4.

ELLARIA.

This couldn't be happening to me.

There was an ache building in my chest that grew more and more with every second I watched Arren look at me like that, while Katerina was plastered to his side. My hands curled into fists. 

I'd given my all to this hospital. 

I had no wolf and none of the healing abilities the other doctors had. All I had was me, and the skills I'd beaten into myself over the years after I realized the world didn't pity wolfless omegas like me. I found a passion and I lived it.

And now he wanted to take it away. 

Because of her.

"That's not fair, Arren." I hated how my voice cracked. "You have no right to do this to me. I did nothing to her."

"I didn't ask for your explanation." His face hadn’t changed at all. He was hellbent on making an example out of me to for the sake of his mistress. "Do you have something to say to Katerina or not?"

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. 

In what reality was my husband asking me to apologize to his ex for something I didn't do?

The words came out before I could stop them. "I'm not apologizing because I did nothing wrong. The fact that you can't even—"

He turned his head and called past my shoulder before I’d finished speaking. "Kade! Come in here."

He was calling in his beta. 

Goddess, no.

The moment Arren's second in command stepped through the threshold, Arren delivered the decree with enough ease that my heart skipped a dozen beats, "Let the staff know that effective immediately, Ellaria will no longer be recognized as working medical staff in this hospital. Henceforth, she's suspended."

This couldn't be happening. 

I glanced between him and his second in command and Kade watched me like he had something to say. 

But given the fact that his Alpha had just given him a direct order, I highly doubted he was going to let it out.

“Understood, Alpha.” Kade nodded, glancing at me one more time before he turned for the door.

“Kade,” 

He stopped when I called his name. Arren turned around and I watched something ease across his features. A patience that hadn't been there before. 

He thought I’d had a change of heart. 

"Go ahead." He said, "You know how to apologize."

I looked at him and at Katerina beside him, waiting. 

I looked at this man, who had given me just enough over the four years of our fake marriage to make me foolish enough to think he could ever love me even half as much as I loved him. 

"You're right," I said. "I do owe someone an apology."

Something satisfied moved across his face.

"I'm sorry." The words came from somewhere in me that had already decided that this had to end. "I'm sorry I spent four years waiting for you to stand on my side just once. That was the most foolish thing I've ever done and I’m through with it."

And just like that, his face fell into darkness. "Your suspension stands." He turned to Katerina, his hand finding her back, and he walked her away without another word. 

She rested her head against his shoulder like it was natural. 

Like I didn’t even matter. 

I watched them walk away like that, moving through the hospital hallways for everyone to see my shame. 

My back found the wall and I pressed one hand over my stomach and stood there while everything hit me at once. 

The humiliation. 

The downright exhaustion. 

The pain of being erased in the one place I'd built for myself with nothing but my own two hands. It all landed together and I just stood in it because there was nowhere to go with any of it.

Mirela appeared beside me and slipped her arm through mine without saying anything. I let her walk me away because she was the only one I felt I still had on my side. 

We turned toward my office and I stopped at the sight of my empty name plate holder. Where Dr Ellaria once was once written... was now blank. 

It had taken me a lot to get my name on that door. 

Kade stood nearby still holding it. "The room is being reassigned to Katerina." He looked anywhere but my eyes, "I'm sorry, Luna."

Mirela's grip tightened on my arm. "He's already giving her your office?"

I stared at that empty space on the door and it hit me harder than it should have.

Something in me went very quiet. 

I needed to stop lying to myself about what was going on between Arren and I. 

"He can't even give me three months." My voice came out small to even my own ears. It was almost funny. "Even after everything. He can't offer me that one decency?"

I was good enough to warm his intended’s side of the bed while he waited for her, but not enough to be treated with a second thought?

I was done. 

With this building, with this pack, with freaking all of it. 

Other packs had sent offers over the years for work at higher positions at their medical practices. I had turned every single one down without a second thought.

I had wanted to be the good wife, the loyal wife. 

The one one people would call the good luna. 

And look where that had gotten me. 

I lifted my chin with resignation to the facts laid out in front of me. 

Never again. 

I will never be this girl again.

"Take me home," I told Mirela.

––•––

Hours after Mirela had dropped me at home, she was still lingering. 

And I needed it more than I admitted.

I sat on the edge of my bed staring at my hands while she moved around the room and neither of us tried to fill the silence. It was the most honest thing that had happened to me all day.

Then she went still somewhere on the other half of the room.

"Ellaria." The way she said it made me look up fast.

She was standing at my desk with the pregnancy report in her hands, her eyes moving slowly across the page. I watched the exact second it landed.

I was on my feet before I decided to move. "That's—"

"Is this yours?"

My shoulders sagged in defeat. 

I was too empty to hide it, or pretend that I wasn’t currently loosing my mind on this. "It’s mine."

The sound she made cracked something open inside me. She crossed to me and grabbed both my hands and held on, her eyes already spilling with unshushed tears. "Why didn't you tell me? How long have you been carrying this alone?"

I stood there with my hands in hers, trying so hard to keep myself together and not fall apart.

It didnt work. 

I broke down and told her everything about the truth of my marriage with Arren. When I finished she pulled me close and held on tight and that, out of everything, was what nearly finished me.

I was so tired of crying at his point.

She pulled back with red eyes. "What are you going to do?"

"Keep it?” I laughed lightly. “I've always wanted a family, Mirela. But I’m not sure how Arren feels about being a father."

His phone call last night came up in my head then. I burned it away. 

“He didn’t really give me much of a home.” I whispered, “I mean yeah, I got the Luna title and the house... but what I really crave... Arren isn’t capable of giving. To me at least.” I hugged myself, “I want to build a home with my twins. Even if Arren isn’t a part of that picture.”

She squeezed my hands hard. "I'm with you a thousand percent. And I’ll support you with everything you need." 

“Thank you, Mirela,” I truly loved my cousin to bits.

She stared down at the ground, like she was stepping onto something fragile. Mirela looked up at me a second before she added,  "But the baby deserves a father, Ella. Arren also deserves a chance to be a Dad. So I think you should tell him. Don’t have second thoughts about it. Give him one chance to prove himself, Ellaria."

I sat with that for a while, knowing deep in my heart, that she was right. 

If he was a douche bag about it, then I’d figure out how to raise the twins without him, and far away from Katerina. 

I should tell Arrren. 

My hands dropped to my stomach. These babies weren't just mine, and regardless of how things were between us, their father had a right to know they existed. 

"Okay," I said quietly. "He gets one chance."

––•––

I rehearsed every word the whole way there. By the time the pack house came into view I had almost convinced myself I was ready.

Until the unexpected happened.

Kade met me at the entrance and I could tell before he even opened his mouth that he was going to give me bad news.

"Alpha’s not around.” He told me, “He went out with Katerina and I'm not sure when he'll be back if i’m being honest."

Something moved through my chest that left me feeling like a broken crater. 

I stood there and absorbed that slowly. He was with her again.

Reality... was a bitter pill to swallow. 

And the pregnancy report seemed to way ten thousand more pounds in my hand. 

"Thank you, Kade," I found my voice, and turned to leave.

The evening air hit my face and I stood on the front steps for a moment with all those rehearsed words sitting uselessly in my chest. 

When was the torture going to end?

I started down the steps and walked straight into something small and warm seconds later.

We bumped into each other and I grabbed the child before he fell, my hands wrapping around his small shoulders. When I looked at his face to check if he was hurt, every single thought running through my head died down into nothing. 

He blinked up at me, wide eyed and curious.

I’d recognize eyes like those anywhere. 

Greyish blue. 

Mezmerizing. 

Just like Arren’s. 

My legs went unsteady.

With a vicious flash, Arren’s conversation over the phone with Katerina last night came back to me for the second time today. 

No. 

Goddess no. 

Was this... Arren’s son?