The Alpha’s Plus-Size Mistress

Elena’s POV

The music was loud enough to make my head hurt, but I kept dancing.

I moved across the small stage at Velvet Eclipse, turning beneath the red lights while the music filled the room. My mask covered half of my face, just as it did every night I worked there. Nobody knew who I really was. To the men sitting around the tables, I was Coco, the thick exotic dancer they had come to watch.

They didn’t see Elena.

They didn’t see the woman who had spent the last three hours sitting beside her sick son in a hospital.

They didn’t see the mother who had left her child because she needed money to pay for his treatment.

“Come on, Coco!” a man shouted from one of the tables. “Show us more! We can’t see anything behind those skimpy clothes! Take them off!!”

I smiled in his direction and continued dancing.

Just one more hour and I would be done. 

My feet were already aching inside my shoes, but that pain was nothing compared to the image that had been following me all evening.

My reason for being in this godforsaken place. Eli.

He was lying on the hospital bed. His little face had been so pale, and his lips were dry from the fever. When I had held his hand earlier, his fingers had barely had the strength to close around mine.

“Mommy, don’t go,” he had whispered.

I had forced myself to smile, “I have to work, baby. I’ll come back before you wake up.”

“But I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.” I then kissed his forehead and tried not to cry. “You’ll be okay. Mommy will come back.”

“You promise?”

I could remember gulping hard to stop myself from crying.

“I promise.”

I had said those words with confidence, even though I had no idea if I could keep them.

The doctor’s voice came back to me as I danced.

“Your son’s fever is very high. We are doing what we can.”

I opened my eyes and forced myself to concentrate on the music.

I couldn’t think about it, not when I was on the clock.

If I started thinking about Eli, I would start crying, and if I started crying, I wouldn’t be able to finish my shift. So I smiled and kept dancing.

That was when I felt a hand wrap around my ankle.

I stumbled and looked down.

A man at the front table was grinning up at me. His eyes were slightly unfocused, and the strong smell of whiskey reached me even from the stage.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he smiled with his yellow teeth that had a few chips here and there. “Come down here. Sit with us.”

“I’m working,” I replied, stepping away from him.

His smile disappeared. Before I could move farther, he grabbed my wrist.

“Come on.”

He pulled hard enough to make me lose my balance as I fell from the edge of the stage and landed against his chest.

“Let go of me!” My voice was sharper than I intended, but I didn’t care.

His arm remained around me.

“Relax,” he said with a nasty laugh. “Just a drink. Isn't your job to please us?”

“I said let go.”

One of his friends laughed. “Looks like she’s got a little attitude.”

“I like feisty, thick women.” The man’s fingers tightened around my wrist.

I tried pulling away, but he held on.

“Please,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m working.”

“Then take a break with me. I’ll treat you right.”

Without thinking, I yelled a resounding “No.” In his face.

His expression changed. For a moment, I saw the yellow shine in his eyes.

He was a wolf, and from the way he had been drinking, he was probably too drunk to care about the rules.

I knew better than to make a scene with wolves.

I had spent five years trying to stay invisible. Smile at strangers. Work until my feet hurt. Pay the bills. Make sure Eli has what he needs. Then do it all again tomorrow.

I tried to pull my hand free again but that only made the man laugh even harder. 

“Come on, baby. One drink. One dance. That’s all I want.”

“I already told you no.”

I turned to get back on stage when he reached to touch my butt then reached for my mask. I immediately turned my head away.

“Don’t.”

His fingers stopped. “What’s under there?”

“Nothing.”

He laughed. “Then why are you hiding it?”

“Please don’t touch it.”

My heart was beating faster now. If my mask came off, someone could recognize me. 

A woman’s voice came from behind the bar. Mara the bartender.

“You heard her. Let her go.”

Mara stood there, stunned. The voice coming behind was all too familiar. The voice she never expected to hear again.

The man grabbed me and pulled me into his chest like I was an item as I screamed for help. That was when the room went cold.

It happened so quickly that I didn’t understand it at first.

The music stopped, the conversations disappeared, and even the laughter from the tables died away.

The man holding me suddenly released my arm.

I stepped away from him and looked around. Nobody moved.

The wolves in the room had their heads lowered, and even the bartender had gone still.

I slowly turned toward the shadowed entrance to see a tall man in a suit standing at the edge of the stage.

Something about his presence had changed the entire room.

Only an Alpha could make wolves and humans alike react that way.

His glinting eyes moved across the club before settling on the three men who had been bothering me.

“Get out. She is mine”

His voice was low and deep, with a faint of anger.

The man who had grabbed me immediately went pale and quickly stepped away from the table.

His two friends followed him, and none of them dared to argue.

They nearly stumbled over each other as they hurried toward the door.

I stood where I was, trying to calm my breathing.

The Alpha’s eyes moved to my wrist.

I followed his gaze and saw the red marks beginning to form where the man’s fingers had been.

He stepped out of the shadows and into the red light as I gasped, stumbling backwards.

Broad shoulders, dark eyes and the familiar shape of his face… the face I had once touched every night, the face I had spent five years trying to forget.

My fingers went numb.

No.

It wasn’t possible.

I stared at him, unable to move and for a moment. ,He raised his eyes and glanced at me.

Almost like a cue, my mask slowly slipped from my face and fell to the ground.

He glanced at me，anger and paranoia lurked in his eyes.

My mind went blank, and my heart pounded wildly.

"Long time no see, Elena."