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Fated to My Forbidden Alpha – Episode 04
The moment Tiffany left Jackson’s office, her carefully composed expression shattered. The Alpha wing’s corridor lay empty, its polished floors reflecting the morning light, and she was grateful no one stood nearby to witness her humiliation. Jackson had dismissed her in front of Selene—as if his chosen companion mattered less than a wolfless servant.
Her nails cut crescents into her palms while she replayed the scene. She had spent years making herself indispensable to Jackson, soothing his temper and flattering his ambition, yet one glance at that miserable orphan had distracted him. Worse, he had ordered Tiffany out when Selene was allowed to stay.
“If I could bury her alive, I would,” she muttered. The ugliness of the thought did not frighten her; it soothed the sting to her pride. Selene had survived at Blood Moon only because no one considered her worth the effort of destroying. Tiffany intended to correct that oversight.
Inside the office, the echo of the slamming door faded. Jackson stood near his desk, watching Selene regain her balance after the strange pain that had nearly brought her down. She kept her arms stiff at her sides and refused to meet his gaze, as though he were the one who had intruded on her.
Most wolves trembled when an Alpha studied them so openly. Selene possessed no wolf at all, yet after that first instinctive bow, she resisted him with a quietness more provoking than open rebellion. Jackson told himself her defiance required discipline. His wolf answered with a restless fascination he did not want.
“How long have you been at Blood Moon?” he asked. The question caught her off guard. “Almost fifteen years,” she replied. It was nearly her entire remembered life, long enough for the packhouse corridors to feel more familiar than any place she could have called home.
Jackson nodded, arranging his thoughts into the argument he had used to justify her place for years. “In all that time, have we ever allowed you to go hungry?” Selene’s mouth tightened. “No.” When he asked whether she had been left cold or homeless, she gave the same clipped answer.
“Then what exactly is your problem?” He spread his hands, presenting the rooms around them as evidence of generosity. “You were a packless orphan. Blood Moon gave you shelter, food, and protection when no one else came for you.”
The words landed where he intended, against the old wound of her abandonment. Jackson expected lowered eyes or reluctant gratitude. Instead, Selene looked directly at him, and for the first time he recognized what had accumulated behind her silence: fifteen years of anger, compacted and hard as stone.
“You should be grateful,” he added, unsettled by what he saw. Selene laughed—a short, bitter sound so unexpected that Jackson’s brows lifted. There was no amusement in it, only disbelief that he could mistake survival for kindness.
“Grateful?” she repeated. “I clean your floors, wash your dishes, carry meals for people who throw glasses at me, and accept whatever work your pack doesn’t want. I earn every bite I’m given, and somehow you call that generosity?”
Jackson’s wolf shifted uneasily. He had summoned her to judge whether her eighteenth birthday was awakening the mate bond, not to defend the pack’s treatment of her. Yet retreating now would feel like surrender, and Jackson had never learned how to abandon a battle he should not have started.
He stepped closer. “Then answer this. Why won’t you call me Alpha?” There it was—the tiny resistance that had bothered him through every exchange. She used the title when forced, but never with the natural deference other wolves gave him.
“I do call you Alpha.” Selene folded her arms, putting a barrier between them. “Eventually,” he countered. “After a pause, as if the word offends you. You’ve lived here for fifteen years. You know exactly who I am.”
Silence tightened between them. Jackson searched for an explanation that did not lead toward the truth he kept buried. A ridiculous possibility surfaced instead, one flattering enough to soothe his pride. “Are you jealous?” he asked.
Selene blinked. “What?” Jackson leaned against the desk, mistaking her disbelief for discomfort. “Is that why Tiffany bothers you? Do you wish you were the one beside me?” His arrogance gave the question an almost casual edge.
For a heartbeat, Selene could only stare. Then disgust swept away her caution. “You think I want to be Tiffany?” She pictured the public cruelty, the possessive smiles, and the way Tiffany used Jackson’s favor as a weapon. The thought was so absurd it broke something open inside her.
“Maybe,” he said. The single word carried years of command and unchallenged vanity. Selene was tired, frightened by the thing awakening beneath her skin, and still bruised from Tiffany’s hand. Every swallowed answer she had collected since childhood rose at once.
“You disgust me.” Her voice trembled, but not with fear. The office fell so quiet that she heard the clock ticking on the bookcase. Jackson pushed away from the desk, disbelief darkening his face. “What did you say?”
Every survival instinct urged her to apologize. Instead, Selene stepped forward and discovered the truth became easier the second time. “You disgust me. You hide cruelty behind pack law, and you expect gratitude because you let me work for the right to exist.”
