The Alpha King’s Forbidden Mate

— Sera —

The room Zane had found me was on the third floor of a building I'd walked past a hundred times without ever noticing. According to him, the Academy set aside units for students in difficult circumstances — temporary housing, no questions asked.

I'd been at Silverclaw for two years and had no idea this existed.

Then again, I probably shouldn't have been surprised. Werewolf society didn't advertise its safety nets. Safety nets implied weakness, and weakness was something you were supposed to hide or overcome on your own. I'd known that since I was old enough to understand why the other pack kids didn't play with me.

But I also knew that sometimes the smartest thing you could do was accept a roof without asking too many questions about who built it.

I had a pup now.

That changed the math on everything.

I was sitting on the bed with my laptop open, scrolling through job postings, when the knock came.

Zane. Again. This time with a paper bag from the Thai place two blocks from campus and two bottles of water held against his chest with his forearm like he'd run out of hands.

I looked at him through the half-open door.

"You don't have to keep doing this," I said.

"I know." He held up the bag. "You like pad see ew?"

I stepped back and let him in.

We ate in silence for a few minutes. He sat in the chair by the window, I sat on the bed with the container balanced on my knee, and outside the campus went about its business like nothing had happened.

Like I hadn't spent the morning on a kitchen floor in lingerie crying about a man who'd just paid me eighty thousand dollars to remind me I was nothing to him.

I set down my fork.

"Why are you here, Zane?"

He looked up.

"You paid the hospital bill," I said. "You apologized. You found me a place to stay. That was already more than you owed me. So why do you keep showing up?"

He was quiet for a moment. Set his own container down on the windowsill.

Then he said, "I knew you. Years ago."

I stared at him. "We've never met."

"Not in person." He looked almost uncomfortable. Which was strange on a guy who looked like he'd been carved out of something solid. "I saw a photo of you. In my father's things."

"Your father."

"He has a pocket watch. Old one. He keeps a photo inside." Zane's jaw tightened slightly. "I was maybe eight years old. I found it and opened it — just curious, the way kids are. He came in and saw me and I spent two days in the basement for it."

I said nothing.

"He wasn't usually like that," Zane added, not quite defending and not quite explaining. "Not with me. But that watch — he's never let anyone near it. My mother threw it at him once, during a fight. He caught it before it hit the wall. That's the only time I ever saw him move that fast over an object." A short pause. "My mother left when I was sixteen. Told him on his fortieth birthday that she'd been seeing someone else. Just — announced it. And walked out." He almost smiled. Not happily. "He didn't rage. Didn't chase her. Just let her go. Like he'd been waiting for permission to be alone."

I watched him.

"The photo in the watch," I said slowly. "What did she look like?"

"Like you," he said simply. "That's why I was scared when I saw you at the hospital. For a second I thought —" He stopped. "I don't know what I thought."

I thought about my mother. A woman I knew mostly from a small framed photo and the smell of the soap she used to buy. She'd left my father's pack when I was four. Or been made to leave. I'd never been sure which, and my father had never offered an explanation.

I wasn't going to say any of that out loud.

"I've never met your father," I said. "And I've never been outside this pack or Silverclaw."

"I know. It just —" He ran a hand through his hair. "It threw me. Seeing you."

"Which pack are you from?" I asked.

He hesitated. "A small one. Northern territory. You probably haven't heard of it."

I looked at him for a long moment.

"You're a terrible liar," I said. "If you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But don't make things up. I've had enough of that this week."

He had the decency to look caught.

"Some things are complicated," he said. "If it got out — it would create problems. Not for me. For you."

I considered that.

"Fine," I said. "So you're helping me because of an old photograph, and some feeling you can't explain, and something you won't explain."

"Yes and no." He picked his container back up, like having something to do with his hands helped. "You make me feel — I don't know. Like I should be better than I usually am."

"Stop." I held up a hand. "Stop right there."

He blinked.

"I don't do this," I said. "Whatever this is — mysterious feelings, special connections, unexplainable pull — I don't do it. I tried that once. I know exactly where it ends." I looked at him directly. "So if that's why you're here, you should leave now. I'm not being cruel. I'm being honest."

He opened his mouth.

"Don't," I said.

He closed it.

He stood up. Six feet something of Alpha, filling the small room, and he looked — for just a second — genuinely lost. Like he'd prepared for every response except this one.

Then his eyes went to my laptop on the bed. The job board still open on the screen.

"You're looking for work," he said.

"That's what people do when they need money."

"The emergency medical center," he said. "The one under the Board Secretary's office. They're taking on healer interns. Good hours, good pay, flexible enough to work around your classes."

I said nothing.

"I can write you a recommendation," he said.

"Why would your recommendation mean anything to a medical center?"

He paused just a fraction of a second too long. "I know people on the board."

Liar, I thought. But an oddly earnest one.

I looked at my laptop. Then at my stomach, still flat, nothing showing yet. Then at the paper bag from the Thai place that he'd shown up with without being asked.

I reached over and started pushing him toward the door.

"Hey —"

"Think about the pup," he said — slightly desperate now, one hand braced against the doorframe. His eyes were very wide. On a man that size, it was almost funny.

I stopped pushing.

He looked at me. Big and awkward and weirdly earnest, blocking my doorway like a very large, poorly trained dog that had decided to be loyal to the wrong person.

I laughed.

It surprised both of us.

"Fine," I said. "Write the letter. I'll go to the interview."

"Great." He straightened up fast, like he was afraid I'd change my mind. "I'll send it today. And Sera —" He paused at the door. "When you start — don't go above the top floor of the Violet Tower. That section isn't open to staff."

"Why?"

He was already in the hallway. "Just don't."

The door clicked shut.

I stood in the middle of my borrowed room, laughing a little, which was strange because nothing was funny.

But it was better than the alternative.

* * *

— Caelum —

"Sir."

My assistant appeared in the doorway at exactly seven-forty-five, as she did every morning. I didn't look up from the briefing on my desk.

"Alpha Zane has sent a request," she said. "He's asking whether the emergency center can open an intern position — healer track. He's submitting a candidate."

I turned a page.

"Name?"

"Lane. Sera Lane. Second-year student, top of her cohort in applied healing."

I was quiet for a moment.

"Approve it," I said.

"Yes, sir. And the salary tier?"

"Senior rate."

A pause. That was unusual for an intern position, and she knew it. To her credit, she didn't ask.

"Yes, sir."

She left.

I looked out the window at the Violet Tower across the courtyard. Thirty-two floors of administrative offices, medical facilities, research labs. The top three floors were mine — private, sealed, not on any public map of the building.

I'd told Zane to keep her away from the upper floors.

He'd done exactly that.

Good.

The less she knew about who had arranged her placement, the better.

For both of us.