Alpha's Abandoned Daughter is the Secret Heiress!

Chapter 3: Buried as Fertilizer

Chapter 3: An Intruder

(Amelia's POV)

I watched Theodore's sleek black car disappear down the dirt road, the dust settling in its wake like a curtain falling on one act of my life and rising on another. The afternoon sun glinted off the chrome bumper one last time before the vehicle rounded the bend and vanished completely from view.

For a long moment, I simply stood there, my arms wrapped around myself, feeling the phantom warmth of the mate bond thrumming beneath my skin. It was still new, still unfamiliar-so different from what I'd felt with Damien. That bond had been like a whisper, easily ignored. This one was a song, constant and compelling, growing stronger with each passing hour.

Ava was pleased, practically purring in my mind. 'He's strong,' she murmured. 'Even wounded, he's stronger than that weakling ever was. He'll be a good Alpha King.'

I couldn't disagree. But I also couldn't let myself get lost in those feelings. Not yet. Not when there was so much I didn't know, so many questions that needed answers. Theodore had given me information, yes, but it was just the surface. I needed to dig deeper.

Without wasting another second, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in months.

"Silas," I said when the line connected, my voice crisp and businesslike. "I need everything you can find on Stone River Pack in Northgate City."

There was a pause on the other end, and I could almost hear the gears turning in Silas's mind. He knew better than to ask questions when I called, but I could hear the curiosity in his voice.

"What specifically?" His voice was cautious, professional as always.

"Everything," I said flatly. "Every member, every secret, every dirty little scandal they've tried to hide." My voice hardened, and I felt Ava's approval surge through me. "Focus especially on someone named Celine Stone."

The name tasted bitter on my tongue. My replacement. The girl who had lived the life that should have been mine, who had been cherished and protected while I'd been left to freeze in the winter woods. The girl who now thought herself too good to marry a wounded Alpha heir.

"That's a powerful pack," came the cautious reply. "This will take time."

"I need it tonight." My tone left no room for negotiation.

"Tonight?" He sounded genuinely shocked, and that was saying something-Silas rarely showed surprise. "What's happened, Amelia?"

I gripped the phone tighter, my knuckles whitening. How did I even begin to explain? That in the space of a few hours, I'd lost one mate and found another? That I'd discovered I was the lost daughter of one of the most powerful packs in the region? That my entire identity, everything I thought I knew about myself, had been turned upside down?

"Let's just say I've discovered some long-lost relatives who suddenly remember I exist when it's convenient for them." The words came out sharper than I intended, edged with all the hurt and anger I was trying to contain. "And I want to know exactly what I'm walking into."

"I'll call in every favor I have." Silas sighed, and I could hear him already pulling up files on his computer. "But this won't be cheap."

"Money isn't an issue. Just get me what I need." I ended the call before he could ask any more questions.

I stood there for a moment, phone still pressed to my ear even though the line had gone dead, my chest rising and falling with the effort of keeping my emotions in check. Money wasn't an issue-it never had been, not for years now. Most people didn't know that. They saw the simple cottage, the herb garden, the modest way I lived, and they assumed I was scraping by.

They didn't know about the rare plants I cultivated in hidden greenhouses deeper in the forest. They didn't know about the Alphas who paid me small fortunes for healing that no one else could provide. They didn't know that I had more wealth tucked away than most pack treasuries could boast.

Damien certainly hadn't known. He'd looked at my simple cottage and my dirt-stained hands and decided I wasn't worthy of being an Alpha's Luna. The irony was almost funny. Almost.

I walked slowly toward my porch steps and sank down onto them, letting myself finally process everything that had happened. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across my small herb garden, the plants swaying gently in the breeze. This place had been my sanctuary, my safe haven where I could be myself without judgment or expectation.

And now I was going to leave it.

Memories I'd tried to bury for years came flooding back, sharp and painful, each one a small cut that added up to something that hurt more than I wanted to admit.

My adoptive father Robert had told me the story so many times I could recite it in my sleep. Twenty years ago, during the harshest winter anyone could remember, Robert had been gathering firewood deep in the forest when he heard a faint cry-so faint he almost missed it beneath the howling wind.

Following the sound, he discovered a newborn baby girl-me-abandoned in the freezing underbrush, nearly frozen solid. Only the faintest flutter of my heartbeat told him there was still a chance.

He'd wrapped me in his own coat, held me against his chest for warmth, and run through the snow faster than he'd ever moved in his life. He'd saved me. Given me life when someone else had tried to take it away.

Robert named me Amelia Cole and raised me as his own daughter. Until he passed away when I was seventeen, he never stopped searching for my biological parents, believing some desperate circumstance must have forced them to abandon me.

A k********g, he'd theorized. Or perhaps they'd been attacked, forced to hide me to save my life. He'd created a hundred scenarios, each painting my birth parents as tragic figures separated from me by cruel fate.

I'd clung to that hope too. Somewhere, I'd told myself, my real parents were searching for me, prevented by circumstances beyond their control.

But Theodore's revelation had shattered that illusion like glass. They'd known. They'd known they'd lost a daughter. And they'd never looked. Never searched. Never cared enough to try.

Instead, even after discovering that the other child-Celine-was an impostor, they chose to continue giving her the life that should have been mine. They loved her, protected her, and groomed her into the perfect princess of the pack. It wasn't until now, when their beloved surrogate daughter was set to marry a "disabled" and soon-to-be-discarded Alpha heir, that they suddenly remembered I existed.

The hurt of that realization went deeper than any physical wound I'd ever treated. It was a rejection that reached back through twenty years, a abandonment so complete that I'd almost died from it. If not for Robert stumbling upon me at just the right moment, I would have frozen to death in those woods, unmissed and unmourned.

Ava growled softly in my mind, sensing my spiraling thoughts. 'They don't deserve us,' she said firmly. 'They never did. And we'll make sure they know exactly what they threw away.'

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, centering myself. Ava was right. I couldn't change the past. I couldn't go back to the day I was swapped twenty years ago. But I could control what happened now.

If not for their carefully groomed replacement daughter, I might have spent my entire life as a lone wolf, never knowing my pack or my heritage. Never knowing that somewhere, I had parents who'd chosen someone else over me.

But it didn't matter anyway. Or at least, I told myself it didn't matter. I'd stopped caring about those things-about pack, about belonging, about family. I'd built a life for myself, carved out an existence that was mine and mine alone. I only wanted to experience the life I chose to experience, on my own terms.

Except... except there was a small part of me, a part I didn't want to acknowledge, that still hurt. That still wondered what it would have been like to grow up loved by my blood parents. To have a pack, a family, a place where I truly belonged.

I pushed those thoughts away firmly. No point dwelling on what could have been.

"Who was that handsome fellow in the fancy car?"

The voice startled me out of my dark thoughts. I turned to see my neighbor, Uncle Rowan, walking over from his own property, his weathered face wearing an expression of open curiosity. He was leaning on his walking stick, his eyes bright with the kind of interest only elderly pack members who'd lived too long in quiet villages could muster.

I managed a smile, grateful for the distraction from my spiraling thoughts. "My fiancé, apparently."

His eyebrows shot up so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline. "Fiancé? When did this happen? Last I checked, you were with that Damien boy."

The mention of Damien's name should have stung, but surprisingly, it didn't. The mate bond we'd shared was well and truly severed, and with it had gone whatever lingering attachment I might have felt. Theodore's presence had filled that void so completely that Damien felt like a distant memory, something that had happened to someone else.

"About an hour ago." I couldn't help but laugh at his shocked expression. "And Damien is history."

"Well, he's certainly a good-looking one," Rowan said, leaning more heavily on his walking stick as he studied me with knowing eyes. "And that car! Must be from one of those big city packs."

"The biggest, actually. Crimson Moon Pack." I enjoyed watching his jaw drop.

For a moment, Rowan just stared at me, his mouth working but no sound coming out. Then he found his voice, though it came out as more of a squeak. "Crimson Moon? As in... the Alpha King's pack?"

I nodded, feeling a small surge of satisfaction at his reaction. It was petty, perhaps, but after everything that had happened today, I was allowed a moment of enjoying someone's shock.

"Bring him over for dinner next time," Rowan insisted, his eyes wide with excitement that made him look decades younger. "I'd like to meet the man who's captured your heart so quickly. And who's apparently rich enough to buy half this village!"

Captured my heart. The words settled over me strangely. Had he captured my heart? Or was it just the mate bond making me feel drawn to him? I didn't know yet. It was too soon to tell where instinct ended and genuine feeling began.

But there was something there. Something more than just the bond. The way he'd looked at me, the honesty in his voice, the strength he carried despite his injury-it all spoke to something deeper. And those golden eyes... Moon Goddess, those eyes.

"I will," I promised, watching as Rowan hoisted his tools and headed toward the mountain path, muttering excitedly to himself about Alpha heirs and fancy cars and village girls making good.

As his figure disappeared down the trail, I sat back down on my porch steps, letting the late afternoon sun warm my face. The peace of the moment was deceptive-I knew that. Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, my entire life would change. I'd leave this quiet village and step into a world of pack politics, power plays, and people who'd already proven they couldn't be trusted.

'We'll be fine,' Ava murmured in my mind. 'We have each other. And we have our mate. Everything else we can handle.'

The hours passed slowly. I went through my evening routine mechanically-tending to my plants, preparing a simple dinner, organizing my supplies.

At eight o'clock sharp, my phone rang. Right on time.

After hanging up with Silas, I spent another hour poring over the information he'd sent. Every detail about Celine Stone, about Stone River Pack, about the life that should have been mine. The more I read, the more my anger solidified into something cold and purposeful.

By the time I finally crawled into bed, exhaustion was pulling at my limbs. Tomorrow would change everything. Tomorrow I would step into a world I'd been denied for twenty years.

I was just drifting off to sleep when Ava's voice jolted me awake.

*Someone's outside,* my wolf whispered urgently. *Not a villager. Smells like a rogue.*

My heart rate spiked instantly, adrenaline flooding my system. Every sense sharpened as I listened carefully, catching the soft crunch of footsteps approaching my cottage. At this hour, if it were a villager needing a healer, they would be calling my name or knocking.

This was an intruder.

And in the darkness outside, footsteps were getting closer.