My Unexpected Mate is the Undercover Lycan Alpha

Avia Cooley POV:

"Avia is a defective wolfless piece of trash without an Inner Wolf. How could she ever compare to you?"

The man's ragged breathing echoed from the last stall of the luxury hotel restroom, thick with the foul stench of cheap perfume and a rutting Alpha's musk.

I stopped cold on the marble floor. My stomach twisted as I recognized the voice of my fiancé, Freddy Costa, the heir to the second-tier Costa Pack.

"Once I use this marriage pact to swallow the trust fund her dead parents left behind, I'll dump her in the outer barrens," Freddy grunted behind the locked wooden door.

A woman giggled, high and breathless.

My fingers curled into my palms, nails biting into my skin. In werewolf society, our status is locked by genetics at birth, and because everyone believed I was born wolfless-unable to shift, use a Mind-Link, or sense a mate-Freddy treated me like an easy meal ticket.

I raised my right leg and drove my heel straight into the brass lock.

The solid wood door blasted open and slammed against the tile wall.

Inside, Freddy scrambled to pull up his trousers, while his mistress, Vanessa, shrieked and clutched her torn dress.

Panic flashed across Freddy's flushed face before twisting into rage. He released a wave of his low-tier Alpha aura, trying to force my knees to buckle through genetic suppression.

"Avia, have you lost your damn mind?" he barked.

I suppressed the ancient White Wolf bloodline boiling in my veins and took half a step back, pretending to falter under his pathetic pressure. My hand closed around the porcelain washbasin filled with ice water on the counter.

I swung my arm and splashed the freezing water straight into his face.

"Just cooling down your overheated brain," I said.

Freddy sputtered, wiping dirty water from his eyes. Beside him, Vanessa lunged forward with her claws out to rip my hair.

I sidestepped by an inch. Her high heels hit the wet tiles, and she crashed face-first onto the floor with a loud thud.

Ignoring her groans, I pulled the diamond engagement ring off my finger and threw it like garbage against Freddy's wet chest.

"Our engagement is over," I said, my voice flat. "Don't ever come near me again."

Leaving Freddy cursing behind me, I walked out of the restroom, crossed the gilded hotel lobby, and stepped into the cool night air outside the Pack Vow Registry down the street.

I stood on the stone steps, rubbing the back of my neck. My mentor, the Elder Healer at the hidden sanctuary, had ordered me to get legally bound tonight, and now I was short one groom.

Suddenly, a crisp, intoxicating scent of snow-covered cedar and winter ice hit my nose.

My heart skipped a beat, and a strange heat surged through my blood. Even with my wolf spirit sealed away, my body trembled with an inexplicable sense of peace and belonging.

I turned my head toward a streetlamp near the curb. A tall man in a faded black jacket sat on a wooden bench, a jagged red claw scar peeking out from beneath his right collarbone.

A woman in a sequined dress threw a bouquet of roses at his boots.

"Kingsley, you don't even own a decent car, and you expect me to mate with you?" she sneered, her Omega pheromones reeking of greed. "I'd rather be a mistress to a high-ranking Alpha!"

She clickable-clacked away in her heels. The man didn't even blink; he simply lit a cigarette, his dark golden eyes cold and terrifying through the smoke.

My pulse raced as I walked straight over to his bench and stopped in front of him.

He lifted his gaze. A dangerous pressure radiated from his broad frame, making the fine hairs on my arms stand up, yet I held my ground.

"Got dumped?" I pointed at the crushed roses on the pavement. "What a coincidence. I just trashed a cheating scumbag myself."

Kingsley blew out a ring of smoke, his voice low and gravelly. "And?"

"I need a marriage certificate to satisfy my elders, and you need a bride to save face," I said, looking straight into his golden eyes. "Want to split a table and sign a contract?"

His fingers paused around the cigarette. His gaze swept over my plain coat-woven from priceless mythic silver thread-and a faint smirk touched his lips.

"Deal," he said.

We walked side by side into the Pack Vow Registry. The Beta clerk gave our mismatched pair a strange look before sliding two Blood Pact forms across the desk.

Without hesitation, I signed my name and pressed my blood-pricked thumb onto the seal, and Kingsley did the same. In less than ten minutes, the clerk stamped our certificates with the Pack Registry's iron seal.

We stepped back out onto the dim sidewalk. Kingsley shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.

"I'm Kingsley Rose," he said evenly. "I drive a rideshare car for a living. No house, no savings."

I slipped the certificate into my bag without blinking. "Avia Cooley. A genetic wolfless outcast from the Cooley Pack. Dead broke too."

Under the flickering streetlamp, his deep gaze locked onto mine. "Then I'm in your care from now on, wife."

The word made my ears burn. I pinched the back of my neck and nodded stiffly. "We don't interfere with each other's private lives for the next few months. I'm taking the night bus back, so don't bother calling a cab."

I turned and walked briskly toward the bus stop down the block.

Kingsley Rose POV:

I watched Avia's slender figure disappear around the corner, and the lazy mask vanished from my face.

My inner Lycan beast roared against my ribs, screaming a single word-Mine!-as her lingering scent of frost and wild herbs calmed the chronic bloodlust in my veins.

I crushed the cigarette butt between my fingers and pulled an encrypted satellite phone from my pocket.

When my Beta assistant answered, I spoke in a voice colder than winter ice.

"Investigate a girl named Avia from the Cooley Pack. "