The Alpha's Regret: Chasing His Runaway Mate

"Put it on," my stepbrother Brendan commanded, his eyes cold.

He was forcing me to wear the silver bracelet his fiancée, Chloie, had bought to mock me.

"It will burn me," I pleaded, clutching my wrist.

"Stop acting like a fragile human," he snapped, his Alpha tone vibrating through the room. "Do not be ungrateful to your future Luna. Build a tolerance."

Under the weight of his command, my trembling hands clasped the metal.

The smell of singed hair and cooking skin filled the air immediately as the silver seared a ring into my flesh.

Brendan watched my agony without a flicker of remorse, then turned to leave with Chloie, leaving me sobbing on the floor.

He was my fated Mate, the boy who once took a dagger for me, but now he called me a "defect" because I hadn't shifted.

He destroyed my childhood treasures in a trash compactor, paraded his lover in front of me, and told the pack I was a diluted bloodline who would break under pressure.

He thought I was trapped, a weak Omega with nowhere to go.

He thought I would stay and watch him marry another woman in three days.

But he didn't know I had a secret burner phone hidden under the floorboards.

Or that my biological father, the Alpha King of the rival Sunfire Pack, was sending a private jet for me.

On the night of the Blood Moon, right before he was crowned King, I didn't just run away.

I mentally grabbed the silver cord connecting our souls and snapped it.

When the crushing pain of the severed bond hit him in the middle of his speech, he finally looked for me.

But I was already gone, ready to awaken the legendary White Wolf he never deserved.

Chapter 1

Jayde POV:

The shears were heavy, the steel biting into my palm like ice. It matched the temperature of my bedroom, and the dead look in his eyes whenever we crossed paths.

I looked at my reflection. Waist-length hair. Brendan used to say it made me look like a "proper lady" of the Moonstone Pack, distinguishing me from the wild strays we hunted.

I inhaled sharply. My hands shook, but my gut was solid stone.

Snip.

The first lock hit the floor. A soft, dark casualty.

Snip. Snip.

With every cut, the scent of this house-pine, floor wax, and him-fell away. I was carving the Moonstone Pack out of my identity.

Eighteen days until the Alpha Succession. Eighteen days until Brendan Maynard became King. And eighteen days until I became a ghost.

I dropped the scissors. My hair barely brushed my shoulders now. I didn't look like a lady anymore. I looked like a survivor.

I dug out the burner phone-a cheap piece of plastic I'd snagged from a human gas station three towns over. I dialed the encrypted number.

"Speak." The voice on the other end sounded like granite grinding against a tombstone.

"It's me," I whispered. "Jayde."

The silence stretched, heavy and thick. Then, the voice softened, though the storm inside it remained. "Jayde. My daughter."

Farrell Conner. Alpha King of the Sunfire Pack. My biological father.

"Transfer approved," I said, gripping the phone until the plastic creaked. "The University in Sunfire territory took me."

"Good. You're a diamond in a pile of gravel over there, Jayde. They're too blind to see the shine."

"I'm leaving, Dad. I can't watch him become Alpha. I can't be his... his unwanted burden."

"You aren't a burden," Farrell growled, the bass vibrating through the speaker. "You are Sunfire blood. You have power sleeping inside you that Brendan Maynard couldn't dream of. When do you move?"

"The night before the ceremony. During the full moon. The chaos will cover my scent."

"My jet will be at the private strip on the border. Stay low, little wolf."

I stashed the phone under a loose floorboard. My pulse was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I needed water.

The hallway usually smelled of lemon polish. Today, it reeked of Alpha. It was a heavy, static pressure, thickening the air like humidity before a tornado. It was coming from the study.

I knew better than to look. But my feet betrayed me.

The door was ajar.

"The union must be finalized before the coronation, Brendan," an Elder rasped. "The pack needs a Luna. A strong Luna."

I peeked through the crack.

Brendan sat behind the mahogany desk, looking every inch the predator he was born to be. Shoulders straining his black dress shirt, jaw sharp enough to cut glass. He looked exhausted. He looked lethal.

"I know the laws, Elder," Brendan said, his baritone vibrating in my chest. "Chloie and I will handle it."

My Inner Wolf lifted her head from the dirt. She usually played dead, beaten down by years of neglect, but around him? She was pathetic.

Mate, she whimpered. Mate is strong.

He's not our mate, I snapped back mentally. He rejected us in everything but ink.

Brendan flinched. His stormy grey eyes flashed gold for a split second.

He was getting a Mind-Link.

His expression shifted. The hard lines of his face melted into something soft, something painfully gentle.

"Of course," he said aloud. "Come in, Chloie."

The name hit me like a gut punch.

Chloie Ellis. The Beta's daughter. She breezed past me without a glance, pushing the door wide.

"Bren," she purred, perching on the edge of his desk like she owned it, fingers tracing his bicep.

The crushing Alpha pressure in the room vanished. He reeled it in instantly, wrapping it around himself so it wouldn't graze her skin.

My wolf howled in agony.

Flashback: I was ten. Three Rogues cornered me. Brendan, fifteen and unshifted, threw himself in front of me with a silver dagger. He took a claw to the chest. He bled for me.

You are safe, Jayde, he had whispered.

That was the lie I fell in love with.

Then came my seventeenth birthday. The day the bond should have snapped into place. I ran to him, burning with it.

He had grabbed my wrists, eyes flashing. Stop! You are my stepsister. You are a weak Omega who can't even shift. Do not confuse a childhood crush with the sacred bond.

I blinked the memory away.

In the study, Chloie leaned down. A fresh, angry red mark sat on Brendan's neck. A hickey. Or a test bite.

Bile rose in my throat. The thin, fragile thread I had been holding onto finally snapped.

I didn't need a ceremony. I didn't need a crowd.

"Goodbye, Brendan," I mouthed.

I turned away. I didn't feel the crushing weight of his presence anymore. I just felt... hollow.