The Alpha's Unexpected Secret Replacement Bride

Claire POV:

In my past life, I took a poisoned arrow with my bare hands to pave my fiancé's path to the throne. But on the eve of his coronation, right in front of my bloody interrogation table, my best friend was pressed against his chest, letting out sweet, coquettish moans.

Holding her, he sneered that my scarred hands were too dirty, and methodically chopped my fingers off, one by one.

He forced me to my knees to watch as 72 members of my family-even the month-old infants-were beheaded in the public square. Their warm blood completely soaked my white wedding dress.

Biting into my bleeding stumps, I swore a blood curse. When I opened my eyes, I was back on the morning of my wedding day.

This time, to hell with true love! In the middle of a torrential storm, I hijacked another bridal carriage. I ripped off my luxurious veil and smashed it onto a terrified, weeping bride.

"You want the perfect Alpha?" I told her. "He's yours."

Without looking back, I marched straight into the lair of Caiden Gregory. He was the dominion's most terrifying "Mate-Killer"-a bloodthirsty monster rumored to feast on human flesh. To drag my ex to hell, I willingly sacrificed myself to a true demon.

But the second we completed the sacred mating bond before the dark altar... The "monster" forcefully grabbed my waist and slammed me against the cold stone.

A soul-shaking electric jolt ignited my blood. He was my true Fated Mate?!

His stormy gray eyes pierced right through my disguise. With a ruthless tear, he ripped off my stolen veil, the deadly point of his Alpha fangs grazing my pulse.

"You're not the cowardly rabbit they sent me," he growled, a predatory hunger darkening his eyes. "Since you went through so much trouble to crawl into my territory... let's see if you actually have the life force to survive our wedding night, my beautiful... fake bride."

--

The heavy, rust-scented air of the dungeon was suffocating, but it was the sickening sound of flesh slapping against flesh and breathless moans that jolted me awake from my unconsciousness.

I forced my swollen eyes open. Through the matted, blood-soaked silver fur hanging over my face, a scene straight out of hell burned into my retinas.

Just a few feet away from the iron pillar where I was chained, my fated mate-the Alpha King to whom all packs now bowed, Erich Blackburn-had my best friend pressed roughly against the stone interrogation table.

The overpowering, nauseating scent of their intermingling pheromones flooded my sensitive wolf senses. Kenya, my supposed best friend, threw her head back, letting out a breathy, coquettish moan. But as Erich buried his face in her neck to mark her, she tilted her head, locking eyes with me over his broad shoulder.

While crying out Erich's name in feigned ecstasy, she deliberately wrapped her bare legs tighter around his waist, flaunting her triumph to me like a predator showing off its prey.

My heart felt like it was being thrown into a meat grinder, pulverized into dust.

Soon, Erich finished. He casually adjusted his immaculate royal coat. His icy, disdainful gaze landed on my mangled body, looking at me as if I were a rat in the gutter.

"Wake her up properly," he ordered coldly, wiping his hands with a silk handkerchief.

Splash!

A bucket of freezing saltwater was violently dashed over me. The agonizing sting sliced through my open wounds like a thousand glass shards, making my entire body convulse uncontrollably against the heavy chains.

Erich stepped closer, looking down at me from his high horse as he tossed a parchment confession in front of me. "Watching me mark another woman right in front of you... feeling the Mate bond backlash tearing your soul apart... it must hurt like hell, doesn't it?"

He sighed, his voice dripping with a sickeningly hypocritical pity. "Claire, I didn't want to punish you like this. It breaks my heart to see you suffer. If you know what's good for you, just put your fingerprint on this confession. As long as you admit your mistakes, I will forgive you. You can still stay in the palace, and you won't have to endure this torture anymore. Understand?"

I bit my lip so hard it bled, fighting through the excruciating pain to lift my heavy head. Seeing his disgusting, arrogant face-so entirely convinced that I was still madly in love with him, still fighting for his affection-a bloody, raspy scoff escaped my throat.

"Confess? To what?" I glared at him, spitting out every word with pure venom. "To being blind enough to lead the fiercest warriors of the Bryant Pack through hell and back, just to put a pathetic, exiled bastard who was worse than a stray dog onto the throne?"

His hypocritical facade instantly froze, then twisted into a mask of absolute, unhinged fury. He lunged forward, grabbing me by the hair and slamming my face brutally against the freezing stone floor.

"Shut your mouth!" he roared, his handsome face grotesque with inferiority and rage as he completely dropped the act. "Did you really think your self-righteous sacrifices moved me?! You took a blade for me, you killed for me, and you thought that was love? No! It only made me nauseous! Every time I looked at you, or that arrogant grandfather of yours, I felt like a beggar surviving on your pathetic charity!"

Before I could recover from the dizzying blow, Kenya hastily pulled her dress up and coiled herself around Erich's arm like a poisonous viper.

"My Alpha, please don't be angry..." Kenya sobbed into his chest, expertly adding fuel to the fire. "Sister has always been too domineering. Relying on her family's merits, she never truly respected you as the King. But our baby was innocent... He was only three months along, yet she poisoned him out of pure jealousy. It's my fault! An Omega as lowly as me shouldn't have accepted your love..."

Erich's eyes darkened with venomous malice as he wrapped his arm around her waist. "Don't cry, my sweet Kenya. You are simply too kind to her. I will get justice for you right now!"

He kicked the back of my knees violently and drew a silver dagger. The blade glinted menacingly under the flickering torchlight. Crouching down, he pinned my wrist against the floor with his heavy combat boot, spreading my hand right next to the confession parchment.

"Since you refuse to sign, This hand is useless to me," he murmured, tracing the cold flat of the blade over my trembling fingers. "Years ago, you used these hands to block a poisoned arrow for me, nearly dying to snatch me back from the Reaper. But look at them now, Claire. Look how ugly they are. They are stained with the blood of my political rivals, and now, the blood of my unborn pup. They are so dirty... they make me sick to my stomach."

Crunch.

A searing, bone-shattering agony shot up my arm. I stared in numb, wide-eyed horror as my ring finger was severed cleanly from the base. Blood sprayed across the gray stone.

Before I could even process the mutilation, the blade rose and fell again.

The silver blade chewed through my flesh and bone, one after another like a meat cleaver. I couldn't even scream. The sheer magnitude of the pain stole every ounce of air from my lungs, leaving me gasping in a silent, grotesque void as my body thrashed wildly on the floor.

Through the red mist of my pain, Kenya casually unwrapped a delicate little pastry. "Oh, Alpha, the blood is going to ruin your beautiful boots," she pouted, feeding the pastry to Erich's mouth, smiling as sweetly as if they were enjoying a sunny picnic in the royal gardens, completely ignoring the mutilated woman bleeding out at their feet.

Erich chewed the pastry, wiped his mouth, and stood up. He stepped heavily onto my bleeding, mangled hand, his towering figure casting a dark shadow over me.

"Claire Bryant. As the fated mate of the Alpha King, you failed to bear me an heir in five years. Driven by malicious jealousy, you murdered the pup in Kenya's womb and audaciously poisoned the Queen Mother." Erich coldly pronounced my doom, his voice echoing in the dungeon. "Your sins are unforgivable. Tomorrow at dawn, you, and the entire bloodline of the Bryant Pack, shall be executed!"

I threw my head up, rage shattered my reason. I let out a bloodcurdling wolf howl and lunged at him desperately, wanting nothing more than to rip his throat out-

BAM!

A suffocating wave of Alpha Aura erupted from Erich, slamming into my back like an invisible mountain. I was crushed face-first into the pool of my own blood. My bones groaned and cracked under the absolute suppression; I couldn't even twitch a muscle.

Watching me struggle like an insect, Erich crouched down and yanked my head up by the hair. His voice was a venomous hiss. "Your grandfather is suspected of conspiring with Rogues and inciting rebellion. And thanks to your 'crimes', the evidence of him shielding you is now irrefutable. I'm doing you a favor by letting your whole family reunite before the Moon Goddess's judgment seat. You should thank me."

He paused, a cruel, calculating smirk playing on his lips. "However... if you use your blood to sign this confession, taking all the blame yourself and proving your grandfather had no part in this... I might consider sparing his and your pack members' pathetic lives. They will be branded as Rogues and banished to the Deadlands. But at least, they will keep breathing."

"An Alpha King never goes back on his word."

The despair in my eyes slowly hardened into a dead, frantic resolve.

If my life alone could buy even a sliver of a chance for the Bryant Pack's survival... I would gladly burn in hell.

Trembling, I raised my mutilated hand-now missing three fingers-and pressed the bloody, severed stumps heavily onto the confession parchment, leaving a gruesome bloody handprint.

Erich Blackburn, Kenya Pennington... if there is a next life, I will crawl my way out of hell, and I will use my own teeth to tear your throats out.