ALPHA CORVIN

I could not concentrate on pack business when my mind kept circling back to Amaris standing in that hallway, to the way she had challenged me, to the defiance in her eyes when she refused artificial insemination.

The rage that had been building since I left her standing there in front of that bathroom finally reached its breaking point.

I swept all the papers off my desk in one violent motion, sending them flying across the room in a scatter of white against dark wood. The sound was satisfying in its destruction.

"Why does she have to be this stubborn?" I cursed out loud to the empty room. "Why can she not just bend to what needs to happen?"

My chest heaved with the force of my anger and frustration.

I grabbed my phone and called Beta Marco, my thumb pressing harder than necessary against his contact information.

He answered on the first ring. "Yes Alpha?"

"Come to my office," I stated and ended the call before he could respond or ask questions.

Less than a minute later there was a loud knock at my door. Marco must have been just outside because he entered almost before I could tell him to come in, pushing the door open and stepping inside with his usual calm efficiency.

"I heard you instructed the chauffeur to take Amaris back to Stormshadow pack," Marco stated without any preamble or greeting.

I nodded once, the movement sharp and final. "I did. She is not the Luna I want. She is too stubborn and willful."

"Freya was stubborn and willful," Marco responded quietly, his voice carefully neutral. "Yet you wanted her to be your Luna desperately enough to risk everything."

I threw him a death stare that had made grown wolves submit and bare their throats on the spot. "What did you just say to me?"

Beta Marco, being a man who never took back his words or cowered from confrontation even when facing down an enraged Alpha, decided to double down instead of backing off like a sensible person would.

"You say you want another Zoya," he stated clearly. "Yet your heart desperately seeks another Freya."

"If not for the years of brotherhood we have built I would have you thrown into the dungeon right now," I said in an enraged tone that made the air in the room stiff for a moment.

"Then I owe everything to that brotherhood," Marco responded with complete calm, utterly unbothered by my threat.

I sighed and felt some of the fight drain out of me because he was right and we both knew it, because calling him out for speaking truth would make me a hypocrite. "What would you have me do Marco?"

I stood up from my desk and walked to the window, needing to look at something other than his knowing expression that saw through every defense I had constructed.

And just as fate, that bringer of chaos and destroyer of careful plans, would have it - she was standing down below in front of the mansion saying something to Nia.

Amaris looked devastated, like she had been crying for hours. Her shoulders were slumped in defeat and even from this distance I could see the redness around her eyes, could see how her hands shook slightly when she gestured.

Then she looked up at me and our gazes locked across the space separating us.

Her amber eyes melted something inside me that I had thought was frozen solid and dead. Her beautiful expressive eyes held innocence and pain and a fiery heart that refused to be broken no matter how much I tried to crush it. The warmth she brought penetrated my soul all at once, flooding through defenses I had spent years building brick by careful brick.

I could see everything I needed reflected in that gaze - strength and vulnerability, defiance and submission, pride and humility all existing together in perfect contradiction.

I dropped the curtain down immediately, breaking eye contact before I could change my mind about sending her away.

If I kept looking at her I would walk down there and take it all back, would pull her into my arms and damn the consequences.

I turned back to face Beta Marco who was watching me with that expression that said he saw right through every wall I had constructed, every lie I told myself.

"She refused the artificial insemination," I stated flatly, trying to make it sound like a simple statement of fact rather than something that affected me deeply.

Marco raised an eyebrow in that infuriating way he had. "What is the problem with that? Or have you forgotten how to function as a man since you desperately want an heir?"

I scowled at him hard enough that lesser wolves would have flinched. "You are really crossing the line today and you know it. This is not about sex."

"No, it is not." Marco agreed easily. "It is about you still punishing yourself for what happened to Zoya and Freya. It is about you not wanting to get close to her physically or emotionally because you know you would fall for her completely." He paused deliberately. "Because she is exactly what you need in your life right now even if you refuse to admit it."

His words hit harder than Zoya’s slap had all those years ago.

I sank back into my seat and stayed quiet for a long moment, trying not to think about what Marco had just said, trying not to acknowledge the truth embedded in his assessment of my situation.

"It has been decided," I finally stated, my voice coming out flat and emotionless and dead. "Go start looking for another woman to purchase as my mate. And this time make sure she is not an insufferable tyrant who challenges every decision I make."

Marco did not say anything, just nodded once in that way that told me he disagreed fundamentally with this choice but would follow orders anyway because that was what Betas did.

He turned to leave and had almost reached the door when his phone rang, the sound echoing through the room.

He pulled it out and answered, his expression shifting from neutral to alarmed in the span of seconds.

Then he slowly turned back to face me, lowering his phone with movements that seemed almost mechanical.

"The vehicle Amaris was in just had an accident."