The Unchosen Alpha, the Self-Crowned Queen Chapter 12

The Unchosen Alpha, the Self-Crowned Queen Chapter 12

Three weeks after we landed in the Northern Territories, Blackwood Pack found me.

Not my mother. Not Evander. A formal letter from the Blackwood Pack Elder Council-attorneys, the whole legal team. It arrived at my office at Silver Oak Trading Group.

I was listed as the first-in-line successor for Blackwood Pack’s restructuring proceedings.

The reason was simple: I was Evander’s only eligible biological heir. Under the Northern Werewol

Compact, when an Alpha family can’t sustain a Pack, the direct bloodline with succession rights has priority for takeover.

Blackwood Pack was failing.

Marc knocked on my office door. “Maeve. Got a minute?”

I nodded. He set a report in front of me.

“Blackwood Pack?”

“I looked into it. Two years ago, they were the biggest trading Pack in the North. Now they’ve lost

three supply routes, two allies pulled out, and they’ve been in deficit for eight straight months.”

He flipped to the last page. “Also-the acting Alpha is Nerys. The Elder Council’s approval rating for her is under thirty percent. The warrior legion barely follows her orders.”

He shrugged. “Cooking a feast doesn’t mean you can lead a Pack.”

I read the report in silence.

Nerys could cook. Grandmother had trained her five years for the Moon Feast. But a werewolf Pack

doesn’t need feasts. It needs warriors. Resources, Alliances. Strategy. She had none of those.

And everything my mother had forced me to learn?

I had it all.

That night at the apartment, Lucien had dinner waiting-a pot of spicy lamb stew. The whole place smelled like chili and pepper. He took one look at my face.

“What happened?”

I handed him the letter. He read it quietly, set it down.

…

“So. You’re going back.”

Not a question. A statement.

I smiled. “That obvious?”

“Your eyes,” he said. “You get that look before every hard fight.”

I blinked. Didn’t even realize I had a tell. But he’d noticed.

I poked at the lamb in my bowl. “Lucien. If you were me-a family that treated you like a bargaining chip, now falling apart-would you go back?”

He didn’t answer right away. Ladled more broth into my bowl.

“I wouldn’t go back for them. But if something there belonged to me I’d take it back.” His voice

was gentle, firm.

“Maeve. Don’t go back just to get even. Go back because that seat was always meant to be yours.”

I looked at him. Smiled. He was right. I was going back-not to forgive anyone. Not to save Blackwood Pack. But because that Alpha position had always been mine.

The next day, I formally filed a priority succession claim with the Northern Werewolf Council.

When the news hit Blackwood Pack, the whole Council exploded.

Some said the missing Alpha heir had returned.

Others said the real war was just beginning.

Outside, the sunset painted the city in warm amber. Different from Blackridge’s winter. But the one thing that didn’t change-the road beneath my feet was one I’d paved myself.