My Alpha’s Scent Was My Dead Mate’s

The rain came down in sheets, turning the alley into a river of mud and refuse. I pressed my back against the cold brick wall, watching the three mid-ranking wolves circle closer. Delta warriors, probably. The kind who needed someone beneath them to remember they weren't at the bottom.

"Still wearing black, Omega?" The tallest one—I didn't know his name, didn't care to—tilted his head with mock sympathy. "Francis has been dead for what, two years now? Three?"

"Two years, four months," another one supplied helpfully. "Pathetic, really. Mourning a mate who probably would've rejected you anyway once he came to his senses."

I said nothing. I'd learned that silence was armor. Words were just openings they could wedge wider.

The tall one took another step forward. "You know what I heard? I heard he was already looking at other she-wolves before he died. Luna candidates. Wolves with actual—"

The massive shape that exploded from the shadows cut his sentence in half.

I didn't process what I was seeing at first—just size, speed, violence. A rogue wolf, easily two meters in length, slammed into the tall Delta with enough force to send him sprawling into the alley's far wall. The other two scattered like leaves, their bravado evaporating into the rain-soaked night. They didn't even look back.

The rogue stood there for a moment, sides heaving, and then his legs gave out. He collapsed onto the muddy ground with a sound that was half-growl, half-whimper.

I should have run. Every instinct I'd been taught said run, call for the pack, let someone higher-ranked handle the rogue threat. But I didn't run.

Because when the wind shifted, I caught his scent.

Cedar. Rain-soaked earth. The warm, magnetic pull of something I'd spent two years, four months trying to forget.

Francis.

No. Not Francis. Francis was dead. I'd seen his body. I'd pressed my palm to his chest and felt nothing, no heartbeat, no warmth, nothing.

But this scent—

I moved before I could stop myself, dropping to my knees in the mud beside the rogue. Up close, I could see the extent of his injuries: deep gashes across his ribs, a badly torn shoulder, blood matting his dark fur. His breathing was shallow and irregular.

His eyes cracked open—amber, not Francis's green—and found mine. There was no recognition in them. No awareness beyond pain and exhaustion.

"You're an idiot," I whispered to him, to myself, to the ghost I couldn't let go of. "And I'm a bigger one."

It took me forty minutes to drag him to my quarters. The Omega cabin sat at the edge of pack territory, isolated enough that no one would notice if I was quiet. I was always quiet.

Sera Holt arrived within the hour. I'd sent her a single text—*need help, urgent, no questions*—and she'd come. That was Sera. Mid-ranking healer with more sense than ambition, and the closest thing I had to a friend in this pack.

She took one look at the unconscious rogue on my floor and went very still.

"Kylee."

"I know."

"This is—"

"I know." I pressed my fingers to the inside of my wrist, hard enough to leave marks. "Can you help him or not?"

Sera was quiet for a long moment, then she knelt and opened her healer's kit. "His aura," she said softly, hands already moving over his wounds with practiced efficiency. "It's... similar."

I didn't ask to what. She didn't say.

We worked in silence, cleaning wounds, applying salves, wrapping torn muscle. When his breathing finally steadied and the worst of the bleeding stopped, Sera sat back on her heels.

"He'll live," she said. "But Kylee, if anyone finds out you're harboring a rogue—"

"No one will find out."

Sera studied me for a moment, then nodded slowly. She gathered her supplies and stood. At the door, she paused. "That scent. I know you smell it too."

I said nothing.

"Be careful," she said, and left.

The rogue—I couldn't keep calling him that, even in my head—woke three days later. I was changing the bandages on his shoulder when his eyes opened, amber and unfocused.

"Where..." His voice was rough, unused.

"Safe," I said quietly. "You're safe."

He tried to sit up, winced, fell back. "Who... who am I?"

The question hung in the air between us. I should have been alarmed. Amnesia was serious, dangerous. I should have called Sera back, should have reported this to someone higher-ranked.

Instead, I looked at this wolf who smelled like my dead mate and remembered nothing, and I made a choice I knew I'd regret.

"Miles," I said softly. "Your name is Miles."

He tested the name silently, lips forming the word. Then he looked at me with those amber eyes—not Francis's eyes, never Francis's eyes—and said, "And who are you?"

"Kylee." I finished wrapping the bandage, my hands steady even though nothing else was. "I'm Kylee."

From somewhere outside, beyond the cabin's small window, I thought I caught movement in the tree line. But when I looked, there was nothing there. Just shadows and rain and the weight of choices I couldn't take back.