Chapter 2: Finally Standing Up For Myself

Allene’s POV

It was evening and Leonard had still not come to meet me like he promised to.

Back at the tracks, when he had been celebrating with his group members, he told me to go home before him. His excuse? That he needed time with his teammates. And of course, I had obliged his request.

But when he finally reached home and I went to speak with him, he was in his room with Jessica. Still discussing, just like he said. And I was asked to excuse them while they talked about the future of their group.

Of course I obeyed. Of course I didn’t protest. Leonard was the alpha in waiting and disobeying him meant treason.

My eyes flickered around the rooftop of our mansion, at the dinner I had begged the servants to set. Because of how late it had become, the reservation I made at the private restaurant, where I had planned for us to celebrate our anniversary, had been canceled. So earlier, after returning from the tracks, I had spent hours in the kitchen cooking different delicacies myself.

I tried to get Leonard to join me up here, to at least eat with me, but every attempt was futile as he was still with Jessica.

Still choosing her as he has always done.

Tired of waiting as the clouds shifted above me, dark and swollen with incoming rain, I finally gathered the courage I needed to walk up to his room.

Whether I got accused of questioning the alpha-in-waiting or punished for treason, I didn’t care anymore. I held my head high, fueled by a resolve I hadn’t felt in years. I was done being silent.

For five years, I had endured his relentless scorn, his mistreatment and disrespect. I had been hopeful. I had waited patiently, for the day he would change. His father had promised me he would. He told me to be Leonard’s pillar, to support him, to give him time because he was only sulking over the mating ceremony that had been forced on us.

Even when Leonard arranged with rogues to kidnap me and they failed, I forgave him. I believed he acted out of spite. That it was all because of his father’s threats of disinheritance, and that was what led him to such extremes.

A sharp, searing pain ripped through my body, cutting off my steps. My legs buckled and I nearly fell. I clutched the wall to steady myself, gasping as the burning intensified.

I needed no one to explain as I knew exactly what was happening.

The pain came from Leonard’s mark on my neck, burning and tearing through me because he was cheating on me.

This wasn’t the first time. It was not the first time the mate bond had tormented me like this.

I stood frozen as the agony settled, unable to move. Then the sounds reached me. Moans and groans. Skin slapping against skin.

Leonard’s skin against Jessica’s.

I had endured this for five long years. Their affair was an open secret in the pack. Even the servants disrespected me because of it. Because Leonard was always guilty of openly staring at their bodies as well, making no effort to hide his lust.

The one time I confronted him about the disrespect, he had snapped at me with the same cruelty that still echoed in my mind.

“Stop being selfish,” he had said.

And then he called me by my full name the way he always did, cold and detached, as if reminding me of the distance between us.

“You are just the mate I was forced to take, Allene Smith.”

I recalled every word. They haunted me like daylight after a nightmare.

“Jessica is my fated mate, and I still left her for you. What else do you want? I didn’t take her in as my second Luna, nor did I nullify our bond and send you away so she could be by my side. Wolfless freaks like you should be grateful for the crumbs handed to them and stop being greedy for more.”

I had stayed silent all these years, believing Leonard had been doing me a favor. I was an omega and worse, a wolfless, mateless one before him. He had covered my shame, or at least that was what being an omega meant in the eyes of the pack.

I endured the several nights he spent in her chambers. Endured the pounding into her, the flashbacks, the moans I always heard because I carried his mark.

In our world, when one’s mate cheated, it was impossible not to know. The pain etched itself into your nerves. The sounds bled into your ears. It was law, woven into our very nature. Leonard knew this. He knew that every thrust he gave Jessica as well as every moan he coaxed out of her, would reach me.

Yet he never cared.

He gave her a room in our mansion, even when she was the Beta’s daughter and her father already had his quarters. And I kept quiet for five years, clinging to the hope, whispering prayers to the moon goddess for the day he would change.

“Luna, please stop…” A voice behind me snapped me out of my daze and I realized I had forced myself all the way to Leonard’s door, banging on it, demanding he let me in.

The burning pain had begun to fade, meaning he had stopped. Probably after ordering the guards, through the pack’s mind link, to remove me. I, of course, couldn’t hear it. I had no wolf.

“Luna, the alpha commands you to leave! He is still busy with pack matters and will not be entertaining any visitor,” the guard behind me added.

Visitor.

The scoff tore from my lips before I could stop it. I was his mate. The Luna-to-be. But here I stood, being referred to as a visitor.

I turned to stare at the guard, wanting to ask if he heard himself, but I stopped. What was the point? I had already been branded barren by the pack for my inability to conceive a child for Leonard.

And because of that everything Leonard did, including his open flaunting of Jessica was suddenly justified. Not even the elders dared speak against it.

I swallowed the bitterness clawing up my throat as I pushed the door open. This time, I wasn’t waiting for permission.

The guard rushed after me, trying desperately to stop me, but I was beyond reason as I had lost all restraint.

“Leave her be,” Leonard’s cold voice commanded the moment he noticed me. He waved the guard off carelessly, like he was dismissing a fly.

He sat back on the bed while Jessica bobbed her head over his cock. Neither of them flinched when I walked in. Not even a flicker of shame.

Gold petals and confetti covered the bed, leftovers from their little celebration of his win at the tracks.

Like I suspected, he didn’t remember what today was supposed to be.

And while I had been racking my head all afternoon trying to arrange a perfect dinner for our anniversary, he had been busy giving another woman the romance I begged him for.

Candles on the floor. Air scent diffusers. Soft lighting.

He had planned this night.

For her.

While I, his wife, had never received even a fraction of the effort he poured into this evening.

In bed, he never engaged me in foreplay. He never touched me with desire or affection, only penetrated and thrust until he came, like it was a chore he was obligated to complete. And it was to him as he only touched me when it coincided with the pack’s mandated consummation dates.

A tear slid down my cheek, but I willed it not to fall, in order not to give either of them the satisfaction of seeing me break.

Not now when everything was finally crystal clear.

Not when I finally understood that Leonard would never grow to accept me nor see my worth.

Not now, when I finally understood my place.

“I came here to reject you, Leonard.”

My voice cut through the room like a blade.

Jessica froze. Leonard’s eyes widened as I stepped forward.

“Would you prefer I wait till you’re done with your mistress,” I continued, my tone steady, “or should I go ahead and say the words now?”

For the first time, in all our years together, he looked startled.

He pushed Jessica away from his six-inch dick and stood, disbelief and something else flashing through his expression.

As if he couldn’t fathom the idea that I, the wolfless, silent omega he had trampled for five years had finally found my voice.