring his impatience and his coldness because I thought I was the problem.

I wasn't broken. I was poisoned.

Something in my chest stirred—not a voice, not yet, but a feeling. Heat. Pressure. Rage.

I pulled out my phone and photographed both collars, the engraving clear in the frame. Then I opened the drawer fully and found a small glass vial tucked behind the velvet lining. Wolfsbane powder, fine as dust. I slipped it into my pocket, replaced everything exactly as I'd found it, and walked out.

Back in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the journal I'd kept for three years. Not feelings—I'd learned early that feelings were currency I couldn't afford to waste. Facts. Dates. Exact words.

*October 12th: Remington used Alpha tone in the main hall to make me kneel and clean spilled coffee in front of the pack. Hallie said, "Poor thing. She tries so hard."*

*January 3rd: He gave me a silver chain for my birthday. It burned my skin. He said I was being dramatic.*

*March 20th: Hallie brought me tea. I was sick for two days after.*

I selected three pages—the worst ones—and tore them out carefully. Then I drafted a message on a burner phone I'd bought months ago, back when I still told myself I was being paranoid.

Pierce Coleman. Lycan Prince. The name had been on pack-border intelligence bulletins for weeks, tied to a wolfsbane trafficking investigation. I didn't know him. I didn't know if he'd care. But he was the only option I had.

I coded the message the way the intelligence bulletins suggested—brief, factual, with a location. Then I walked.

The eastern border path was empty at dawn. The air was cold enough to sting my lungs, and the ground was still wet from last night's rain. I reached the dead-drop point—a hollow in the base of an old oak tree—and left the package: photographs, vial, journal pages. Then I turned and walked back.

No one saw me leave. No one saw me return.

This was my first move. I made it without hesitation.

That morning, I moved through the pack house like I always had—quiet, efficient, invisible. But I was cataloguing now. Every face. Every glance. Every cruelty I'd once absorbed as normal.

In the main hall during communal breakfast, I approached Remington with a logistics question about the ceremony. He was seated at the head of the table, Hallie at his right wearing the moonstone pendant I now recognized as the traditional Luna's stone. He didn't look up when I spoke.

"Remington, the florist needs to confirm the—"

He knocked a cup of coffee across the table. Scalding liquid splashed across my forearm, soaking through my sleeve. I didn't flinch. I just stood there, watching him.

He still didn't look at me. He turned to Hallie instead, his voice flat. "Clean it up."

I opened my mouth to respond—and then the Alpha tone hit.

It crashed through my body like a physical weight, locking my joints, forcing my knees to buckle. I couldn't resist. I had no wolf to push back. I sank to the floor, my hands moving without my permission, wiping coffee from the table edge with my sleeve.

Hallie leaned forward, her voice soft and sweet. "Poor thing. She tries so hard."

I memorized every face in that room. Most looked away. A few smirked. But two didn't.

Victor Crane, the Beta, sat three seats down. His jaw was tight, his hands flat on the table. He didn't speak, but he didn't look away either.

Dorian Walsh, the Gamma, stood near the door. He was watching me with something that wasn't cruelty. Something that looked almost like recognition.

I filed both reactions away and finished cleaning. Then I stood, excused myself, and left.

That night, alone in my room at the far end of the pack house, I lay awake and felt it again—the presence I'd dismissed as imagination for three years. It pressed against the inside of my ribs, urgent and insistent.

*Fight. Run. Remember.*

I pressed my thumb against my wrist, the way I always did when I needed to stay still. "I hear you," I whispered into the dark.

The presence surged—barely, painfully—and for the first time in three years, warmth flooded the cold space behind my sternum where my wolf had been screaming in silence.

I closed my eyes and made a decision.

I would not survive tomorrow.

I would win it.