Stealing the Alpha’s Heritage

Chapter 4

POV Thorne

"Where the hell is my wife?"

The words tear from my throat as I storm through the basement doorway.

Moonlight streams through the narrow windows, illuminating the empty cot where Aria should be. Her scent still clings to the concrete walls—jasmine and fear—but she's gone.

I grab the nearest guard by his throat, lifting him until his feet dangle. "You had one job. One fucking job."

"Alpha, please…" He chokes against my grip, face turning purple.

"Who opened this door?" My fingers tighten. The wolf inside me demands blood.

"We just started our shift, Alpha." He gasps. "The door was already open when we arrived for rotation. But earlier—I saw her get into Garrett's car when I was coming in. He drove her away."

I drop him, watching him crumple to the floor clutching his throat. "When?"

"Two hours ago, Alpha." He coughs, struggling to his knees. "Just before shift change."

Garrett. My jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth. "Get out of my sight. If I see you on pack grounds after sunrise, I'll tear your throat out myself."

The hallways blur as I thunder through them, servants scattering like leaves before a storm. They press themselves against walls, averting their eyes, the stench of their fear thick in the air.

My rage builds with each step toward the garage.

I find Garrett methodically checking the oil in one of the pack vehicles. His weathered face remains neutral as I approach, but something in his stance sets my teeth on edge.

"Where did you take my wife?" The question comes out as a snarl.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Alpha." He doesn't look up from the dipstick.

"Don't lie to me." I slam my hand against the hood, leaving a dent in the metal. "The guard saw you drive her away."

Garrett finally meets my gaze, his scarred mouth set in a firm line. "I drove where I was instructed to drive."

"You work for me." My voice drops to a growl that would make lesser men piss themselves.

Garrett doesn't flinch. "I work for the pack, Alpha. Been doing it since before you grew your first fang."

He wipes his hands on a rag with deliberate slowness.

"I follow the chain of command that's kept this pack running for forty years." He tosses the rag aside. "Some orders supersede others."

"Where did you take her?" Each word grinds out between clenched teeth.

"It's not my place to say, Alpha." He meets my gaze steadily. "I'm just a driver."

My fist connects with his jaw before I consciously decide to throw it.

Garrett staggers but doesn't fall, spitting blood onto the concrete. "Feel better, Alpha?"

"Tell me where she is, or I'll have you banished."

"Of course, Alpha." He straightens, working his jaw. "But we both know your mother holds enough pack council votes to overturn any decision you make against her people. And you can't afford that kind of division right now. Not with the Northern territories watching for weakness. Now if you'll excuse me, I have vehicles to maintain."

He turns his back on me—an insult that makes my wolf snarl—but I let him go.

There's only one person who could orchestrate this betrayal.

The sitting room door splinters under my boot, wood fragments scattering across my mother's Persian rug. She doesn't even look up from her book, silver reading glasses perched on her nose like this is any other evening.

"That was a seventeenth-century door," she says mildly, turning a page. "Imported from Bavaria. Quite irreplaceable."

"She's gone." The words come out savage. "You helped her."

"Yes." She removes her glasses with practiced grace, folding them carefully before setting them aside. "I did."

"How dare you—"

"How dare I?" She rises from her chair, and suddenly she's not just my mother but the former Luna who once commanded hundreds. "How dare you lock your mate in a basement like some common criminal?"

"She rejected me. In my own office. In front of—" I stop, jaw clenching.

"In front of your whore?" She supplies the word with surgical precision. "Yes, Thorne, the entire household knows about Serena. They know you've been bedding her for weeks while your mate withered away in your shadow."

"That's none of your concern."

"Everything about this pack's future is my concern." She moves closer, and I catch the fury burning beneath her calm exterior. "You never deserved her, Thorne. Never. That girl was pure moonlight, and you treated her like dirt beneath your boots."

"She's my mate. She belongs here."

"She belongs where she's safe." My mother's voice drops to match mine, equally dangerous. "Where she won't have to watch her husband invite mistresses to their home."

"WHERE. IS. SHE?" The question tears from my chest, desperation bleeding through the rage.

My mother remains indifferent. She returns to her chair, picking up her book with steady hands. "Gone."

"I'll find her. I'll track her scent, follow every lead—"

"No, you won't." She turns another page, the gesture deliberately dismissive. "Because I made sure she got far enough away that even your trackers won't find her trail. And because you're going to let her go."

"Like hell I will."

She looks up then, and her eyes hold something razor-sharp. "She left you pregnant with your heirs, Thorne. Twins. And she will raise them far from your madness."

The words hit like physical blows. Pregnant. Twins. Heirs. The room spins, reality fracturing around the edges. "You're lying."

"I never lie about grandchildren."

She pulls a broken pregnancy test from her pocket, setting it on the side table between us. Two pink lines are still visible through the cracked plastic.

"Six weeks along, she said. Coming to tell you when she found you with that secretary of yours."

My legs won't hold me. I sink into the nearest chair, staring at the broken test. The evidence of what I've destroyed. "She was coming to tell me…"

"With such hope in her eyes." My mother's voice turns soft, which somehow cuts deeper than her anger. "She thought babies would give you both another chance. I saw it in her eyes. Instead, she found you rutting with another woman like some feral dog."

The crystal tumbler on the side table explodes in my grip, shards embedding in my palm. Blood drips onto the white carpet, but I barely feel it. "I will find her."

"And then what?" My mother stands again, moving toward the door. "Drag her back? Lock her up again? Force her to watch you with your mistresses while she raises your children?"

"They're my heirs—"

"They're her babies." She pauses at the broken door frame. "And she'll protect them from you with every breath in her body. Just as I would have protected you."

She leaves me surrounded by broken glass and blood, the pregnancy test mocking me from the table.

My roar shakes the entire house, windows rattling in their frames, a sound of pure animal fury that sends every wolf in hearing distance to their knees.

"I WILL FIND HER," I snarl to the empty room, my eyes burning red with alpha rage. "AND I WILL TAKE WHAT'S MINE."