Fake Heirness. True Luna

Chapter 3: From Alpha Heirness to Lowly Omega

Irina’s POV

“You are not my daughter!” He repeated as he tried to hit me once more. I lifted my arms to cover my face.

Lancer moved faster, his body a solid, unyielding shield between me and my father’s rage. He caught my father’s wrist, his own grip firm, his muscles coiled.

“Alpha,” Lancer’s voice was low, a forced calm over a foundation of shock and rising anger. “Stop. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

My father’s wild, grief-stricken eyes focused on Lancer, and for a terrifying second, I thought he would attack him. The future Beta. But then, instead of using brute force he let his aura out, a suffocating pressure that made several pack members whimper and drop to their knees.

“Get away from her, Lancer,” my father growled, the sound barely human. “She has deceived us all. She is a fake, a leech!”

The word was a dagger to my heart. I could only stare, my hand still pressed to my stinging cheek, my mind a whirlwind of denial. Leech. Fake. Lie. The words bounced around my skull, meaningless and yet utterly destructive.

“Richard!” My mother’s voice cut through the tension, sharp with her own fear and disbelief. She rushed forward, placing a hand on his heaving chest, trying to reach the man beneath the rage. “What are you doing? This is Irina! Our daughter!”

He shook her off, his gaze never leaving me, filled with a pain so deep it looked like it was tearing him apart from the inside. “She is not, Rosette. I… I can’t even look at our real daughter.”

My mother paled. “Real daughter?”

At that moment, the Elder came into view, and the black figure had finally taken their hood down.

Everyone gasped, including me. It was a woman around the same age as me. She had the same ashy-blond hair as my mother and hazel eyes as my father…

The resemblance was uncanny, a mirror of my parents’ features twisted into a face I’d never seen. She stood slightly behind Elder Harden, her posture stiff, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and a terrifying, hungry curiosity as she scanned the pack, but then she looked at me, and I swear, I saw how her eyes hardened.

The world didn't just tilt; it shattered. The air was stolen from my lungs. Every doubt, every horrible accusation, crystallized into a devastating, undeniable truth in that single, horrifying glance.

This stranger wore my mother’s hair and my father’s eyes.

“This is Julie,” Elder Harden announced, his voice booming in the dead silence. He placed a possessive hand on the girl’s shoulder. “The true-born daughter of Alpha Richard and Luna Rosette. Stolen from her crib moments after her birth and hidden away, while that—” he pointed his finger at me, “—that impostor was placed in her stead.”

A collective gasp rippled through the pack. All eyes flickered between me and the girl—Julie—searching for the truth. And they found it. I might pass as her sister; we are pretty similar, but there is no doubt that she is their daughter.

My mother’s hand flew to her mouth, a strangled sob escaping her. She stared at the other girl, her expression a war of maternal instinct and devastating shock. “My… my baby?” she whispered, the words barely audible, but they struck me harder than my father’s slap.

Julie took a hesitant step forward, her eyes glistening with tears. “Mother?”

It was the final blow. I saw the exact moment the last vestige of doubt left my mother’s eyes. They filled with a grief so profound it made my own heart throb.

“What happened to you?” My mother asked.

It should have been a harmless question, but Julie started shaking, almost as if talking about that terrified her.

“We can leave the details for later, Rosette. I just want you to know that she didn’t have an easy life. I rescued her from some rogues,” The Elder informed.

Everyone in the pack heard him. I had lived comfortably, while the true Alpha’s daughter had lived in pain.

I was a fraud. She was the true heir.

Leech. The word echoed in my head, now making a terrible, vicious sense. I had sucked the love and resources meant for another. I had lived her life.

“This is not your fault, Iriana!” Theia screamed, but how could it not be?

My father found his voice again, thick with tears and loathing that was all for me. “You deceived us, took everything that was meant for my daughter. I should kill you, but considering you are mated to our Beta, I’ll just banish you.”

Time stopped. No. No, no, no.

This couldn’t be happening. This was my home. These were my parents. Lancer was my mate. This was my pack, I… had everything. This was all I had ever known.

And it was all a lie.

My eyes, burning with unshed tears, darted to my mother—no, to Luna Rosette. Her face was a mask of torn anguish, but her arms were already reaching, not for me, but for her. For Julie. The true daughter. The one with the right story, the right face, the right pain.

Then I looked at Lancer. His back was still to me, a wall of muscle and loyalty, but I felt the tremor that ran through him at the Alpha’s decree. His grip on my father’s wrist was still firm, but he would soon let go.

“Alpha,” Lancer’s voice seemed broken. “I want to reject her before she leaves. I can’t be with someone who has lied about who she is.”

The Elder nodded. “You can reject her if you want. Not only did she take a place that wasn’t hers, but she is only a lowly omega.”

The world didn't just end; it curdled. Lancer’s words were a different kind of slap, one that didn’t sting but froze, turning the blood in my veins to ice. He wanted to reject me? After just vowing to stand by me?

Theia couldn’t listen anymore. She whimpered and retreated to the back of my mind.

“Freeloader!”

“Omega trash!”

“She deserves worse than banishment!”

“How dare she take her place!”

Those were the comments the pack made. The pack that used to love me.

I shrank into myself, wanting to disappear. Lancer wouldn’t even look at me. His shoulders were set, his face a cold mask turned toward my father. He had chosen his place. With them. With the real heir.

I was utterly alone.

I took a shuddering breath, preparing for the walk of shame out of my home, out of my life. My feet felt like lead. This was it. This was the end.

“Wait!”

The voice was soft and trembling, but it cut through the hatred like a knife. Everyone fell silent. Julie stepped forward, her hands clasped pleadingly in front of her. Tears streamed down her face, but they looked practiced and perfect.

“Please,” she begged, looking from my father to the pack. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t send her away because of me.”

A wave of confused murmurs swept through the crowd. My father’s furious expression faltered. “Julie, after all you’ve suffered… You would defend the one who stole your life?”

“She didn’t know!” Julie cried, her voice breaking with a convincing sob. “She was a baby, just like me. She’s a victim too.” She turned her wide, hazel eyes on me.

Could she be my savior?

“I… I didn’t have the education she did,” she continued, her voice humble. “I don’t know how to be a Luna. I’m scared. Please, let her stay. She can… she can help me. Like an older sister. I don’t want her to be banished. I want a family.”

The gasps this time were of pure admiration. Murmurs of “So compassionate,” and “A true Luna’s heart,” rippled through the pack. Even my mother was looking at her in awe.

Elder Harden placed a hand on her shoulder, his chest swelling with pride. “You see?” he boomed. “This is selflessness! This is the strength and mercy of a true Alpha’s daughter! She thinks of the pack’s strength, not her own pain.”

My father’s face transformed from rage to a twisted sort of pride. He looked at Julie as if she had hung the moon. He nodded slowly, a new, cruel idea forming.

“You are right, Julie. Your mercy does you credit,” he said, his voice carrying a new, terrible decree. “But a crime must still be punished. She will not be banished.” A beat of silence. “She will stay. But not as a sister.”

His eyes, cold and full of loathing, locked onto me.

“She will stay as your personal maid. She will serve you. She will do every menial task you command. She will repay every bite of food she ate, every thread of clothing she wore, every moment of love she stole from you with a lifetime of servitude. This is her punishment.”

The pack erupted in agreement. “Yes!” “A fair punishment!” “She can work off her debt!”

It was a nightmare more exquisite than banishment. Banishment was a clean cut, a brutal amputation. This was being forced to watch your own limb rot while still attached to your body.

Julie’s face lit up with a beatific smile. She rushed forward, past my father, and threw her arms around me in a tight, dramatic hug. The pack sighed at her generosity.

“Oh, thank you!” she whispered loudly enough for those nearby to hear. “Thank you, Father! Don’t worry, Irina,” she said, pulling back to hold my shoulders, her eyes shining with fake tears. “I will treat you just like a sister. I promise.”

The pack cheered for her. Their new, perfect Alpha’s daughter.

Then she leaned in again, her lips brushing my ear as she pulled me in for another “affectionate” squeeze. The smile on her face didn’t change, but her whisper was a venomous snake slithering into my soul, cold and absolute.

“I’m going to make you suffer every single day for stealing my life,” she hissed. “You will kneel for me. You will scrub my floors. You will wish for the banishment he offered. This is going to be so much more fun.”

She pulled away, her expression once again the picture of innocent gratitude, and waved sweetly to the adoring pack.

I thought she would save me, but in reality, she was going to make my life hell.