Flash Marriage To The Hidden Alpha King

Isla Pacheco POV:

"Happy anniversary, Finley," I whispered to myself, balancing the fresh blueberry cake on my palm as I pressed my thumb against the biometric lock of our apartment.

The digital lock chimed, and the heavy door drifted open.

I stepped into the foyer, but my shoe struck something sharp. I looked down and froze.

A pair of bright red, patent-leather stilettos lay sprawled on the hardwood floor, caked in fresh mud. They were not mine.

My stomach plummeted straight into my shoes. I set the bakery box on the console table and walked down the dimly lit hallway, my sneakers making no sound against the runner rug.

The air inside the apartment hit me first. Finley's familiar scent of crisp cedar was completely drowned out by an overpowering, cloying stench of wild roses.

It was Falon Stafford's scent.

She was my supposed best friend, the spoiled daughter of an Apex Pack corporate executive, and someone who constantly reminded everyone of her superior pedigree. In our werewolf society, where scents were the truest mark of identity and hierarchy, her wild rose pheromones were deliberately saturating every inch of my home.

Heavy panting and the rhythmic, sickening slap of bare skin echoed from the half-open master bedroom door.

My hands went completely numb. I pushed the door open an inch wider and looked through the gap.

Under the dim amber glow of the bedside lamp, two tangled bodies moved frantically across the sheets.

Finley's back was slick with sweat, his spine flexing as he buried his face in Falon's dyed golden curls, groaning with a desperate, animalistic hunger.

My shoulder bag slipped from my fingers, hitting the floorboards with a loud, hollow thud.

The noise sliced through the humid, suffocating room.

Finley snapped his head around. His light brown eyes widened in pure terror, and he frantically scrambled backward, yanking the gray duvet over his waist.

Falon did not even flinch. She leaned back against the headboard, pulling the silk sheet just high enough to tease her collarbone, where a small red rose tattoo peeked through.

"Isla?" Finley stammered, his voice cracking. "You... you were supposed to be stuck at the office until nine."

"If I had stayed late, I wouldn't have caught you turning our engagement bed into a cheap breeding den, would I?" I said.

My voice was dead, but my fingernails dug so hard into my palms that I broke skin.

Finley's face flushed crimson. He threw on a bathrobe and scrambled out of bed, lunging toward me with his hands outstretched. "Isla, baby, listen to me. It's not what you think. It was just... an Alpha instinct flare-up. You know how hard it is to control-"

I recoiled and slapped his reaching hand away. "Alpha instinct? Werewolf instinct is built on loyalty. You are just a low-tier mutt who can't keep his pants zipped."

Finley's expression twisted into an ugly snarl. His eyes flared with a faint, pathetic reddish hue as he stepped forward, trying to tower over me. "Shut your mouth! If you weren't so cold and boring, do you think I'd ever look at another woman?"

From the bed, Falon let out a soft, mocking sigh. "Oh, Isla... don't be so dramatic. I just admire Finley so much. You're so pure and forgiving, surely you won't throw away a good man over a little mistake?"

She tilted her head, deliberately releasing another wave of her suffocating wild rose pheromones, trying to use her higher-tier female presence to force me into submission.

A wave of nausea hit my throat. "Save your cheap tricks, Falon. You disgust me."

Falon's fake smile vanished instantly. She sat up, her eyes narrowing with malice. "I disgust you? Look at yourself, Isla. You're a nobody from a common bloodline with zero corporate backing. Finley is getting promoted next week. What can you offer him?"

She crossed her bare arms, radiating arrogant superiority. "My father sits on the executive council. With one word from me, Finley gets resources and territory allocations you couldn't earn in ten lifetimes."

Finley stood beside her, his silence speaking volumes. He looked away, confirming that he had sold out four years of our relationship for a corporate promotion.

I looked at them, and the suffocating pain in my chest suddenly turned into ice-cold clarity.

"Keep your executive father, and keep this piece of trash," I said, my voice completely steady. "Get out of my life."

I turned on my heel and walked toward the front door.

"Isla! Wait!" Finley yelled, hurrying after me down the hall. "Our Blood-Oath Registry appointment is scheduled for tomorrow morning! You can't just leave! If you don't register, your pack elders will reassign you!"

I didn't stop. I grabbed the spare brass key off the foyer tray, turned around, and hurled it straight at his face.

The heavy key clipped his cheekbone, drawing a thin line of bright red blood. Finley gasped, clutching his face and stumbling back.

I slammed the door behind me and bolted down the stairwell.

When I burst out of the residential building, a freezing midnight downpour instantly soaked through my clothes. The icy water drenched my hair and plastered my shirt to my skin, but it couldn't cool the fire burning in my chest.

Tomorrow was the hard deadline set by my family and the territory elders. Under pack law, any unclaimed female from an ordinary bloodline who failed to present a registered mate by her twenty-fourth birthday would be forcibly assigned to older, widowed wolves for breeding duty.

I stood on the drenched sidewalk, looking down the street where the neon sign of the metropolitan Pack Registry glowed through the storm.

A reckless, desperate thought struck my mind like lightning.

If I was going to be tied to a stranger to escape elder reassignment, I would choose my own pawn. Anyone with a beating pulse who could sign the paper.

I wiped the rain from my eyes and sprinted through the flooded asphalt toward the Registry.

Under the wide concrete overhang of the Registry building, a solitary figure stood in the shadows. He was exceptionally tall, broad-shouldered, and draped in a long, dark trench coat.

I didn't hesitate. I dashed up the concrete steps, reached out with my trembling, freezing hand, and clamped my fingers tightly around his wrist.