Substitute Marriage: The Alpha's Secret Healer

Hermina Montgomery POV:

My father, Ronald Mercer, slammed a marriage contract sealed with dark red wax onto the heavy oak desk. The parchment bounced from the force. As the greedy Lord of the Mercer pack who only cared about gold and titles, he glared at me with his goatee trembling in rage.

"I raised you, after all!" Ronald roared, his palm slapping the wood. "Now the family needs you to take Brylee's place and fulfill the marriage alliance with the Carlisle territory!"

I stood expressionless in the gloomy study, my fingers curling inside my sleeves. A cold laugh escaped my lips.

"If marrying the supreme Pack Alpha is such a blessing, why not let your precious second daughter enjoy it herself?"

Standing behind her mother in an expensive lace gown, my half-sister Brylee Mercer immediately shrank back. The mole beneath her left eye quivered as she faked a sob. She had spent months bragging about this royal engagement until news broke of the groom's crippling injuries.

"Sister, Lord Andrae's legs are ruined and his inner wolf is dead," Brylee said, her sweet voice dripping with venom. "You have no wolf soul in your body at all. A wolfless outcast like you is the perfect match for a cripple."

In our world, a wolfless person cannot shift, cannot use the mind-link, and cannot even sense a fated mate. To the nobles, I was trash.

My stepmother, Glenda Mercer, stepped forward with huge emerald rings flashing on all ten fingers. She offered a fake, greedy smile.

"We are all one pack, Hermina. Obey your father, and I will give you the clues about how your grandmother died in the Carlisle territory years ago."

At the mention of my grandmother, my chest heaved. Murderous heat surged through my veins, and a faint flash of pure white light flickered deep within my pupils. I dug my fingernails into my palms. The sharp pain cleared my head.

Seeing my silence, Ronald assumed I was cowed. He stomped toward me, his chest puffed out.

"Wipe that dead look off your face! Tonight, you are getting into that carriage to Northwind Castle!"

He raised his thick hand and swung a vicious slap toward my cheek to break my spine.

I did not move my feet. I tilted my head half an inch. His palm sliced through the empty air beside my ear, and the missed momentum threw Ronald off balance.

As he stumbled and looked back in shock, I raised my eyelids. The freezing stillness in my eyes made my cowardly father instinctively step back, his spine hitting the chair.

Brylee clutched her skirt and shrieked.

"How dare a wolfless piece of trash dodge Father's hand!"

I straightened my back, my voice echoing through the room.

"Deal. But if a single word of your clue is fake, I will tear the Mercer territory apart with my own hands."

Glenda's jaw trembled at the bloodlust in my tone. Her eyes darted away, and she hurriedly pushed the contract toward me with a dry laugh.

I snatched the quill, signed my name on the parchment, grabbed the scroll, and walked out the door.

Walking past the perfumed hallways and down the muddy back path, I returned to my dilapidated hay loft. I bolted the rotting wooden door, walked to the stone table, and pulled a packet of dark powder from my inner lining.

It was stink-vine ash roasted with secret herbs. Its bitter, rotting stench was the only barrier hiding my pure-blooded White Wolf scent-the supreme royal bloodline blessed by the Moon Goddess.

I mixed the ash with cold water in a clay bowl and smeared the mud across my fair cheeks and neck. The paste dried into ugly, dark gray scabs, burying my true face beneath a withered mask. Taking a deep breath, I let the herbs force my White Wolf bloodline into a deep slumber. In the bronze mirror stood a hideous, wolfless servant girl.

Reaching into a crack in the stone wall, I pulled out a heavy iron box. Inside lay rows of long, moonlight-tempered silver needles. Silver was fatal to werewolves, capable of burning their inner wolves to ash, yet in my hands, it was the ultimate tool of the realm's sole supreme Healer.

I slid the needles into the lining of my leather wristbands. My grandmother had been a legendary elder of the White Wolf royal court; she never could have died from a mere drunken dire wolf stampede. Every clue pointed to Carlisle Castle, and the crippled tyrant Andrae was my way in.

Heavy pounding echoed from downstairs, followed by iron wheels grinding over gravel. The black iron carriage had arrived.

I wrapped myself in a ragged black hooded cloak, pulled the brim low, and walked down the narrow stone stairs. Under the main porch, Ronald and Glenda watched me with undisguised disgust, eager to rid themselves of baggage.

A low-ranking werewolf guard driving the carriage sized me up like cheap cargo and yanked the iron door open. I stepped onto the cold pedal, climbed into the cramped carriage, and sat on the hard wooden bench.

The whip cracked in the howling wind. As the carriage lurched forward into the dark wilderness, I looked through the iron bars at the fading castle, my fingers brushing the silver needles in my sleeve.