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I was born without an Inner Wolf. To the highborn Hopkins Pack, that made me a genetic defect, so my biological mother abandoned me in the lawless borderlands for eighteen years. But suddenly, she sent an elite hit squad to drag me back. She demanded I take my precious sister's place in a mating alliance with a notorious, deformed monster from Shadow Ridge. When I refused to be their sacrificial lamb, they decided to break me. They threatened my adoptive mother, the only person who ever truly cared for me. They even delivered a severed female hand in a bloody wooden box to my doorstep, warning me that if I didn't submit to the beast and act as their spy, my mother would be butchered piece by piece. They thought my lack of fangs and claws made me weak, a pathetic stray they could manipulate at will. They had no idea that in the black markets, I was known as the Phantom Healer-a ghost who traded miraculous cures and lethal neurotoxins. "I told you if you touched her, I would burn this pack to the ground." I whispered those words as I splashed bone-melting acid across their chief enforcer's face. Instead of running from the monster Alpha, I cured his lethal poisoning and struck a fake marriage deal with him. Because beneath his terrifying iron mask, he wasn't a cripple at all, but a devastatingly handsome apex predator who was more than happy to help me slaughter my old pack.
Contents
The Alpha's Fake Mate Is The Phantom Healer Chapter 1
Evangeline POV:
When I was born, the Pack Seer branded me a "cursed star." Combined with the fact that I was born without an inner wolf, making me a complete and utter piece of trash, my biological mother, Hortense, threw me away to a dilapidated cabin on the edge of the Hopkins territory on the very day of my birth.
For eighteen years, she never looked at me once. Yet today, to save her precious daughter Amanda from marrying the bloodthirsty, dying Alpha of Shadow Ridge, she actually had me drugged to ruin my innocence with a disgusting, ugly rogue, all to force me to act as her substitute bride!
The drug they slipped into my dinner was burning through my veins like liquid fire, perfectly mimicking the ferocious, primal urge of a werewolf's Heat. I had managed to slip away from their watchful eyes and stumbled back to my own dark bedroom in the cabin, locking the heavy wooden door behind me with a muffled click.
The room was pitch-black. No lamps were lit.
I leaned my back against the solid door, sucking in ragged breaths to steady my racing pulse. I thought I was safe, but the moment my guard dropped, a suffocating scent hit me-rich, sharp cedar blended with the icy clarity of wild mint.
My stomach dropped.
Deep inside my chest, in the hollow place where society claimed I was defective, a deafening roar tore through my soul.
Mate.
A wave of terrifying yet absolute completeness washed over me, so sudden and sweet that my knees instantly buckled. Before my hands could brace against the wood, a massive silhouette lunged from the shadows.
A wall of pure muscle slammed into me. Hard hands shoved me flat against the doorframe, pinning my wrists to the wood. The instant his skin grazed mine, an electric shock arced down my spine. Blue sparks seemed to detonate behind my eyelids.
The undeniable reactions of the mate-bond recognition: the distinct scent, the physical surge, the soul's peace, the inner wolf's roar, and the electric spark upon touch. They had all just struck me at once.
"Where am I? Who are you?" his voice was a gravelly scrape, dripping with agony and untamed fury.
A sliver of moonlight sliced through the window, illuminating his profile. My breath hitched.
He possessed a breathtaking, lethal handsomeness. He had a chiseled jawline and piercing glacial-blue eyes that exuded an intoxicating blend of danger. But his pale skin was slick with cold sweat, and thick, black veins pulsed dangerously beneath the skin of his neck.
Silver poisoning. He was dying from severe, deep-tissue silver rot.
Before I could spit out a warning, the man's control shattered entirely. The drug in my system and the ferocious instinctual rut triggered by the mate-bond wiped out whatever sanity he had left.
His mouth crashed down on mine. It was a brutal, territorial claim.
I bit my own tongue, using the sharp spike of pain to snap my mind clear. My right fingers slipped to my concealed waistband, pulling out three slender silver acupuncture needles. I flicked my wrist.
But he moved with monstrous speed. His hand caught my forearm mid-strike, his grip nearly fracturing my bone. "Trying to kill me, little stray?"
Suddenly, his body seized. A strangled groan tore from his throat. The silver poison in his veins clashed violently with the surging adrenaline of the bond. His spine arched in agony, thick drops of cold sweat dripping from his temple onto my collarbone.
I stopped fighting. Instead, I wrapped both arms around his broad, sweat-drenched shoulders. My fingers pressed firmly into the nerve junctions along his upper vertebrae, driving the needles in and channeling a steady pulse of vital energy straight into his inflamed pathways.
The man stiffened violently. The bloodlust in his gaze receded, replaced by absolute shock. "What... did you just do?"
"Shut up and stop moving," I hissed.
Using his momentary paralysis, I twisted my hips, flipped him onto his back, and straddled his waist. I looked down at the handsome stranger, my hair tumbling over my shoulders. "Right now, Alpha, I'm the one in charge."
Yet I had underestimated the terrifying backlash of the mate bond. The direct contact, combined with the drug my mother had given me, sent a bolt of molten heat straight down into my belly, burning away the last of my sanity.
He saw the flush spreading across my chest. His lips curled into a wicked, predatory grin. His large hand rose, wrapping around the back of my head, dragging me down toward his face.
"Looks like you're the one who needs the cure," he rasped.
Sanity snapped. In the dim silver of the midnight room, civilized thoughts vanished. There was no gentle courtship-only the raw, relentless hunger of two apex predators colliding in the dark.
When the pale gray light of dawn crept through the cracked window, my eyes snapped open. Every muscle in my body ached as if I had been run over by a truck.
I turned my head. The mysterious Alpha lay beside me in a deep, exhausted slumber. The toxic black veins on his chest had receded significantly.
I rolled out of my own bed, grabbed my clothes from the floor, and dressed quickly. I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out three heavy gold coins, and dropped them onto the pillow next to his handsome face with a soft clink.
"Consider this a generous tip for a premium service," I muttered to myself, a cold smile touching my lips.
Before I could take another step toward the bathroom...
CRACK.
The heavy wooden door burst open, the lock splintering under a brutal kick. Wood shards sprayed across the room like shrapnel.
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