The Alpha had not meant to open that door.
He paused in the corridor, hand still resting against the wood, the echo of light spilling into a space that should not have existed. The wrong door. The wrong room. He knew that immediately.
What he did not know—what unsettled him far more—was why his chest tightened the instant his eyes found her.
She stood half-curled in the corner, blinking against the light like something pulled too suddenly from the dark. Her hair was loose and tangled, her dress plain and worn thin at the seams. She looked smaller than the others he had passed, smaller than she should have been, as though the house itself had learned to press down on her.
And yet—
There was nothing small about the way the air shifted.
The Alpha felt it first in his wolf. A sharp, disorienting pull, like a breath caught halfway between instinct and alarm. His spine went rigid. His senses flared, flooding him with awareness he had not summoned.
Her scent reached him a heartbeat later.
Not sweet. Not delicate.
Familiar.
His gaze locked onto hers.
Green-hazel eyes stared back at him, wide and unguarded, brimming with shock—but not fear. There was hurt there. Deep, layered, old. The kind that did not scream but settled into the bones and stayed.
The Alpha did not move.
Neither did she.
For a long moment, the world narrowed to the narrow space between them. He became acutely aware of everything—the way her breath stuttered, the faint tremor in her hands, the subtle flare of something beneath her skin that mirrored the unrest in his own.
She was unmated.
He knew that instantly.
But there was more.
"—Sir?"
A voice called from the hall behind him. One of the elders. Polite. Expectant.
The Alpha blinked, breaking the moment like a snapped thread. He stepped back, letting the door swing partially closed, though not before his eyes found hers one last time.
"I'll find it," he said evenly. "Thank you."
The footsteps retreated.
He stood there for a beat longer than necessary, listening—not to the hall, but to the way his wolf paced uneasily beneath his ribs.
Something was wrong.
And it had nothing to do with a misplaced door.
Lena did not breathe until the light disappeared.
The moment the door closed, her knees gave out. She slid down the wall, heart hammering so violently it hurt. Her palms pressed flat against the floor as if to ground herself, to prove she was still real.
He had seen her.
Not glanced. Not dismissed.
Seen.
The look in his eyes replayed itself over and over in her mind—not hunger, not judgment, but something sharper. Something startled. As if she had been the unexpected thing, not the room.
She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking.
Why had he stopped?
Why had he looked at her like that?
The lock clicked a moment later.
Her breath caught.
The door opened again—this time just enough for her mother's face to appear in the crack. Her eyes flicked over Lena quickly, irritated, assessing.
"What are you doing on the floor?" she hissed. "Stand up. And fix yourself."
Lena obeyed without thinking.
"The Alpha is here," her mother continued, voice tight. "You will stay out of sight. Do you understand me?"
Lena nodded.
Her mother hesitated, then added sharply, "If anyone asks—you are no one."
The door shut.
The lock slid into place.
Lena stood alone in the dark again, her heart still racing—not with fear now, but with something she did not yet have a name for.
The Alpha took his place at the head of the hall with practiced ease.
The pack gathered quickly, eager, respectful. He greeted them all with the calm authority expected of him, responding when spoken to, nodding when addressed. To anyone watching, he was fully present.
Inside, his thoughts were anything but.
His senses kept drifting—searching, listening.
The house felt uneven. Off-balance.
When the daughters were brought forward, he saw it immediately.
One stood tall and carefully arranged, her posture flawless, her eyes lowered just enough to signal obedience. The mother beside her radiated pride. Anticipation.
The other was missing.
He felt it like a gap in the air.
His gaze flicked, briefly, toward the corridor he had come from. The elder beside him began the formal introductions, praising lineage, virtue, readiness.
The Alpha listened.
But his wolf paced.
"Is this your only daughter?" he asked calmly when the speech concluded.
The mother stiffened, only slightly.
"Yes," she said. "This is Elira."
A lie.
Not a large one. Not a loud one.
But a lie all the same.
The Alpha's gaze lingered on her face for half a second longer than courtesy required. Then he inclined his head and said nothing more.
For now.
The ceremony continued, but the moment had already shifted. The choice that was meant to be simple no longer felt clean. The bond he was meant to sense—meant to confirm—remained silent.
Instead, something else pulsed at the edge of his awareness.
Hidden.
Waiting.
And for the first time in many years, the Alpha wondered not who he would choose—
—but who had been taken away before he was allowed to see them.