Chapter 4

Celeste POV

Several pack members that had been drinking and celebrating before I stepped in now paused, even the music stopped as well. But I wasn't looking at them. My attention was focused on the couple who stood out the center of the celebration. They had been sharing a passionate kiss before I stepped in.

This would have not been a problem to me.

If I was not mated to the man who was hungrily claiming another woman in front of our pack members.

This time my Luna aura came out.

“Is everyone going to mute here? I just asked, "What is the meaning of this?” nobody answered and were just looking at me like statues so I marched over to the woman who had just been sharing a Kiss with my mate.

I took in her appearance and recognized her as the beta's daughter, my blood boiling.

“Sarafina do not make me repeat myself again, what -”

Ragnar countered my aura with his own alpha stepping between me and Sarafina, “that's enough, calm down Celeste,” his aura was much stronger than mine right now, it suppressed my anger against my will.

Then he grabbed my wrist pulling me away, he turned to Sarafina and they looked in their eyes and told me that they were having a mind link, a conversation where I was not involved, she seemed to have a wave of relief over her face afterwards he told her.

Then he didn't wait for a second more and dragged me into the main pack house. He didn't stop until we reached his study and by then my wrist was bruised from how hard he had been holding me.

My mouth fell open, he released his aura on me but I could not find the words to say.

I had been in the woods all this time isolated from everything and everyone, being treated like a prisoner because I was trying to have our child all while he was cozying up to his childhood best friend.

“Celeste I hope you understand why I had to use my aura to suppress you. You were about to make a mistake and hurt seraphina which was why I did what I had to before you hurt her,”.

He said her name so tenderly as if she was a fragile flower that could wither away from the slightest negativity.

“Is that all you have to say to me? Ragnar you abandoned me in the woods with your insufferable mother that's made every day a nightmare for me and I tolerated it all for your sake just for you to stab me in the back. All this time you told me that you were busy with the pack affairs. Did you just confuse it with another kind of affair?”

He had his fingers running haphazardly through his hair.

“Celest, just give me a minute to explain, the reason you went to that manor was because I was worried about you. I thought that because we were not fated mates perhaps that was why our pups were not able to survive in your womb. Keeping you there for all these months even while I missed you like crazy was for your sake not mine,”

I thought I might be going crazy.

I marched over to him grabbing his shirt.

“Is that the excuse you were planning to give me when I showed up? You got lonely and decided to have an affair behind my back?”

“It's not an affair,” he said without even trying to push me away or hold me either, “I thought about it after you lost your last pup, didn't want to traumatize you anymore. It's hurt to me so much to see you suffering which was why I decided to choose a concubine somebody who would take over that responsibility of bearing me an heir and at the same time I want to have to let you go can't you see it's a win-win situation,”

I slowly released his shirt that was now rumpled and ruined.

“But you promised me that you would never have a concubine even if it was the habit of other alphas to do so, you told me that I would be your one and only for the rest of our lives so why now…”

“I already explained it to you. I did it for your sake. what kind of man would I be if I kept putting you through that pain over and over again?”

He cupped my cheeks making me look at him.

“Celest you are the only woman that has ever been in my heart and that will never change. Sarafina has chosen to be a concubine which means that she will never be any man's mate in her entire life. This party I threw was nothing more than a consolation for her the child I will have in future will also be more or less of a consolation because in the end the only person I will ever desire to truly be with is you,”

I burst into tears when he embraced me.

As much as I hated this there was not anything I could do about it.

Ragnar had laid it out as kindly as anyone could.

I had failed to give him a pup that would strengthen his position and ensure the lineage of the alpha King did not die out.

He was simply pushed to do this because of societal pressures and his own way to protect me.

At least this was what I told myself before I cried myself to sleep every night.

He spent almost every waking hour with Sarafina.

“I need her to get pregnant as soon as possible, that's why I'm doing it,” he explained to me and I swallowed that excuse without water even as I sub both of them around the pack house smiling in each other's arms and sharing passionate kisses in public.

Without intending to, I took advantage of my time with him as well and before I knew it once more, it happened again.

I was pregnant.