My Guardian Married My Sister But I’m His Alpha Chapter 01
The day Chiara learned Griffin was marrying her sister, she walked away from her life in New York. The marriage was a political alliance that would make him the acting Alpha of the Nightfall Pack, and she wanted no part of it. She took a leave of absence from school and booked the first flight to Europe.
Before the plane even took off, his messages started coming in, one after another.
*This isn’t what you think. Come back. I’ll explain.*
*Don’t do anything rash.*
*Answer me. Please.*
Chiara had loved him for nearly ten years.
Every time she’d taken a step closer, he’d pushed her away, reminding her that he was the guardian her father had appointed. That they could never be together. Then, in the blink of an eye, he’d signed a marriage alliance with her sister, Francesca, making her a Luna candidate.
Chiara stared at the screen. The man who was always so calm, who never bowed his head even to the Council of Elders, had used the word *please*. To her. For the first time.
She powered down her phone, popped out the SIM card, and tucked it into the pocket of the seat in front of her.
As the plane passed over Nightfall territory, the pack mindlink faded to complete silence.
If it hadn’t been for the memorial marking the third anniversary of her father’s death, Chiara would never have come back.
…
She’d barely stepped out of arrivals at JFK when someone blocked her path.
It was him. Nightfall Pack’s acting Alpha. The man who now held the reins of the Moretti family’s businesses.
The man her father’s will had named as the temporary administrator of her inheritance—
Griffin DeLuca.
Three years had whittled him down. The angles of his face were sharper, his gaze heavier than she remembered.
His suit was still impeccable, and he kept his Alpha presence on a tight leash, but the wolves in the terminal still gave him a wide berth. Only his wrist, visible below the cuff of his shirt, seemed too thin, the bones too prominent.
He stood in the middle of the exit, flanked by several Pack Guardians who stood in tense silence.
When he saw her, his lips parted.
“Chiara.”
Not the cold, formal “Chiara Moretti” he used at Pack functions.
Just Chiara.
It was what he’d always called her when she was a girl.
He used to tell her it was a beautiful name.
Then, after she confessed her feelings to him at sixteen, he’d never said it that way again.
Towing her suitcase, Chiara walked straight past him as if he were a stranger.
Griffin’s hand shot out, his fingers closing around her wrist.
Her wolf recognized his scent—pine and black pepper—but for the first time, it didn’t strain toward him.
“The car’s outside,” he said. “I’ll take you.”
Chiara glanced down at his hand.
On his ring finger, he still wore the obsidian ring that symbolized his marriage alliance.
They had no mate bond, and he’d never marked Francesca. But in the Pack Registry, he was still her husband.
Three years, and the ring was still there.
Chiara looked up, a cool smile touching her lips.
“No, thanks, Griffin. I called an Uber.”
The sound of his name on her lips made his fingers tighten, just for a second.
“Chiara Moretti.”
His voice was low, laced with a weariness she’d never heard from him before.
“It’s been three years. You’ve been hiding from me for three years. How much longer are you going to run?”
Chiara turned to face him fully.
She’d been looking at this face for twenty years.
For as long as she could remember, Griffin had been a fixture in the Moretti family and the Nightfall Pack.
He was the only son of her father’s business partner. After his parents died in an accident, her father had brought the eight-year-old boy into their family to be raised as one of their own. He grew to become her father’s most trusted young Guardian—and the person Chiara relied on most in the world.
When she was four, she’d come to the Pack estate in Westchester for the first time. The house was full of unfamiliar scents, and she’d hidden behind her nanny, refusing to speak.
Griffin had crouched down to her level and placed an orange hard candy in her palm.
“Don’t be scared,” he’d told her. “I’ve got you.”
And for years, he had.
When their cousins bullied her over rank, he’d been the one to step in.
When she’d failed algebra and was too afraid to bring the test home, he’d signed the guardian’s line on the form.
When she was twelve, burning with a fever while her mother fussed over Francesca in the healer’s wing, it was Griffin who had rushed back from Boston overnight and stayed by her bedside for two days.
By fourteen, Chiara finally understood that what she felt for him wasn’t just dependence.
She was in love with him.
Her heart hammered in her chest whenever he was near. If he looked at another woman for a second too long, it could ruin her entire day.
At sixteen, she told him.
It was raining.
She stood outside his study, soaked to the bone, and poured out two years of bottled-up feelings.
He was silent for a long time before draping a towel over her wet hair.
“Chiara,” he’d said, his voice gentle but firm. “I’m the guardian your father appointed for you. You’re still a minor.”
“But we’re not related,” she’d argued.
“It doesn’t matter.”
He walked her to the door. “Dry your hair,” he said, his voice muffled after it closed. “And don’t bring this up again.”
He hadn’t said he didn’t like her.
He’d only said no.
At eighteen, on the night of her high school graduation, she asked him again.
He’d taken her out to celebrate. She’d had a little too much to drink, and on a wave of liquid courage, she’d grabbed his sleeve. “Griffin DeLuca, have you ever liked me? Even a little?”
He said nothing.
He simply removed her hand from his arm and had a Pack driver take her home.
The next morning, a message from him was waiting.
A single line.
*Chiara, I am the guardian your father entrusted to protect you. That will not change. You need to understand that.*
She stared at the message for a long time before deleting the entire chat history.
When she was twenty, her father died.
He’d been inspecting a new Moretti property in Manhattan when a steel frame fell from a crane. The metal was laced with wolfsbane, rendering his healing abilities useless.
He died on impact.
Outside the healer’s wing, her mother clung to Francesca, sobbing so hard she could barely stand.
Chiara stood frozen, her mind a complete blank.
Her father had been the one person in the world who had always put her first.
Because Francesca had been frail since birth, her mother’s attention had always been fixed on her older sister. It was her father who always made it back for Chiara’s graduation ceremonies.
“My Chiara never has to compete with anyone,” he used to say.
Now, the man who said those words lay in a cold room, silent forever.
Chiara stood in the doorway, shaking, tears streaming down her face.
Until a pair of strong arms wrapped around her from behind.
Griffin.
He kept his Alpha presence muted as he pulled her against his chest, his voice rough with emotion.
“Chiara, don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
“I’ll take care of you from now on.”
“No matter what happens, I won’t leave you.”
Chiara had believed him.
Until the family dinner after the funeral.
That night, in front of the family elders and two witnesses from the Council, her grandfather made an announcement.
Griffin was signing a marriage alliance with Francesca.
He would take over as acting Alpha of the Nightfall Pack, and Francesca would become a Luna candidate.