The Alpha's broken mate

The engagement party sparkled around me like broken glass, beautiful from a distance sharp when you got too close.

I kept my head down, weaving between guests in their silk dresses and pressed suits, balancing a silver tray loaded with champagne flutes.

The crystal glasses clinked softly with each careful step I took across the marble floor.

My wolf should have been howling right now.

That's what the other omegas said happened when your mate chose someone else. But I didn't have a wolf to howl.

I was empty inside, just a hollow girl in a borrowed uniform that hung too loose on my skinny frame.

"More drinks!" Beta Marcus snapped his fingers at me without looking. I was invisible to most of them. Just the slave girl.

Just the daughter of the woman who warmed beds for coins in the basement rooms.

I nodded and hurried towards the kitchen, my worn shoes squeaking against the polished floor.

Through the crowd, I caught a glimpse of Alpha Dante. His dark hair was slicked back tonight, and he wore a suit that probably cost more than my mother earned in a year.

His arm wrapped around saraphina’s waist, the retired beta's daughter, with her perfect blonde curls and her perfect wolf and her perfect everything.

My chest felt tight, like someone was squeezing my ribs from the inside. I'd known this day would come.

Ever since that night two months ago when Dante's eyes had met mine in the pack kitchen, when he snapped at me and I trembled so hard I'd dropped an entire pot of stew.

I saw the recognition flash across his face, saw his wolf rise to the surface.

Then he looked away, and warned me never to tell anyone about us, then he Walked away. Like I was nothing.

Because I was nothing. A wolfless omega. The daughter of a slave and prostitute.

The bond didn't matter when you had nothing to offer.

The kitchen was chaos. Cooks shouted orders while servants rushed past carrying trays of food that smelled like heaven.

My stomach growled I'd eaten nothing but stale bread that morning but I pushed the hunger down. I'd gotten good at that.

"Purple head!" The head cook thrust another tray at me. This one held crystal goblets filled with some kind of dark red wine. "Table seven. And don't spill it like you did last time, or I'll have your hide."

I hadn't spilled anything last time, but I didn't argue. Arguing only made things worse.

I took the tray with both hands, feeling the weight of it pull at my shoulders. The glasses were filled too high, the liquid trembling at the rim with each movement.

The ballroom had gotten more crowded. Music played from somewhere, something classical and boring that made the wealthy wolves sway together like they were in some kind of dream. I kept to the edges, trying to stay in the shadows where I belonged.

That's when I felt it. A shift in the air, like the temperature had dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat.

The conversations around me stuttered and died.

Even the music seemed to get quieter. Something was wrong, or someone important had arrived.

I looked toward the main entrance and my breath caught in my throat.

The man who walked through those doors didn't just enter the room. He commanded it. He was tall, taller than any wolf I'd ever seen, with shoulders that seemed to fill the doorway.

His black suit fit him like it was made of his shadows, and his dark hair fell across his forehead in a way that should have looked messy but somehow looked perfect. But it was his eyes that made my hands shake. They were silver not gray, but actual silver, like moonlight trapped in a human face.

Everyone stepped back as he moved forward.

Even Dante, who seemed not to fear nothing, shrink slightly as this stranger approached.

I'd never seen anything like it. Power rolled off the man in waves so strong I could feel it from across the room, pressing against my skin like a physical force.

"Donovan," Dante's voice carried across the suddenly silent ballroom. "We weren't expecting."

"I don't announce my arrivals.

The stranger's voice was deep, smooth like dark chocolate, but with an edge that could cut. "I go where I please."

I should have moved. Should have set down the tray and disappeared into the kitchen like the other servants were doing.

But my feet felt frozen to the floor, my eyes locked on this man who made our Alpha look like a puppy.

He moved through the crowd, and people parted for him like water around a stone.

His silver eyes scanned the room with the bored expression of someone who'd seen it all before and found it lacking. Then those eyes landed on me.

The tray tilted. I felt it happening but couldn't stop it.

My hands, which had been steady all night despite everything, suddenly trembled like leaves in a storm. The crystal goblets slid, the dark wine sloshing over the rims.

I tried to catch them. Lunged forward in a desperate attempt to save the tray. But my foot caught on the edge of a rug and I went down hard, hitting the marble floor with a crack that knocked the air from my lungs.

Wine exploded around me in a crimson splash, soaking into my uniform and pooling across the pristine white floor.

Silence. Complete and total silence.

My cheek pressed against the cold marble wine dripping from my hair into my eyes.

Pain throbbed in my knee where I'd hit the ground.

I wanted to disappear. Wanted to melt into the floor and never exist again. The humiliation burned hotter than any physical pain.

"You clumsy little" Beta Marcus's voice started, filled with rage.

But I was already moving, pushing myself up on shaking arms. Broken glass cut into my palm and I bit back a whimper.

Blood mixed with the wine on my hands, making everything slippery. I got to my knees, then to my feet, swaying slightly.

And there he was.

Standing right in front of me, close enough that I could see the perfect cut of his suit, the way his jaw clenched slightly as he looked down at me.

Wine had splashed across his expensive shoes, dark droplets staining the polished leather.

I should have kept my head down. Should have stared at those ruined shoes and begged for forgiveness while keeping my eyes on the floor like a good slave.

But something in me broke in that moment.

Maybe it was watching my mate with his arm around another woman all night. Maybe it was the years of being invisible, of being nothing, of being stepped on and ignored and treated like I didn't matter. Maybe I was just tired of looking at the ground.

I raised my head and looked Alpha Donovan straight in the eyes.

His silver gaze locked with mine and the world seemed to tilt sideways. Up close, his eyes weren't just silver they were swirling, like liquid metal, ancient and dangerous and beautiful all at once.

His face was sharp angles and perfect lines, too handsome to be real, with a small scar cutting through his left eyebrow that somehow made him even more striking.

"I'm sorry," I said, and my voice came out stronger than I expected. Clearer. My mother always said I had too much pride for someone in my position, and maybe she was right, because even covered in wine and blood and shame, I looked at this powerful man and spoke to him like an equal. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to.. i…i just."

The words dried up in my throat because he was still staring at me. Not through me, like everyone else did. At me. Like he actually saw me standing there.

His nostrils flared slightly, like he was scenting the air. His eyes narrowed, and something flickered across his perfect face confusion maybe, or surprise.

His hand lifted slightly, like he was going to reach for me, then dropped back to his side.

"What's your name?" His voice was quieter now, meant just for me, and it sent shivers down my spine that had nothing to do with fear.

"Violet," I whispered, because apparently my survival instincts had completely abandoned me tonight. "My name is Violet I muttered again.

Behind him, I could see Dante's face turning red, could see Beta Marcus moving forward to drag me away and probably beat me for this disrespect. Could see Dante watching with cold eyes, Seraphina pressed against his side like she owned him.

But Alpha Donovan held up one hand without looking away from me, and everyone froze.

"Purple violet," he called, and the way he said my name made it sound like something precious instead of the worthless thing it had always been.

"Interesting."

Normally I hated the nick name,as purple violet,I preferred just Violet, it was one of the things I wish I could change but with the way Alpha Donovan just said it , am beginning to have a rethink.

Apparently, I think my mother gave me the name because of my hair, with purple tip, I've tried cutting the tip several times but each time, it grows even more with the tip purple again, even when I dyed it all black the tip still turns back to purple justwithin days mostly a week.

I've given up.

He smiled, and it was the most terrifying and beautiful thing I'd ever seen.