The Alpha Deception: Claiming What's Mine

Ten years old. Mia was only ten when she stood barefoot on the frost-bitten stone, her feet numb, her breath catching in the icy air. Before her, a crowd had gathered like wolves drawn to blood. Warriors lined the edges, cloaks fluttering. Mothers clutched their children tighter. And at the center of it all on her knees was Lira.

Her mother.

Chains coiled around her wrists and neck, silver-glinting and cruel. Her head was bowed, dark hair matted with sweat and frost. Mia tried to rush forward, but the guards held her back. She could barely breathe past her screams.

“Please!” Mia shouted. “Please, she didn’t do anything! She’s not a traitor!”

Alpha Jon Snow stood above them all, the high stone platform beneath his boots. His gaze was carved from granite, cold and unreadable. The wolf in him didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. But Mia saw the flicker of hesitation, the war between what he once felt for Lira… and what he believed now.

“She is accused of infidelity,” Jon declared. “And treason against the bloodline.”

Lira’s voice was hoarse. “You know I would never betray you.”

His jaw clenched. “Then tell me the truth, Lira. How many more lies have you told? How many patterns, how many secrets were kept from me? Was Mia even—”

“She is yours!” Lira rasped, her voice breaking on the name. “You know she is! Look at her, Jon. Look at her.”

But he did not look. Not at Mia. Not at the girl shaking with cold, face wet with tears, clutching her fists so tightly her nails drew blood from her palms.

Instead, he turned to Luna Cara, regal and venomous at his side. She didn’t speak, but the tilt of her chin said enough. She had won. She always did.

“Enough,” Jon said quietly. “The sentence is death.”

“No!” Mia broke free, throwing herself forward. She was just a child, but rage made her reckless. “She’s not lying..!”

A guard struck her hard across the cheek, and she tumbled to the ice. The breath left her lungs in a sharp gasp. She crawled toward her mother, but another guard stepped in, blocking her.

Lira looked up one last time. Her eyes locked on Mia’s.

And then the blade fell.

There was no ceremony. No final prayer.

Just a clean, brutal flash and silence.

Mia screamed so hard it scraped her throat raw. But no one moved to shield her eyes. No one turned her away. They made her watch.

The blood steamed on the snow.

They called her a bastard. A liar’s daughter. A threat.

That same night, Alpha Jon summoned her again. Not as a father. As a ruler.

“She should never have been born,” Cara whispered. “Your mercy is weakness.”

Jon stared at Mia, who stood defiant despite the swelling in her cheek.

“You are not my daughter,” he said.

And just like that he banished her.

No title. No name. No home.

The gates of Snow Pack closed behind her, and the last warmth of her childhood died.

The woods beyond Snow Pack were merciless. A wall of dark pine and endless winter.

Mia wandered deeper into it, barefoot and broken. Her bones ached. Her lips split open from the wind. The snow reached her knees, and still she walked. She didn’t cry. Not anymore.

She stopped when her legs gave out.

The snow wrapped around her like a shroud. Her fingers went numb. Her eyes blurred.

And just before the darkness pulled her under… she saw a shadow.

A woman.

Tall, wrapped in a raven-black cloak, her face pale and sharp as a blade. Her eyes were haunted things, filled with ghosts and storms. At her side was a man silent, vigilant, with a little scar running down his cheek and a short sword at his hip.

The woman crouched beside her.

“You should be dead.”

Mia coughed. “I… I should be.”

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know,” she rasped. “I don’t know.”

The woman looked at the man. He said nothing. Just nodded.

Reluctantly, she scooped Mia into her arms.

“You’re lucky I’m not as cruel as your people.”

Her name was Jessie Roy. A rogue. A ghost with fire under her skin. She lived past the Green Borderlands, in a village that took in the lost and spat back the broken.

The man was Denis loyal, quiet, and far too observant.

Jessie took Mia in not with warmth, but with rules.

“You don’t speak unless spoken to. You train. You work. You don’t beg for pity.”

Mia nodded.

And so, Jessie taught her.

She taught her how to fight. How to bandage a wound. How to slip poison into a goblet without being seen. How to speak various languages and survive seven kinds of winter. Jessie sharpened her like a weapon.

And so did Denis, under the instructions of Jessie, he was to train her like he was being trained to fight wars.

Denis said little but he was always there. Watching Mia. Bringing her food when Jessie forgot. Showing her how to clean a blade, how to spot liars with one look.

They became something like a family.

But Mia never forgot the snow.

She never forgot the scream in her throat. The cold steel of exile. The moment her father didn’t claim her. The moment her mother bled into the ice.

And as the years passed, and the scars became stories etched into her skin, the fire inside her didn’t die.

It grew.

Mia grew into her rage like a blade grows into its hilt, dangerous, balanced, honed.

.