The Alpha King’s Broken Mate

Find her dead or alive

Alpha Rowan

The teacup rattled in its saucer as I set it down, fingers twitching with tension I hadn’t let myself acknowledge, not out loud.

Not yet. But it's there. It is poking at me so intently.

The council meeting had ended an hour ago, but the weight of it still clung to me like a wet cloak. Words about territory, patrols, and border tensions… but no one dared mention what really hung in the air.

Why hasn’t the Alpha King come?

He said he would. Two weeks ago. I had the letter sealed with his own crest. Promising his presence. Promising recognition.

A visit from the King was more than a formality, it was a signal, a blessing with means a merging of status. Without it, the talks of joining my pack with my another pack remain just that talk. Ideas, dreams of the hopeful, nothing concrete and definitely nothing, recognized.

My jaw locked. My temples pulsed in my head! I can't get my head right to function well.

The longer he stayed away, the more unstable everything became. Other alphas were sniffing at the edges. Whispering about my leadership about my claim to power, built on the back of a union many still didn’t take seriously.

And as if that weren’t enough, her name was spoken again in this house.

Namiko.

Even now, the sound of my wife’s raised voice drifted through the stone halls. “I don’t care what you say, Rowan, I know she’s alive! There is no way my baby is dead! I told you to hold on! I told you I was going to talk to her myself. You could have waited! You were so impatient”

I closed my eyes, hand tightening around the chair’s carved edge.

We’d had this argument too many times.

I stood and moved toward the source, our private quarters. The heavy oak door was slightly ajar, her voice trembling with grief or rage, I couldn’t tell anymore.

“If a body has not been found of her, then she is not dead,” she said again. “I’ve told you this. I know it to my bones, and I will keep telling you until you listen.”

“And I’ve told you,” I said as I stepped inside, keeping my voice level, “that we searched for her for days. The cliff leads to rocks and tide. There is no way she survived the fall the guards said she had. Besides, we can not continue to wait for her body, you think the ocean will spit out every corpse it swallows?”

She turned to me, eyes red, face pale with exhaustion and fury. Her hands, always so delicate, were clenched at her sides like she could tear the truth out of me by force if she had to.

“She wouldn’t leave me,” she said, voice low now, shaking. “Not without a goodbye. Not like that.”

I sighed and walked toward the window, the late sun bleeding against the horizon.

“She wasn’t happy here, She didn't like what was done to her. But I know she was not happy here. She never has been. After everything I have done for her. She is so ungrateful! You thought her so!” I said, quieter than before.

She flinched like I struck her.

“You think I don’t know that?” she whispered. “I saw the bruises. I saw how you looked at her when she talked too loud and laughed too freely. I saw what being here did to her. I saw how she looked in that cold, smelling dungeon! You caused all of this”

I turned to her sharply. “You’re twisting this, this is not how I remember it going. You agreed to this. You said she could give me what I wanted.”

“No,” she said. “I’m finally seeing it clearly, I take my fault. But I could have talked to her.”

For a moment, we stood there, breathing in the thick air between us.

Namiko had always been a complicated thread in this tapestry of power and position. She was not mine, not by blood, but her presence had been necessary. Her loyalty is expected. Her silence was purchased. But she was ungrateful. She was never content. She should have stayed back And when she vanished, part of me, perhaps the ugliest part, felt a dark, brief relief. A problem is gone. Except for the fact that she was the only one I knew who could give me an heir! It's a loss.

I know she is dead! The guards already told me. I think it is very better that she dies, like that, no one would know what was done to her. I'm just going to get another human wife. Who will give me a son?

She kept quiet for a while, so I thought it was the end for today, but I know better, her mother never let her go.

“I had a dream last night,” she murmured now, turning toward the window, arms folded. “She was standing at the edge of the trees, watching the house. Her face was different. Older, stronger. But I knew it was her.”

“She’s not coming back,” I said, firmly

She didn’t reply. Just looked at the horizon like she could summon her child back through sheer will.

I stepped closer, softer now. “Liora. Please. Let it go.”

“No,” she said simply. “I can’t.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That night, I walked the perimeter of the estate, flanked by two of my personal guards. The wind bit at my skin, bringing with it the scent of pine and storm.

I should have felt confident. This was my land. My people, my rules.

But the ground beneath my feet didn’t feel solid.

And I didn’t like that the Alpha King hadn’t come.

He was supposed to arrive with ceremony. With flags, with acknowledgment. His delay has made me into something vulnerable. And my enemies smelled blood.

I needed to understand why. And more importantly, whether it had anything to do with Namiko. Did someone from the higher up, find out about this.

It sounded foolish even to think it. She was a half-blood girl with no allies and no future. Not part of any prophecy. Not tied to power. Just. . . a girl with too many questions and no place in my world.

But what if. . .

What if someone else had seen potential in her? Used her? Or what if she hadn’t died at all?

No. No. If she was alive, she’d be a threat now.

A loose thread I couldn’t afford.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of boots behind me. Dax, my captain of the guard, approached with a respectful nod.

“You asked to see me, Alpha?”

I turned to face him. The torchlight flickered across his scarred face.

“Yes. Gather a small group. Three men, trusted. You’ll go east. To the Alpha King’s pack. Deliver my formal greeting. And ask politely, why there has been a delay in his visit.”

Dax nodded once, grimly. “Understood.”

I hesitated. “Take someone who knows the land. Someone who’s been there before.”

Dax’s brow lifted slightly. “Ethan?”

The name fell like a stone in my gut.

Namiko’s former, whatever he was, Lover, betrayer or obsession.

He’d been quiet since her disappearance. Withdrawn. Obedient.

Which was either grief. . . or guilt.

“Yes,” I said finally. “Let him go with you. And double check everywhere! Bring my step daughter’s body to me, dead or Alive”

Dax didn’t question me. Just nodded and turned to leave.

But as he vanished into the dark, I felt it, that this wasn’t just a political errand, it was more than that.

That by sending Ethan to the Alpha King’s pack, I was lighting a match near a fuse I didn’t fully understand.

And I couldn’t help but wonder, if Namiko was still alive. . . Would Ethan be the one to find her? Will he betray me or the one to betray her all over again?