Alpha’s Price in Blood

The stillness of midnight shattered with the turn of a key in the lock.

Footsteps drew near, and Kael’s tall silhouette appeared. He shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. The scent reached me before he did.

—Selene’s rose perfume.

My sense of smell doesn’t lie. I’m a vampire.

At seventeen, I’d defied my family’s decree that I wasn’t of age yet and insisted on going into the human world for a bit of fun. Kael, on border patrol at the time, saved me while my family was hunting me down.

To evade them, I hid my vampire aura. He thought I was a human abducted by vampires, and he took me in—hid me—in the wolves’ stone house.

For a long time after that, he came every day, bringing water and food.

And the day he brought me a bouquet of flowers, I heard our hearts beating in the same frantic rhythm.

So I followed him back to the pack.

Not long after, I was pregnant.

But among wolves, I was always an “outsider.”

A nameless orphan the Alpha had taken in on a whim of pity. A woman whose identity no one could trace, who had even borne his child—and still, because my “bloodline wasn’t pure,” Kael’s mother, Madam Rowan, refused to acknowledge me. I remained unmarked. A “temporary mate.”

They had a better choice—an Alpha’s daughter from another pack, one who owned a vein of mineral wealth.

To keep us from being driven out, Kael had no choice but to agree he’d “stabilize” that alliance.

And I endured it. For Mina. And because Kael had taken thirteen lashes for me.

I thought that meant he loved me deeply.

But over the past year, the rose scent on him had grown stronger and stronger, and in this moment it turned into an icy needle, punching through every layer of self-deception I’d wrapped around myself.

He brushed past me, as if he meant to give me the same hurried goodnight kiss as always.

“Don’t.”

My voice was calm—so clear it sounded like ice splintering.

Kael halted mid-step. He frowned slightly, studying me in the dim light. “Vera?”

“Stay away from me.” My gaze dropped to a strand of golden hair on his collar—hair that didn’t belong to me. “You stink. It’s disgusting.”

He stiffened, then slid on that weary mask of apology so fast it might’ve been second nature. “Sorry. The pack meeting ran late tonight, I…” He stepped closer, reaching for my hand. “I’ve been neglecting you. There’s just been too much going on…”

I yanked my hand back.

His apology was smooth. But there was no emotion in his tone, and not a trace of guilt on his face.

Even his apologies had become perfunctory.

Just then, the phone in his hand lit up.

Selene: Kael, my chest feels tight. I’m not feeling great. Can you come over?

His expression changed in an instant.

He didn’t even look at me again. He grabbed the coat he’d just thrown down and headed for the door. Whatever gentleness he’d been faking evaporated, replaced by real agitation.

“Wait.” I called after him, urgency cutting into my voice. “You promised—Mina’s birthday. The whole day. With her.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He didn’t turn around. “We’ll talk about it.”

Then the door opened in a rush, and the sudden softness in his voice as he answered the call drifted back in with the night wind.

“…What’s wrong, Selene? Weren’t you fine in bed just now…”

The door shut.

“Mom?”

A tiny voice snapped me out of the tremor in my fingers.

I whirled. Mina stood barefoot in the bedroom doorway, hugging her little rabbit plush. She stared at the closed door.

“Did Dad leave again?” she asked, very softly.

I went to her, crouched, and pulled her into my arms. “Daddy had something urgent.” My voice scraped in my throat.

“Oh.” She buried her face in the hollow of my shoulder. After a few seconds of silence, she whispered, “Mom… they say Dad… doesn’t like me. Is that true?”

My arms tightened hard.

“No, baby,” I blurted, the words catching. “Daddy just—”

Just what?

Just because she hadn’t shown a wolf soul at birth? Just because she was four and her wolf eyes still hadn’t awakened—because she couldn’t even form the most basic spirit link with her father?

But I knew where that “flaw” came from. Buried deep in my blood, in the secret I’d hidden for five full years—my vampire nature. I’d given her half a bloodline the wolves would never accept.

But I couldn’t tell her.

“Daddy… is just really busy lately.” In the end, that was all I could manage. I kissed her soft hair with an apology in my mouth. “He loves you, Mina.”

In the dark, she blinked. “Then he’ll come back tomorrow for my birthday, right?”

“…Yes.” Each word felt like swallowing shards of ice. “He will. I promise.”

The next morning, I started preparing at dawn.

Mina stayed wound tight with excitement all day. She put on her prettiest little dress. I brushed her hair again and again. Every five minutes she ran to the entrance to peek out. “Mom, when is Dad coming back?”

“Soon,” I said softly.

But the buttercream edging began to melt. The sharp corners of the frosting letters—Happy 4 Mina—blurred. My phone showed nothing but unanswered calls and messages.

Mina stopped asking.

She only lowered her head. When the last strip of sunset sank into ink-black night, she took off her birthday hat and set it on the table. The motion was light, but the quiet disappointment in it didn’t belong to a three-year-old.

“Mom,” she said in a small voice, picking at the edge of the tablecloth, “Dad… got lost, right?”

Something cold inside my chest cracked wide open.

No.

It couldn’t go on like this.

I went to her, crouched in front of her, and held her cool little hands.

“Mina, sweetheart…” My voice surprised me with its steadiness. “Mom’s going to take you back to Mom’s home. We’ll throw you the best birthday, okay?”

She looked at me. After a few seconds, she asked in a whisper, “…No Dad, right?”

That soft question pricked my heart.

Just then, the phone that had been silent all evening buzzed.

Mina’s gaze snapped to it. Under the full force of her hopeful eyes, I unlocked the screen.

One message.

Kael: New Moon Hotel. Top floor.

“It’s a surprise, right, Mom?” Mina clutched my clothes, eyes shining. “Dad didn’t forget. He made me a surprise at a really pretty hotel, didn’t he?”

She tipped her face up at me. The light that flared back into her eyes stabbed like a needle into the heart I’d just forced to harden. How could I crush that light with my own hands—on the night of her fourth birthday?

My throat tightened. I heard myself say, “…Yeah. Maybe.”

“Do we go now?” She jumped up, already shoving her small hand into my palm, gripping with all her strength.

“…We go now.”