CHAPTER ONE

“Goddess help me, so I don’t burn these lamb chops.” I murmured to myself as I yanked the pan off the heat just in time, while the smoke curled toward the ceiling.

Three hours. I had been in this kitchen for three full hours — marinating, plating, second-guessing the table arrangement twice — and I was not burning the lamb chops on our anniversary.

I exhaled and looked at the dining room from the kitchen doorway.

Candles. His favorite Merlot, already breathing. The good plates — the white ones with the gold rim we never used because Eli always said they were too fancy for a regular Tuesday. The flower arrangement I’d redone three times because the first two looked like a funeral and tonight was supposed to be the opposite of that.

Tonight was supposed to be the beginning of something.

My hand dropped to my stomach without thinking. Flat. Still. Carrying a secret that had been burning a hole in me for four days.

Tell him tonight, I’d decided. Over dinner. When he’s relaxed and it’s just the two of us and he remembers what we are.

Lately I’ve needed reminders too. The last year had been — difficult. He has been cold, more distant…too focused on his ‘friend’ that he seems to forget who his actual wife is,

But surely with the arrival of a baby, he would learn to look at me the way he used to. Learn to remember who his family actually are.

I smoothed the front of my dress — cream silk, slightly off-shoulder, the one he’d picked out himself three years ago two days after we got married. He’d pressed it into my hands and said you’ll wear this on every anniversary. I’d laughed and said every single one? and he’d said every single one until we’re old and it doesn’t fit anymore and you still wear it anyway.

I’d believed him.

The front door opened and I spun around, smile already on my face —

A smile that quickly died when I saw that he wasn’t alone.

Mila stepped in behind him, her hand looped through his elbow like it had every right to be there. She was wearing a fitted black dress, with her hair loose around her shoulders.

She looked like she’d dressed for an occasion. And I sure as hell hope it isn’t this one.

“Hey.” Eli dropped his keys on the side table without looking at me. “Something smells good.”

I kept my voice even. “Eli, I told you tonight was just us.”

“I know what you said.”

“Then why—”

“Because she called me from the parking lot of a gas station at seven p.m. on a Wednesday looking like someone had just kicked her dog.” He moved to the bar cart. “What was I supposed to do, Sera, leave her there?”

Mila stepped forward, and her voice softened into something designed to sound apologetic. “I really did try to tell him not to bother you. He wouldn’t hear it.”

“It’s our anniversary, Eli.”

He turned from the bar and looked at me for the first time since he’d walked in. “I’m not saying it’s not. I’m here and we are having dinner aren’t we? But it’s gonna be the three of us…after all the more the merrier.”

He took a sip. “Unless you’d like to make a whole thing of it.”

A whole thing. Three years of swallowing my instincts and I was always the one who made things a whole thing.

“Eli this is unreaso…”

“Oh Eli…” Mila interrupted touching his shoulder in a way that made me clench my fist, “It is fine if she doesn’t want me here, I understand her. I will just go and…”

“No Mila.” Eli snapped holding her wrist and shot me a glare, “Sera you need to learn how to be more accommodating because you are acting rude right now. What’s the big deal anyway? If you can’t have Mila then I’ll leave with her and you can have your precious dinner all to yourself.”

His words sucked the air out of me and I bit my lip.

Once again he was choosing her over me.

Once again, I didn’t matter.

I shook my head and looked at the two place settings on the table, the candles and felt my chest twist painfully. Then without another word I went to the kitchen and got an extra plate.

Dinner was the particular kind of miserable that comes wrapped in politeness.

Watching my husband, my mate obsess over his childhood sweetheart as if she was a goddess.

Mila talked. Eli listened to her with a softness in his face I hadn’t seen directed at me in months.

I moved food around my plate and smiled when it seemed like the thing to do.

We were somewhere between the main course and nowhere good when Mila set her fork down and made a small sound.

“Oh by the way, I have news,” she said. “Good news, I think. And I think this is the perfect time to share it. She glanced at Eli. Then at me. Then back to Eli. Her hand moved across the table and covered his. “I’m six weeks pregnant.”

The spoon left my hand and I didn’t feel myself drop it.

The table went very still.

Then Eli smiled — wide and unguarded and relieved, like something long held had finally released in him — and pulled her into a hug that rocked them both sideways.

“Are you serious? Oh my God! Finally,” he said, rough and low against her hair. “I kept thinking it would never happen for me. I kept—” He laughed, broken and quiet. “Thank you. God, thank you.”

For me.

For me.

Six weeks. My husband. Six weeks ago I had been lying next to this man. Six weeks ago I had still thought we were trying to find our way back to each other.

“Eli.” My voice came out completely level. I didn’t know how. “Look at me.”

He looked.

“Tell me I’m misunderstanding something.”

Something shifted in his expression — not guilt exactly, more like the careful arrangement of someone preparing a position they’d already rehearsed. “Sera—”

“Because what I’m hearing,” I said, very slowly, “is that my husband has been sleeping with another woman in our marriage. So tell me I’m misunderstanding something. Please.”

Mila sighed. “You’re not misunderstanding. But you’re making it dramatic when it doesn’t have to be.” She folded her hands on the table like she was about to walk me through a business proposal. “It happened. It was just a night of distraction…and wasn’t planned but since then, Eli and I haven’t been able to keep our hands off each other.” She gave him a grin. “ And now there’s a child coming, which is actually something this pack needs — something you haven’t been able to give him in three years.”

The air went out of the room.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not saying it to be cruel,” she said. “I’m saying it because it’s true and we’re all adults. He’s the Beta. He needs an heir. You haven’t produced one.” She tilted her head, and something flickered at the corner of her mouth that had nothing to do with sympathy. “Would you really be so selfish as to deny him an heir just because you are incapable of producing one?”

I stared at her. Then I looked at my husband. The man I had packed a single bag and moved packs for. The man I had given up every version of my old life for without a second thought because I had loved him that completely and that stupidly.

“Say something,” I said to him. “Right now. Say something Eli.”

Eli set his glass down. “She’s right I’m the Beta of this pack. I have a legacy. I have a responsibility to continue my line.” His voice was flat. “It’s been three years, Sera. Three years and nothing. I had to make decisions.”

“You had to—” I stopped. Breathed. “You promised me. You stood in front of the whole pack and you promised—”

“I was idealistic.” He cut across me cleanly. “That’s not the same as a guarantee.” He reached for his glass again. “Since Mila is now carrying my heir, she will take the primary position. She will be recognized as my main and first wife. You will remain in the household but as my concubine. You will help raise our children, keep things stable. It’s a reasonable arrangement. One most women would die for.”

The word mistress sat in my throat before I said it. “You want me to be your mistress.”

“Yes.”

I looked at him for a long moment. Looked past the jaw I used to trace with my fingers. Past the shoulders I used to sleep against. Looked for the man I had chosen — just him, not his title, not his pack, him — and found nothing. A stranger in a familiar body, looking back at me like I was a logistical problem he’d already solved.

And I almost laughed.

Me, a mistress. Did he have any fucking idea who he was speaking to?

Mistress?

I stood up angrily, “No.”

The secret in my stomach pressed hard against my ribs.

I stood up.

“No,” I said.

He frowned. “Sera—”

“I’m not your mistress. I’m not staying in this house. And I am not raising your affair baby while you play house with the woman you cheated on me with.” I picked up my bag from the counter. “I would die first before I subject myself to such disrespect. If this is where we are — then end it. Reject me. Right now.”

“Don’t push me.”

“I’m not pushing you.” My voice didn’t shake. I was distantly proud of it. “I’m giving you the chance to do this cleanly. Because if you don’t, I promise you I will walk out that door anyway.”

Something moved across his face. “You need to calm down Sera. You are just acting out and…”

“Don’t you fucking dare ask me to calm down you retarded bastard!!!” I yelled, raising my voice for the first time since the whole thing. Finally letting myself give into the anger that had welled up inside me and threatening to erupt. “Or I swear I’m gonna kill you and I’ll kill her too!! I gave up everything for you! I did everything for you and this is what I get in return? This is how you choose to walk all over me?! You are nothing but a moron and a coward!”

He said nothing but I saw a flash of guilt cross his eyes.

“Whatever this charade is between us, it all ends now. So you are gonna fucking reject me NOW….because I’m walking out of this hell home either way.”

His jaw tightened. “Fine. But don’t come crawling back to me when you go out there and you have nowhere else to go. This is final. I reject you as my mate, Sera.”

The rejection hit like a fist through glass — sharp first, then the spreading ache of something that had been structural giving way. The bond unraveled thread by thread, and each one took something with it I wouldn’t cry about. Not here. Not in front of them.

When it was done, I smoothed the front of the dress — his dress, from better days — and walked to the door.

I didn’t look at Mila.

I didn’t look at him.

I walked out into the cold and kept walking, and behind me the candles burned on for no one.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​