Alpha, Your Lock Betrayed Me Chapter 04
Before I could process what he’d said, Lysander was already out of the car and opening the rear door.
Cold air blasted in and struck my face. I shivered.
I climbed out and stood on the shoulder.
As the door shut, Morrigan’s weak voice drifted from the front seat.
“Lysander… take me to the ER. I feel awful…”
I watched the taillights vanish down the road. The whole thing was beyond absurd.
The road was deserted. My coat was thin, and the wind cut right through it.
I didn’t want to go back to Lysander’s estate. I really didn’t.
But the original deed transfer documents were still on the desk in his study.
Mom had reminded me several times before finally mailing the originals from my hometown. They were the only copies I had.
If I left them there, her trip to the county recorder’s office would have been for nothing.
I called another ride, returned to the estate, and let myself in with the access code he had given me that night.
Warm light pooled over the desk, illuminating the envelope that held my documents.
The envelope was open.
The deed transfer documents inside had been ripped in half. The pages were crumpled and waterlogged.
The ink had bled, smearing the notary seal and signatures until the text was unreadable.
I picked up both halves and ran my fingertips along the torn edges.
They transferred the house in my hometown from my mother to me.
They were supposed to go to my apartment. But when Lysander heard about them, he’d said, “Have her send them here. The pack is organizing records right now. I’ll take care of filing them while I’m at it.”
Now they were ruined.
Replacing them meant Mom would have to return to the county recorder’s office and mail another original. It would take at least another month.
Her health couldn’t take another trip.
Two months of effort had been reduced to two ruined sheets of paper. One bore the faint print of a shoe.
I reached for Lysander through our mind link. He rejected the connection, so I called.
He let the phone ring for a long time before answering, exhaustion and impatience heavy in his voice.
“I’m at the ER. Morrigan’s on oxygen. What is it?”
“My deed transfer documents,” I said. “The ones on the desk in your study. Someone tore them up and soaked them with water.”
Silence. Two seconds.
“I can’t deal with that right now. The doctor said Morrigan might’ve died if I’d brought her in any later.”
“Those papers were from my mom, ”
He cut me off, his voice turning so cold I barely recognized him.
“Do you really have to bring this up now? Morrigan had an asthma attack and nearly died. Do you understand that? The papers can be replaced. Stop blaming everything on her.”
He paused, then added, “She’s still on oxygen. Try to be reasonable.”
He hung up.
A new Instagram post from Morrigan lit up my screen.
[Asthma attack. Lysander rushed me to the ER. Our Alpha always comes through for me.]
A comment underneath read:
[Lysander playing hero again?]
In that moment, exhaustion settled over me.
I had tried over and over to talk to Lysander about Morrigan, but his indifference and favoritism stood between us like an invisible wall. To him, every objection and every hurt feeling only made me look irrational.
I locked my phone and gathered the torn pages into my bag.
As I stacked them, my hand bumped the mouse.
The computer screen lit up.
A hotel booking site was open. An unread notification sat beneath the “My Trips” tab.
[Your stay is complete. Tell us how it went.]
My hand trembled.
I clicked it.
The reservation opened.
It was booked under Lysander Vane, with Morrigan Croft listed as the second guest. One king bed at a hot spring resort outside the city.
The special request read:
[Please make the hot spring room feel romantic.]
The stay had been three months earlier, during the trip Lysander had called “a pack council meeting.”
I froze. It felt as if a fist had closed around everything inside my chest.
I didn’t close the page.
My eyes drifted to the DoorDash shortcut in the browser’s bookmarks bar.
I clicked it.
The order history showed a delivery from that same weekend to the same resort.
The order had been placed at 10:47 p.m.
Two mulled wines, a fruit platter, and a box of condoms.
My mind went completely blank.
I stared at the words “a box of condoms” until the screen dimmed and my face appeared in the black glass.
Cold crept slowly through me.
Pain ripped through the mate bond. Iris howled.
Then I remembered that night. My heart had begun racing, and the mate bond had felt close to snapping. I had been too far away to reach Lysander through the mind link, so I’d sent him a text.
Me: [How’s the pack meeting? Are you tired?]
Lysander: [It’s fine. Go to bed early.]
And I had gone to sleep.
While he ordered condoms to the king room he was sharing with Morrigan.
I released the mouse.
A few minutes later, an eerie calm settled over me. Even my hands stopped shaking.
I pulled my old suitcase from the closet and packed everything I had ever brought to the estate.
When the door closed behind me, the lockstone’s voice echoed through the entryway.
“Door locked.”
I didn’t look back.
There was nothing left to look back for.