Two

FAITH

Fire burned through my veins, and my vision swam as I stared at his tanned hand on her still-flat stomach.

There were numerous gasps of delight for an heir from the crowd, and I glanced around, wondering if maybe I had heard them wrong. Yet, as the horror and pity-filled faces reached me, I knew I hadn’t. 

Sable smiled up at me from beneath her lashes, placing a hand atop his on her stomach before leaning into his side and fluttering her lashes at him as if they were newlyweds.

“What are you talking about?” I whispered to my mate, praying I had heard him wrong. There was no way he had been with Sable. “That’s impossible. I would have felt it.”

“I’m so sorry, Faith. It just happened.” Sable said before pushing her bottom lip out, her wide eyes filling with tears as she stared at me as if wanting my forgiveness.  

“No! You can’t be pregnant.” I said, turning to Ryan before dropping my glare down to his hand still in hers. “She can’t be pregnant! Did you sleep with my sister?” 

“Faith,” Ryan hissed, and I knew he was angry that I was speaking against him in front of Alpha Cain, but I didn’t care about that. The single syllable was enough to confirm he was speaking the truth. There was no denial or guilt there, only fury that I had the nerve to challenge him so publicly.

My heart felt like it was being ripped in two, and my body began to shake as the understanding and betrayal sank in.

No! No, Ryan wouldn’t have slept with my little sister! This had to be a bad dream!

How long had they been fooling around behind my back? How had I not felt it? 

My wolf had been feeling weaker lately from him using my magic, but I never thought she was so weak that I wouldn’t feel him violating the sacred mate bond. 

Now, I felt it. Hearing Ryan admit to cheating made my skin crawl, and my wolf released a loud howl in my mind, so raw and broken that it felt like my head was going to burst. 

I tried to pull my hand free from his, his touch suddenly feeling like acid, burning my flesh, but he only tightened his hold.

“What have you done?” I whispered. I stared at him in horror as my body was consumed in agony. 

I could feel my wolf rising, clawing at the inside of my brain, wanting to break free and attack my sister.

My little sister. How could she?

“What have you done?!” I asked Ryan again, the panic in my voice coming out more clearly as I shouted. I had given him everything I had. Every time I found a way to prove to him that I was enough, he just demanded more, but I had nothing more to give him. 

“Faith, please, you have to understand. We love each other!” Sable whimpered, blinking rapidly at me as her eyes lined with tears.

They were fake. Fake tears… but they looked so real. How had I been so blind?

No wonder she had been so cocky about becoming a Luna. I had thought she was delusional to think she would be the one Alpha Cain fell for… the one who survived him. 

But she never intended to be his mate. She had intended to steal mine. 

“He’s my mate!” I shouted at her, stepping forward. “How could you do this to me?!”

I felt my wolf surface, my eyes burning hot with the need to spill her blood as my little sister looked down quickly in submission, shaking with fear, but I had seen the truth. 

For a brief moment, she smirked with victory before hiding it quickly. 

My eyes burned as they turned, and my nails and canines elongated as I instinctively began to shift, but I was struck down by a fierce blow to the side of my face.

Gasps erupted from the pack as I dropped to my knees.

The familiar tingles of Ryan’s touch made me freeze, and I grabbed my cheek with my free hand. Never before had he hit me in front of the pack.

All punishments had always been private until now. 

“You dare to attack my pup?” Ryan growled down at me.

“No!” I shouted in denial, even though I had been. Sister or not, I wanted to gut her. It was a primal need to eliminate the threat to my relationship with my mate that I couldn’t resist.

Giving into that anger was the only thing preventing me from crumbling beneath the agony and betrayal threatening to rip me apart from the inside out. 

“You have humiliated me for the last time.” Ryan hissed, and I gasped as he grabbed my hand tightly in his. “Alpha Cain, in honor of our friendship, it gives me great pleasure to solidify our alliance with the Blackstone pack. In doing so, I would like to present you with a white wolf, Faith Collins. May you be able to teach her the obedience that I could not.”

"You can't do this." I choked out, eyeing my mark on his neck.

"I am the Alpha. I can and will do what is best for my people! You have no right to question me!”

"You're my mate." I insisted weakly, and his eyes flickered down to my mark. Hope filled me as he briefly hesitated, but when he looked up once more to meet my stare, there was no guilt or shame in what he had or was doing. No love or regret.

There was nothing. He was trading me like he were just my owner, and I, an object…like I was expendable and not the woman he had claimed to love for the past few years.

"You are no longer of use to me. I, Alpha Ryan Jones of the Midnight Pack, reject you, Faith Collins, as my mate."

I doubled over, unable to hold myself up as fire burned through my veins, starting from my toes and moving up my body to Ryan's mark on my neck, where it intensified until I felt like I was about to burst into flames.

My wolf howled in pain as a stabbing pain tore through my chest, and my hands flew to it.

Alpha Cain chuckled, amused by the scene before him as I sobbed and gasped, clawing at my neck and chest as if I could dig the fire out of my body to extinguish it.

Alpha Cain bent over me, trapping me between him and Ryan. The smoky scent of cigar surrounded me and made me want to gag.

“Hm. She’s strong. It’s rare to see one remain conscious after a rejection.” The older wolf reached forward and pulled a curled strand of my hair forward with his meaty finger, wrapping it around and around as I tried to fight back my bile. "I am going to enjoy breaking you."