Caught by the Alphas: The Hidden Beauty of Alpha Academy
After her twin brother's unexplained death at Alpha Academy, Alexandria Hyde takes his place and his name to uncover the truth. Now living as "Alex," she's thrown into a world of hot, testosterone-fueled Alphas who fight to the brink of death... and she has to survive it while hiding who she really is.
But staying hidden isn't easy–
Not when the Alphas start noticing her.
Not when the truth she's chasing might destroy her first.
And definitely not when they start fighting for her instead.
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Chapter 4
ALEXANDRIA
"Goodness, Alex. Where have you been?"
By the time I finally got home, the sun was already high in the sky. I had spent the night at a 24-hour cafe, indulging in far too many ice cream sundaes, hoping to sober myself up-or at least feel a bit better. To my surprise, I did feel better than I had the previous day. Along with that newfound sense of clarity, I was more determined than ever to seek justice for Alexei.
Mandy stood beside Ryland, her expression a mix of concern and exasperation. Kristina, Ryland's mother and my own maternal figure, gently placed her hands on my shoulders, her eyes inspecting my face and body with worry. "Are you okay?"
I let out a deep breath and nodded. "I'm fine."
She bit her lip, hesitation seen across her face. "I heard from Ryland about your plan to go to Alpha Academy. I know it's atrocious that the Academy refuses to investigate what happened. However, we must consider your safety, Alex."
I turned to Ryland, causing him to bite his lip. I told him not to tell anyone just yet!
Without responding verbally, I pulled open the drawers in the living room, grabbed a pair of scissors, and, without a moment's hesitation, snipped away a chunk of my hair, cutting it just above my shoulder-imitating Alexei's shoulder-length locks.
The three of them gasped in unison.
I then strode to the bathroom, focusing on my reflection in the mirror. I continued snipping away until all of my hair was the same length. After fishing out a hair tie from my pocket, I gathered my hair into a bun-a man bun, to be precise, a style that had become Alexei's signature look, and put on his glasses kept in the bathroom cabinet.
The person staring back at me was both familiar and foreign.
Alexei and I had shared a striking resemblance; his features were slightly sharper, his complexion paler than mine. My cheeks were naturally plumper, causing me to flush easily, and my lips were just a touch fuller. Yet, with the right concealing and contouring, anyone would have a hard time telling us apart.
As I contemplated my reflection, a pang of sadness gripped my heart as memories of Alexei flooded back. I closed the mirror compartment, letting out a deep, calming breath, and returned to the living room where the three were still standing, stunned into silence.
Mandy covered her mouth, eyes wide with shock. "You really look alike."
A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips despite the weight of the moment. "We're twins, Mandy."
"You don't have to do this, you know?" Ryland's voice cut through the tension.
Mandy nodded enthusiastically, echoing his concern. "We can file a case with the police and have this investigated, Alex. I'll even call my parents to help us."
I hesitated, taking a moment to consider. Mandy, being from the Carnage Pack and a member of the influential Beta family, had a vast network at her disposal. She had severed ties a year ago, so her offer would cost her a lot.
I just shook my head gently.
"You don't have to do that, Mandy. Besides, the police wouldn't be of any help," I muttered. "There's no tangible proof of foul play, and even if there were, I'm sure someone at Alpha Academy would bury it quickly, without a trace."
I recalled the times Alexei had called me, moments when I had casually asked him about how things were going. He often brushed off my concerns with a casual "I'm alright," but there were those fleeting moments during our video calls where I could see him flinching from pain. Come to think about it, I should have pressed him harder to tell me.
"This is the only way I can expose Alpha Academy and attain justice for his death," I asserted firmly. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let this slip by without taking action."
"It's not safe," Ryland replied, desperation lacing his tone.
"I can take care of myself, you know? Among our group, I'm one of the strongest. I could give even Alexei a run for his money back then."
"We're not doubting your skills, Alex," Ryland insisted, his eyes earnest. "I'm worried because you'll be surrounded by Alphas-those with the highest egos and testosterone levels in the country. I trust you, but I don't trust them."
"Just the thought of handing you over to that school after everything that happened with Alexei is nerve-wracking. You don't even have any experience with men!" Mandy exclaimed.
I pursed my lips, contemplating whether that was a jab at my lack of experience. Maybe it was. I could feel heat creeping up my cheeks as I recalled my interaction with that Alpha the night before. Clearing my throat, I quickly changed the topic.
"I'll be extra careful. You don't need to worry," I reassured them.
"I told you-I'm not worried about you," Ryland said, frustration evident in his voice as he clicked his tongue. "I'm worried about the Alphas in that school. They might do something to you."
"What could they do that I can't handle?" I replied, standing tall.
"You're pretty," Mandy interjected suddenly. I turned to her, raising an eyebrow in question. She scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. "Honestly, even as a woman, I've always found you pretty. Alexei, too."
I tilted my head, contemplating her words. It made sense; we both had inherited our mother's delicate looks and physique. Alexei, with his shorter and lankier build compared to other men, was undeniably attractive in his own right. Meanwhile, although we stood at the same height, I was thinner yet curvier than he was.
"Even with all of the effort you put into your transformation into a man, you're still so pretty, Alex," she continued, her voice growing more exasperated. "You'll get devoured at Alpha Academy."
"They can try," I said dismissively, tuning out their warnings. "But they won't even get close enough to take a bite. I'll take out all their teeth before that can happen."
Ryland visibly flinched at my words, his eyes widening as if he could vividly picture the scenario. "That makes me feel a bit better. I genuinely think you can do that."
"Ry!" Mandy exclaimed, her voice scolding. "I told you we should convince her not to go through with this!"
Kristina sighed, finally speaking up for the first time during this entire conversation. "I think Alex has already made up her mind."
"You're right. Nothing is going to change my mind," I declared firmly, my voice cutting through the tension thickening in the air.
I turned to Ryland with a decisive smile. "Tomorrow, you're going to be driving me to Alpha Academy."
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9.1
I stood alone at the marble altar, the silence of the temple pressing against my eardrums.
It was my Mating Ceremony, but the groom was missing.
My phone buzzed with a notification: a livestream of my mate, Alpha Cain, skipping our union to welcome my sister, Eris, home.
In the video, he held her like she was fragile glass, captioning it: "True power recognizes true power."
When I returned to the Pack House, humiliated, I wasn't met with an apology.
I was met with a slap from my mother.
Eris, feigning a powerful "Alpha Aura," claimed my mere scent was poisoning her.
To "save" her, my family locked me in my room.
But the true betrayal came when I overheard their hushed whispers through the door.
"Use Vera," my mother said, her voice chillingly practical.
"She recovers fast. We can drain her blood weekly for Eris. She can stay as a servant to raise Cain and Eris's pups."
My blood ran cold.
They didn't just neglect me; they planned to harvest me like livestock.
They thought I was the weak Omega they exiled to the North years ago to peel potatoes.
They had no idea that in the North, I wasn't a servant.
I was Commander V, a warrior forged in ice and blood.
I reached under my bed and pulled out my black tactical duffel.
"Screw the meatloaf," I whispered.
I wasn't just leaving. I was going to war.
9.1
He postponed putting my name on the deed 18 times.
Each time, his mentee Ciera had an “emergency.” Each time, he ran to her.
I watched him give her his prized Montblanc pen—the one he wouldn’t even let me borrow. I saw her post their late nights on Instagram. I ate anniversary dinners alone while he “mentored” her.
Then he bought me a necklace—identical to the one she just flaunted online.
That was when I stopped feeling anything.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t fight. I simply packed two suitcases, resigned from our firm, and booked a one-way ticket to London.
He thinks I’m coming back in a week.
He has no idea I’m gone for good.
Nineteen broken promises. One silent goodbye. And a new life waiting across the ocean.
9.3
My father ordered me to marry into the cursed Vaughn family.
Their heirs were rumored to die young from a mysterious genetic agony. My sister Kayden laughed, saying she wasn't going to waste her youth planning a funeral. So, I became the sacrificial lamb.
When I refused, my father slammed his hand on the table and threatened to throw my dead mother's ashes into the city dump.
"You are a struggling actress with no money and no power. You have no choice," he told me coldly.
To make matters worse, my own agent drugged my drink at a business dinner, trying to sell my body to a sleazy investor just to secure project funding.
I was completely cornered, suffocating under the weight of their cruelty. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could be so vicious, treating me like a worthless pawn to be traded and discarded.
But none of them knew that while escaping the drug-laced dinner, I crashed directly into the terrifying Vaughn heir, Algot.
When his glowing crimson eyes locked onto me during a violent episode of his cursed pain, we discovered an impossible truth: my physical touch was the only cure for his agony.
Looking at the dark bruises he accidentally left on my neck, I chose not to run. Instead, I pulled out the private business card he gave me and dialed his number.
"You need me," I whispered to the dangerous billionaire. "And I am going to use you to destroy them all."
9.2
For four years, I was the Silvercrest Pack's biggest joke—a scentless, wolfless Omega who somehow became the Alpha's Luna.
I thought I was just naturally defective, until our fourth anniversary, when I overheard my husband Adrian talking to his Beta.
"I’ve been having the kitchens slip a silver-based compound into her meals since the day I marked her."
He confessed the poison was meant to suppress my inner wolf and keep my womb permanently barren. He only married me as a power play to make his highborn mistress, Seraphina, jealous. While I wept over my empty cradle and apologized to his family for my broken body, he was using pack funds to buy her custom luxury goods, tossing me the leftover wrapping paper. When I finally confronted him about the silver and tried to leave, he flew into a feral rage. He violently smashed my head against the marble vanity, leaving me bleeding on the floor, and locked the bedroom door behind him.
I lay there in the cold, staring at the pool of my own blood. My entire life, my endless pain, and my unborn pups were nothing but a cruel, calculated joke to the man who was supposed to be my Mate.
But Adrian didn't know I wasn't just a brainless Omega.
I wiped the blood from my face, climbed down the balcony trellis into the freezing rain, and pulled out an encrypted burner phone.
"The cage is broken. Initiate Phase Two."
7.2
Allie Patterson poured fifteen years into her husband Grayson’s tech startup, living in a cramped San Jose apartment. Every penny, every late night coding session, was for their shared future, built on his constant claims the company struggled, always on the verge of its big break.
Then, a grant deed arrived: a stunning $4.2 million Atherton villa, paid in full, listing Grayson and an unknown Kacey Schmidt as joint tenants.
Her coffee mug shattered as Allie’s world imploded. Driving to the mansion, she found Kacey in silk pajamas, flaunting a massive pink diamond and, beneath it, Grayson’s grandmother’s heirloom ring – the one he’d tearfully claimed to have lost years ago.
Kacey purred, "He's in the shower. We were so tired last night."
The words were a serrated knife, twisting, confirming years of lies.
Humiliation and rage burned out, leaving a terrifying, absolute silence. All her sacrifice and trust were a cruel, elaborate joke, orchestrated by the man she loved.
Allie calmly took photos, then gave herself one minute in her beat-up car to mourn. When it passed, her tears stopped, replaced by cold, calculated murder in her eyes. She typed a text to Grayson:
"Come home early tonight. I have a surprise for you."
7.4
I was only fifteen when my venomous family orchestrated my doom by forcing me into an arranged marriage with mafia heir Javier Velasquez.
On our wedding night, Javier paraded strippers into our suite to show his absolute contempt, turning me into the ultimate joke of the underworld overnight.
But being a joke was a luxury compared to what came next.
Three years later, Javier needed to be a widower to marry into a heavily armed family and secure their backing for a coup.
He didn't grant me the mercy of a bullet.
Instead, he dragged me to an abandoned underground safehouse, locked me in the damp, rotting dark, and told the world I had been assassinated.
For six months, I starved in that dungeon, surviving only on the desperate hope that my family was safe.
Then, on the day of his lavish new wedding, a cruel maid kicked a plate of spoiled food onto my floor and delivered the final, fatal blow.
"Annabel is dead. Pined away and died of a broken heart two weeks ago."
My gentle mother was dead, all because she actually believed his lie about my tragic murder.
Driven by pure agony and an all-consuming hatred, I shattered crates of smuggled chemical solvents and struck a match, letting the roaring inferno turn their bloody wedding into my funeral pyre.
I thought the fire was the end.
But when I opened my eyes, the suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the biting chill of a Long Island winter.
I was standing in the snow, back on the exact day my descent into hell began.
This time, the terrified girl was dead, and I would use their own ruthless rules to tear their empire apart.