Claimed by the Alpha I Hate – Episode 03
Daisy stood motionless outside Scott’s room, her hand hovering over the door handle. Mila’s laugh came again, low and intimate, followed by Scott’s murmured reply. It was not the sound of an Alpha reprimanding someone for cruelty. The tenderness in his voice belonged to moments Daisy had believed were reserved for her.
She pushed open the door. Scott and Mila sprang apart, but not quickly enough to disguise what Daisy had seen: Mila pressed against him, Scott’s hands on her body, their clothes disordered. For one suspended instant, no one spoke. The celebration music beyond the walls seemed impossibly distant.
“You’re cheating on me?” Daisy asked. Her own voice sounded unfamiliar, scraped hollow by shock. Scott stared at her as if she were the one who had violated an agreement by opening the door. Mila, in contrast, made no attempt to look ashamed.
“Daisy, listen.” Scott stepped forward, then stopped when she recoiled. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.” It was the wrong apology, and they both knew it. He regretted the discovery, not the betrayal.
“Find what out?” Daisy demanded. The sour liquid from Mila’s prank still chilled her skin, and the ridiculous tail remained tied around her waist. She had run to her mate expecting comfort, only to find the architect of her humiliation in his arms. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Mila leaned against the edge of the table, savoring Daisy’s confusion. “Goddess, how do you go six months without knowing your boyfriend is sleeping with someone else?” The truth landed with brutal precision. Six months meant secret meetings, practiced lies, and countless occasions when Scott had looked Daisy in the eyes while choosing Mila behind her back.
“Six months?” Daisy turned to Scott, waiting for him to deny it. His silence confirmed everything. Memories rearranged themselves around the betrayal—his absences, his excuses, the times he had postponed making their relationship public. What Daisy had mistaken for caution now looked like concealment.
Scott dragged a hand through his hair. “I was going to tell you.” His new Alpha authority did nothing to make the explanation less cowardly. “Tonight became complicated, and I didn’t want this to happen during the ceremony.”
“You promised tonight would be special.” Daisy hated how close her voice came to breaking. “Was this the surprise? Letting her humiliate me in front of everyone before I found you together?” Scott glanced at Mila, and that small instinct to protect the other woman answered more clearly than words.
Mila wrinkled her nose as Daisy stepped nearer. “Poor thing needs a shower. She reeks of rotten milk.” Her gaze traveled over the fake tail and stained dress with cruel satisfaction. She had not merely wanted to embarrass Daisy; she had wanted to deliver her to Scott at her lowest.
Daisy refused to let Mila distract her. She looked only at Scott, the boy she had trusted long before he inherited the title of Alpha. “I’m your mate. Whatever you’ve done, that bond is real.” She needed him to acknowledge at least that much, because without it the last several years of her life became a lie.
Scott’s face tightened, not with remorse but impatience. Power had settled around him since the ceremony, making him colder than the person Daisy remembered. He no longer seemed interested in protecting her from the pack’s judgment. He seemed afraid that being connected to her might weaken how they saw him.
“I want Mila to be my mate,” he said. No hesitation softened the declaration. Mila’s triumphant smile widened, and Daisy felt the room tilt beneath her feet.
The words made no sense at first. A fated mate was not a position Scott could transfer like a title. Daisy had felt their bond and trusted the future it promised. Yet Scott spoke as though his desire and new authority allowed him to erase the Moon Goddess’s choice.
“No,” Daisy whispered. She shook her head, trying to force the world back into its proper shape. Scott was her mate. Mila was the bully who had spent years making her life unbearable. Nothing sacred or just could join the two of them by destroying Daisy.
Mila crossed to Scott and slipped an arm through his, claiming her place without waiting for a ceremony. He allowed it. That acceptance hurt more than the sight of them kissing because it showed Daisy this was not a reckless mistake. They had already imagined a future from which she had been quietly removed.
Outside, Eastwind celebrated the rise of its new Alpha. Cheers surged through the building while Daisy faced the man who had promised to make the night unforgettable. He had kept that promise, though not in the way she had prayed for beneath the solstice moon.
Scott drew himself upright, his expression settling into formal resolve. Daisy recognized the posture he had used while accepting the Alpha title. Whatever he intended to say next would not be a private apology. With Mila beside him, he was preparing to turn his betrayal into a public decision.