My Alpha Husband Forgot I Was The Blackridge Reaper Chapter 01
The Blackridge Reaper
When I was thirteen, I shot my half brother in the leg after his mother poisoned mine; two years later, I killed her when she tried it again.
After that, everyone in Blackridge called me the Reaper.
My father’s mistress had slipped wolfsbane into my mother’s medicine twice.
The first time, Luna Evelyn vomited blood for three days.
My father, Alpha Marcus Halston, wanted to handle it quietly. He said a scandal inside the Alpha family would make the entire pack look weak.
So I walked into his mistress’s wing, dragged her son into the courtyard, and put a silver bullet through his knee.
When she poisoned my mother again two years later, I spent three months collecting proof.
Then I took my gun and walked into her room.
By sunrise, my father no longer had a favorite mistress.
By noon, every wolf in Blackridge knew my name.
The Blackridge Reaper.
Three-Shot Scarlett.
Even my father looked at me with equal parts love and fear.
Then my mother died.
On her last night, she held my hand and asked me to put down my gun.
“You’re more than your anger, Scarlett. Give people a chance. Live a good life. Maybe someone will love you without fearing you.”
I promised her I would try.
For ten years, I kept that promise.
I locked away my guns. I funded pack schools, attended charity dinners, and became the calm, respectable Alpha’s daughter my mother wanted me to be.
Most young wolves forgot what I used to be.
Ivy Lane is clearly one of them.
Ten years later, she dumps a bowl of boiling chicken soup down the front of my dress at my engagement dinner.
The pale silk clings to my chest. Heat burns across my skin.
“Oops.”
I look up.
A nineteen-year-old she-wolf stands in front of me with the empty bowl. She wears a sweet white dress and a bright smile.
There is no apology in her scent.
Only satisfaction.
Tonight, the main hall of the Alpha estate is packed with Blackridge officials, senior wolves, and the territory’s wealthiest families.
My fiancé sits beside me.
Adrian Hale is the heir to Hale Bank and the male my father selected for a political marriage.
He is not my fated mate. There is no mate bond between us.
I tell myself that will make marriage simpler.
“Who are you?” I ask.
The girl puts the bowl on the table and plants both hands on her hips.
“I’m Ivy Lane. Adrian’s foster sister.”
She looks me up and down.
“You’re twenty-five, right? That’s pretty old for an unmated female. Why should Adrian marry you?”
She says the word old loudly enough for the entire hall to hear.
Every conversation stops.
The silence is not normal.
It is the sound of two hundred wolves holding their breath.
The head of the Business Council freezes with his glass halfway to his mouth.
One of my father’s senior Enforcers drops his fork and does not bend to pick it up.
Several older wolves go pale.
They remember the silver bullet through my half brother’s knee.
They remember the mistress who poisoned my mother and disappeared before dawn.
They remember why no one touches Luna Evelyn’s daughter and walks away laughing.
Ivy remembers none of it.
Adrian sets down his wine.
“Scarlett, Ivy is young. She’s impulsive, but she doesn’t mean any harm.”
My wolf snarls beneath my skin.
Adrian smiles as if he does not sense it.
“Don’t make a scene over a kid’s mistake.”
A kid.
Ivy is nineteen.
Old enough to know exactly what she is doing.
Behind me, Emma curls her hands into fists. She is an Omega who has served as my personal attendant since childhood. She remembers me with a gun in my hand.
I touch her wrist before she can move.
My mother’s last words echo in my head.
Give people a chance.
I lift a glass of cold water and take a slow drink.
“All right,” I say. “I won’t make a scene.”
The guests leave as soon as dinner ends.
No one stays for another drink.
Ivy takes her time.
She stops in front of me on her way out and glances at the dark stain across my dress.
“You should replace that.”
She tilts her head.
“Maybe Adrian should replace it with something younger too.”
Adrian stands close enough to hear every word.
He says nothing.
He is smiling.
When the doors finally close behind them, Emma spins toward me.
“Miss Halston—”
I look down at the stain on my dress.
The soup is already cold.
“Emma.”
“Yes, Miss Halston?”
“Find Knox Reed.”
Her face changes.
No one has spoken that name inside the estate for ten years.
“Are you sure, Miss Halston?” she whispers.
I look at the doors Adrian and Ivy have just walked through.
“Bring him to me.”