Chapter 313 Miss Smith was the Alpha King’s mate

Chapter 313: Chapter 313 Miss Smith was the Alpha King’s mate

Author’s POV

When the name landed, Rose Holt swayed like the ground had been ripped out from under her.

She tipped backward.

The people flanking her lunged, and even the security detail closed ranks, hands hovering.

The last thing any of them wanted was for the old woman to drop dead on Blackwood property. Nothing would touch Alpha Damian or Miss Smith, of course—but there wasn’t a guard among them who trusted it wouldn’t roll downhill onto his own neck.

Still, watching her, they couldn’t help a flicker of pity. How did one woman manage to bring so much ruin down on herself in a single afternoon? Every word she’d spat had dragged the entire Holt bloodline to the edge of a cliff.

"No... it’s not possible..."

Rose’s lips moved without sound, her breath gone ragged. When the others tried to steady her she shoved them off, forcing herself upright on legs that shook.

"You’re lying. There’s no way you could be—"

The head of security stepped forward.

"Ma’am, we’re supposed to keep our residents’ identities private. But since the Alpha’s already spoken, there’s no point pretending." His voice stayed flat, almost bored.

"The man standing in front of you is Damian Blackwood. Alpha of the Blackwood Pack. King over every wolf on this continent. He and Miss Smith are lawfully mated. They simply keep a low profile. And this community—every unit, every inch of ground you’re standing on—belongs to the Crown. So the idea that Miss Smith is living off Holt money is, forgive me, a joke. You’d be laughed out of any room in the country."

Each sentence landed like an open palm across her face. The courtyard tilted and swam. Even if the two of them were lying through their teeth, there was no earthly way an entire Crown property would fall in line to help them run a con.

Aria, for her part, was learning something new too. She hadn’t known this place belonged to Damian.

She lifted her eyes to him. There was a smile buried at the bottom of his gaze. His mouth parted, then pressed gently shut again.

One look, and they understood each other perfectly.

*So that’s why the service in this whole complex jumped a full level the month we mated. He bought the place, didn’t he?*

"Damian Blackwood." Her voice dropped, meant only for him. "The whole property is yours, and you still let me pay for my unit?"

"The property is mine. I am yours." He curved a hand under her chin. "Everything under my name already belongs to you. It always has."

They hadn’t been mated yet when he first came for her, and by then she’d already bought the place herself.

He understood, better than she ever said out loud, that what she needed most then was four walls that belonged to no one but her.

So he bought everything around them instead. The whole complex, quietly, within the month—new management, better security, every repair answered before she finished asking.

She kept her four walls. He just made sure nothing inside them ever failed her again.

Aria’s chest went warm and tight. She said nothing either. Her fingers only tightened around his sleeve.

Seeing that Rose still couldn’t wrap her mind around it, the head of security glanced at Damian for permission, then turned his phone screen toward her.

"Take a good look. Every building here sits under the Blackwood Crown. Miss Smith is the King’s mate. His Luna Queen. She hasn’t a thing in this world to do with your family."

The people ringed around them no longer bothered hiding their scorn; a low ripple of contempt moved through the group. The old woman’s performance had been pure circus.

If the Alpha hadn’t been holding them all in check with nothing but the weight of his stare—almost as if he’d deliberately let her rage on until she buried herself—not one of them would have stayed quiet this long.

Rose’s knees gave out. Two guards caught her under the arms before she hit the pavement.

"Lies... all lies..."

Then something occurred to her, and her face jerked back up.

"You’re lying! Aria’s nothing but an orphan. The royal line would never take a woman like her. She said it herself—that the two of you are equals. It’s a trick!"

Like a drowning woman closing her fist around the last floating scrap, a thin light flickered back into her clouded eyes.

Aria and Damian only exchanged a glance. Neither of them opened their mouth.

The head of security read it instantly.

"You really don’t know, do you? Miss Smith and the King are matched in every way that counts. She is the sole legitimate heir to the Smith fortune. Daughter of Vincent Smith, the human who built half the trade routes this Kingdom runs on. Her name touches assets inside a dozen pack territories. If the King’s own mate doesn’t count as his equal, then equality doesn’t exist anywhere in this world."

"The Smith heir? That can’t be... Aria can’t possibly..."

Every word arrived with perfect clarity, and yet in Rose’s ears each one sounded like a language she’d never been taught.

A friendless, penniless orphan who’d spent two years as a daughter-in-law under her roof—how could she have become the heir to one of the most powerful fortunes on the continent?

The girl who’d had nothing but Ethan to cling to, who’d crept through the Holt halls small and careful, the girl Rose had once had to shield with her own hand—

And yet.

Not long ago, Rose had caught the whispers herself. The Smith family had recognized a daughter, quietly, all at once. And the timing, the more she turned it over, lined up almost exactly with the weeks Aria walked out of the Silver Creek Pack house for good.

The light in her eyes drained away by degrees.

If Aria truly was the Smith heir, then the Silver Creek hadn’t fallen to some clever scheme of hers. They’d offended the one woman on this earth they could least afford to touch—and through her, the one man above them all.

This time Rose couldn’t stay standing at all. Every ounce of strength went out of her at once, and even with hands gripping her, she folded to the ground.

"That’s why... that’s why every account we had went dry overnight... that’s why Silver Creek turned its back on Ethan..."

At last she understood it, all the way down.

Ethan hadn’t just crossed the Smith heir. He’d humiliated his own King’s fated mate, right under the eyes of the Crown he was sworn to.

From the moment word reached Damian of what had been done to her, there was never going to be a corner of this Kingdom left where the Holt name could stand.

No wonder the partners had scattered like prey scenting an Alpha on the wind. No wonder every door had sealed itself shut. It had never been the cold arithmetic of business at all.

They had spilled the wrong blood. And the whole territory had smelled it.

It’s all Clara’s fault!If that woman hadn’t gotten her claws into Ethan, Aria would still be his wife—and every last penny of the Smith fortune would have been sitting in Holt hands. They’d had it all.

And Ethan had thrown it away for a woman who wasn’t fit to stand in Aria’s shadow.