I Found My Alpha Mate’s Second Family

I was twenty-two when my luck went bad.

I lost my passport at the airport. A delivery scooter flattened me in a crosswalk. A waiter tripped and poured a bowl of soup down the front of my dress.

Then it got worse.

A flowerpot came off a third-floor ledge while I was walking under it. My brother Julian shoved me clear and took it on the head. Wolves heal from almost anything. The doctors told my parents he would never wake up.

A month later, my sister Felicity rode with me to visit him. A truck ran the light. Her leg was crushed in four places, and it never healed right.

Every pack from the mountains to the coast started calling me cursed.

A witch passing through Greyridge took one look at me across the pack meeting and told my father, in front of everyone, that I would bury whoever stood closest to me.

He was Alpha of Greyridge. I was his eldest daughter. He threw me out that same night.

Only one wolf stayed.

Dominic Cross, Alpha of Stonecrest. My fiancé since I was eighteen.

His parents told him to walk away. He took me as his mate anyway. Then he paid the most expensive witch in the country to walk his land with her candles and her salt, and she came back shaking her head.

The curse fed on whatever was near me, she said. If he marked me, it would feed on his whole pack. Out on open water, with no one around, it would starve.

So he never marked me.

He bought me an island instead.

The staff called me Luna. The internet ran through one line he'd had installed, and the pack news pages never loaded. I blamed the weather.

Five years. Nothing bad happened to me in all that time.

The only thing was, Dominic had a pack to run, so I got him two or three days a month.

I tried to go to him three times.

The first time, the boat's engine died halfway across and my phone lost signal. I drifted for three days and three nights until Dominic came and found me.

The second time, the boat docked fine. A car hit mine on the way to the airport and I spent two weeks in a hospital bed.

The third time, he flew out and stayed a whole week so I wouldn't try. He held me so tight it hurt.

"Mer, I'm scared every time you leave this island." His voice was shaking. "I can't lose you. I'll come more often. I swear."

I missed him so much I couldn't sleep. I told myself to be good about it anyway.

This year, he said a project would keep him away on his birthday.

So I got on a boat without telling anyone. I wanted to see his face.

The crossing was smooth.

No engine trouble. No car. No signal lost.

When I reached the Stonecrest pack house, every window was lit and cars lined the drive all the way to the gate. I still knew the side door. I slipped into the ballroom and stood behind a pillar, waiting for the right moment to surprise him.

The main doors opened.

My sister walked in, wearing a couture gown, holding Dominic's arm.

Felicity.

On both legs.

She stumbled on her heel. Dominic caught her by the waist and drew her in, and when she was steady he tucked a loose curl behind her ear. I knew that smile. I'd been waiting a month for that smile.

Her hair fell back from her neck.

There was a mark on it. An old one, healed silver.

My hands went cold.

Two she-wolves beside my pillar were watching them too.

"Five years mated, a three-year-old pup, and look at them. Still like that."

"Alpha Cross never so much as looks at another woman. You won't find another one like him in any pack."

A little boy in a tiny copy of Dominic's suit came running through the doors with his arms up.

"Daddy! Happy birthday!"

Dominic laughed, bent down, and threw him in the air.

A tall man strolled in after the boy, shaking his head.

"Slow down, you little monster."

My ears started ringing.

That was Julian.

My brother, who had been lying in a hospital bed for five years. Dominic had sat on my bed on the island last month and told me there was no change. He'd told me Felicity's leg was still bad. He'd told me my parents still hated me.

My brother was standing right there with a glass in his hand. My sister was Luna of Stonecrest, with a son. Across the room, my mother and father were laughing with the Alpha of some other pack.

I don't remember leaving.

I know I knocked into someone and didn't stop. I know that when my legs quit I was sitting on the gravel in the back garden, with no idea how long I'd been there.

Dominic found me.

He lifted me onto a bench, took off his jacket, and put it around my shoulders. Then he crouched in front of me like he had a thousand times.

"The housekeeper called and said you were gone. Then I caught your scent by the terrace door." He looked up at me. "Mer. You saw."

His eyes were so worried.

"How long?" My voice didn't sound like mine. "You and her. How long?"

He looked down.

"Six years."

"Why?"

"It was an accident." His eyes were red. "That birthday party six years ago, you never showed up. Felicity and I both drank too much. We woke up in the same bed. She'd never been with anyone, and the Thornes demanded I answer for it."

Six years ago.

I'd had my dress on and my keys in my hand when I started throwing up. They rushed me to the hospital. Acute gastroenteritis, the doctor said, and nobody could tell me what I'd eaten.

Dominic came first thing the next morning with soup. He looked exhausted. I told him to go home and sleep.

He had come to me straight from my sister's bed.

And from that day on, my luck went bad.

I stared at him.

"The scooter. The flowerpot. The truck." I could hardly get it out. "That was you. All of you."

Dominic said nothing.

He'd never been able to lie to me with his mouth closed.

"So it was."

Julian's coma. Felicity's leg. The witch and her candles. The boat that died every time I tried to leave. All of it bought and paid for.

Every person I'd ever called family had been in on it, and the man who'd cried in my arms for fear of losing me had run the whole thing.

Six years.

I stood up. His jacket slid off my shoulders and I left it on the gravel.

He reached for my hand.

A small body barreled in between us and grabbed the leg of his pants. The boy looked up at me with Dominic's eyes.

"Daddy, who's she?"