The Alpha's Genius Dud (The White Wolf's Awakening )
Sold for scraps.Saved by a monster. Destined to rule them all.
Faith is a "Dud", a wolfless orphan living in the shadows of the trenches. Treated as a servant by her own family, she hides a mind more brilliant than any Alpha's instinct. But in the process of winning a life-changing scholarship, she is betrayed. Drugged and sold to traffickers by her own aunt, Faith thought her life was over -until she falls from a third-story window and lands on the hood of a car that belongs to the most dangerous man in the country.
Killian Nightshade. Billionaire. Alpha of the Blackwood Pack. A man who rules with ice in his veins and power in his hands.
Killian doesn't do favors. He makes investments. He claims Faith as his "Personal Shadow" to work off the debt of his ruined car. But as he forces her into the shark-infested waters of the North Elite Academy, he finds himself breaking his own rule: Never get attached to the help.
While Faith battles ruthless bullies and the predatory interest of Killian's rival, Silas, a twenty-year-old secret begins to stir in her blood. She isn't just a Dud. She is a legend. And when the girl who was sold for scraps finally shifts, the entire werewolf world will have to decide: Will they bow to their new Queen, or be burned by her fire?
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Chapter 3
The first thing Faith felt was the sheets. They weren't the scratchy, thin cotton of her basement cot. These were cool, heavy, and felt like liquid butter against her skin.
She opened her eyes slowly. The ceiling was vaulted, painted with intricate gold leaf that shimmered in the morning sun. For a moment, she thought she was dead. Is this heaven? Do Duds go to heaven?
Then, the ache in her side reminded her she was very much alive.
she felt a sudden sharp pain as she tried to sit up .Her wrists were bandaged, the zip-tie burns treated with a cooling salve that smelled of mint.
"I wouldn't move if I were you," a voice muttered from the shadows of the room. You broke two ribs and dented a half-million-dollar car with your head. Most humans would be in a coma by now.
Faith looked towards the window.
He was standing there, silhouetted against the light. Alpha Killian. He had traded his suit jacket for a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his forearms corded with muscle and etched with dark, swirling tattoos.
Faith's heart did that strange, violent skip again. The "Mate" pull was a dull roar in her blood, even if she had no wolf to acknowledge it.
"Where am I?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
"In my house," Killian said, stepping into the light. His grey eyes were like flint. Which makes you my property until you explain why you were falling from the sky onto my Rolls-Royce.
Faith swallowed hard. She looked at the door-heavy oak, probably locked. Then back at the man who radiated enough power to crush her with a thought.
"I was....escaping," she said, choosing her words carefully. "Some men. They were taking me to a labor camp in the North."
Killian's eyes narrowed. He walked toward the bed, his movements fluid and predatory. He stopped just inches away, leaning down until his face was level with hers. Faith didn't flinch. She stared right back into those icy depths.
Most people-even Alphas-looked away when Killian stared. But this girl, this broken, wolfless thing, looked at him like he was just another problem to solve.
"You have no wolf, You're a Dud. Why would traffickers go through the trouble of drugging a Dud? You aren't worth the gas it took to drive the van."
The words stung, but Faith didn't let it show.
"Maybe they liked my face. Or maybe they knew I was smarter than the people they usually kidnap."
Killian let out a short, dry bark of a laugh. "Arrogant, too. I like that."
He reached out, his thumb grazing the bandage on her wrist. The touch sent a bolt of heat through Faith's arm, making her breath hitch. Killian's eyes flashed gold for a split second. He felt it too. The pull. The impossibility of it.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Faith."
Well, Faith. You've caused a lot of trouble. My car is in the shop, my guards are terrified because I almost executed them for letting a human onto the grounds, and you.... you smell like something I can't quite place."
He straightened up, his expression returning to a mask of cold indifference.
"Obviously, you have no money to pay for the repairs, and you're clearly running from someone, I've decided your fate. You'll work it off."
Faith gripped the silk sheets. "As a maid?"
"As my maid," Killian corrected. "You will be my Personal Shadow. You eat when I eat. You move when I move. You clean my private study-and only my study. No one else touches you, and you touch no one else".
but... why would you care if I touch anyone or if anyone touches me? Faith muttered.
It's not about you Faith...Rule number one, "Do not question my authority.Understood?"
Faith's mind raced. It was a golden cage, but it was a cage with a library and a roof that didn't leak. If she could stay here, she could find a way to finish her scholarship application. She could disappear once she had her degree.
"Understood,"she said firmly.
A week passed.
Life in the Nightshade Mansion was a bizarre mix of luxury and labor. Faith was given a uniform-a simple, elegant black dress that fit her perfectly. She spent her mornings dusting Killian's massive library.
One afternoon, while Killian was on a frantic conference call regarding a failing tech merger, Faith was polishing the mahogany desk. She glanced at his computer screen. The code was a mess. The architecture of the software was outdated, causing the lag that was making him lose millions.
Without thinking, she leaned over. Her fingers hovered over the keys.
"What are you doing?" Killian snapped . He had ended the call.
Faith jumped, dropping her polishing cloth. "The.... the logic gates. They're looping. That's why your server is crashing."
Killian walked over, his brow furrowed. "You can read C++?"
"I can read most things," Faith said, her cheeks flushing.
Killian stared at the screen, then at the girl who was supposed to be a "low-life orphan." He stepped aside. "Fix it."
Faith sat in his leather chair. It was warm from his body, and the scent of him-rain and sandalwood-wrapped around her like a blanket. Her fingers flew. For ten minutes, the only sound was the clicking of the keyboard.
When she finished, the server light on the corner of the desk turned a steady, calm green.
Killian looked at the data. He looked at her. A strange, dark intensity grew in his eyes. He didn't say 'thank you.' Instead, he grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up.
"How did you get those brains, Faith? Orphans in the trenches don't learn system architecture."
"I taught myself," she whispered.
His thumb traced her lower lip. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on. Killian was fighting himself-his wolf wanted to claim her right there on the desk, but his mind and ego couldn't accept that a wolfless girl was his match.
Suddenly, the heavy doors of the study burst open.
A woman walked in, dripping in diamonds and smelling of aggressive, cloying perfume. It was Lady Elena, the daughter of a neighboring Alpha and the woman everyone expected Killian to marry.
She stopped dead, her eyes landing on Faith sitting in Killian's chair.
"Killian, darling," Elena hissed, her eyes glowing a jealous red. "Why is this.... creature sitting at your desk? And why does she smell like you?"
Killian didn't pull his hand away from Faith. If anything, he held her tighter.
"She's my maid, Elena. And she's currently more useful than your entire pack."
Elena's face deformed with rage. She looked at Faith-really looked at her-and a flicker of recognition crossed her face. "Wait. I know that face. You're the little Dud that Maya was bragging about throwing away."
Faith felt the blood drain from her face.
"Oh, this is interesting ," Elena smirked, stepping closer. "Killian, you're keeping a piece of trash. And trash...are meant to be disposed of."
Elena lunged, her hand shifting into a clawed paw, aiming straight for Faith's throat.
Faith didn't even have time to scream. But she didn't feel the claws.
Killian had moved faster than the eye could see. He caught Elena's wrist in mid-air, the sound of bones grinding together filling the room. He didn't even look at Elena: his eyes remained locked on Faith.
"I said," Killian whispered, his voice a terrifying, low growl that shook the windows. "No one touches her."
As Killian throws Elena out of the room, Faith feels a strange sensation she's never felt before. Deep inside her, something that has been sleeping for twenty years just opened its eyes.
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8.1
Terminally ill.
Betrayed by her husband.
Abandoned by the only family she had.
Ariel died with nothing... and no one.
But fate gives her a second chance.
Reborn three years before her death, she walks away from the man who ruined her life-and takes back everything they stole.
Her love.
Her identity.
Her power.
Now, the cold billionaire who once ignored her can't take his eyes off her.
The brother who abandoned her starts to regret.
Too late.
Because this time, Ariel isn't the woman who begs.
She's the one who makes them kneel.
8.4
Cari Butler woke up in a damp, smelly dorm room, realizing she had transmigrated into the body of a disgraced fake daughter who had just been kicked out of a wealthy family.
Before she could even process her reality, the real daughter's friends kicked her door open to mock her, flaunting a custom Tiffany necklace that supposedly cost a mere eighty cents.
Cari thought they were crazy, until she saw the news: a top Manhattan mansion had just sold for a record-breaking $3,500.
The entire world's currency value had shrunk by ten thousand times!
This meant the original owner's bank balance of $854,000 gave Cari the purchasing power of eight and a half billion dollars.
But a mysterious system froze her funds, forcing her to work demeaning gig jobs to unlock the money bit by bit.
While working as a hotel server for twenty cents a day, she caught her ex-boyfriend kissing up to the real daughter, mocking Cari for being a desperate beggar.
Even her snobby roommates laughed at her, claiming she couldn't afford a ten-cent iPhone.
What truly angered Cari wasn't the humiliation, but receiving a five-cent transfer from her poor biological brother, who was starving himself just to keep her fed.
Yet, the system strictly forbade her from giving her unlocked billions directly to her family.
Looking at the restrictive system and the arrogant elites who thought they owned the city, Cari's eyes turned icy cold.
"If I can't just hand them the cash,"
Cari sneered, pulling out her phone to outright buy the luxury hotel and fire everyone who wronged her.
"Then I will just buy the entire world and place it at their feet."
7.4
My mother was dying and desperately needed a half-million-dollar deposit for an experimental heart surgery by tomorrow.
I swallowed my pride and begged my wealthy husband, Garrick, to save her life.
Instead of helping, he laughed coldly and threw a thick stack of divorce papers right in my face.
"A hen that can't lay eggs gets slaughtered," he sneered, ruthlessly poking my flat stomach.
He revealed that his secretary, my supposed friend Lacey, was already pregnant with his heir.
To him, our three years of marriage was just a business transaction, and now that my family was bankrupt, I was nothing but damaged goods.
He flicked a humiliating five-thousand-dollar check at me as his final act of charity, then locked me out of our townhouse into the freezing, pouring rain.
I had spent years enduring agonizing hormone treatments for a fertility issue that wasn't even my fault, only to be discarded like trash when I needed him the most.
Was my dignity, my absolute devotion, and my mother's life really worth nothing to him?
Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I threw myself directly into the path of a moving Rolls-Royce Phantom on Fifth Avenue.
It belonged to Holden Tillman, the ruthless patriarch of the Tillman empire—and the uncle Garrick lived in absolute terror of.
I thought I was walking into my death, but instead, I became his fiancée, ready to make Garrick and Lacey pay for every tear I shed.
8.2
Trapped in a deadly fire at my own engagement party, my lungs burned as I reached a shaking hand out to my fiancé for help.
He stopped and looked right at me through the thick smoke. But instead of saving me, he wrapped his jacket tightly around my stepsister and ran, leaving me to burn.
I barely survived. But when I woke up in the hospital, my father and stepmother didn't even ask about my injuries.
They threw a stack of legal documents right onto my bed.
"Sign the papers, Avah. Step aside. Jaclyn is far better suited to be Kain's wife."
My fiancé then stormed into the room, publicly humiliating me with false rumors of an illegitimate child and threatening to bankrupt my company.
Four years of swallowing my pride to be the perfect, obedient pawn for our family business, all for nothing.
They threw me to the wolves without a single second of hesitation, expecting me to just lower my head and cry like I always did.
But the fire had burned that pathetic version of me away.
I ripped out my IV, letting the blood drip onto the sheets, and tore their contracts straight down the middle.
"The engagement is over."
I threw my million-dollar ring right at my ex's chest, then picked up the phone to call my trust lawyer. They wanted to take everything from me, so I was going to make them bleed.
7.9
I woke up in a burning warehouse, twelve years after my supposed death. My body had been reset to its physical prime, the deep burn scar on my wrist completely gone.
Through the smoke, my eldest son, Kennard, rushed blindly into the flames. He was screaming the name of the very woman who had orchestrated this trap—Brittnie.
When I tackled him out of the way of a falling steel beam, he didn't recognize my youthful face. Instead, he pinned me to the concrete and nearly crushed my windpipe.
"How much did she pay you to carve up your face to look like a dead woman?"
He hissed the words at me, treating me like a sick corporate spy. For a decade, a bizarre narrative "script" had brainwashed my son, forcing him into pathetic devotion to Brittnie. She had drained his wealth, turned my daughter against him, and hollowed out our family empire.
Whenever Kennard tried to resist her, the mind control punished him with agonizing migraines, driving him to smash his own hands against the wall just to cope with the pain.
Hearing him quietly sobbing outside my locked door, my heart shattered. How could this invisible force torture my brilliant son and turn my family into puppets for a D-list actress?
I dragged him to the hospital for a DNA test.
When the results confirmed my maternity at 99.999%, the cold billionaire collapsed to the floor, weeping in my arms like a lost child.
I wiped his tears and smiled ruthlessly. It was time to take back my empire and burn Brittnie's life to the ground.
8.9
Harlow had endured three years of a loveless marriage, funding her husband Beck's life and secretly writing the AI code that saved his failing company.
But when she walked into her family's private memorial library, she found Beck having sex with his mistress, Fallon, right on top of her late father's antique desk.
Instead of showing guilt, Beck proudly announced that Fallon had given him a son and heir.
He demanded Harlow accept the bastard child and stay married just to maintain his perfect public image.
To make matters worse, Fallon was actually a corporate spy from a rival company, actively stealing Harlow's family legacy while Beck willingly handed over the company secrets.
When Harlow demanded an immediate divorce, Beck laughed in her face.
"I will never sign the divorce papers! I will drag this out in court until you bleed dry!"
Looking at her father's crushed pocket watch and the two parasites desecrating her sacred home, Harlow's shock turned into a freezing, absolute clarity.
How could she have spent three years supporting a selfish hypocrite who would so ruthlessly destroy her parents' legacy?
Harlow calmly packed her bags, threw his bespoke suits in the trash, and walked out the door.
She went straight to Fitzgerald Monroe, the most ruthless billionaire corporate lawyer in New York, ready to use her secret identity to make Beck lose everything.