Too Late for Regrets: Alpha Husband Rejects my Rejection

Destiny’s Pov.

I never imagined that one day I would be waiting outside the delivery room with my mate for his mistress to give birth.

“Alpha Coren,”

The pack doctor darts shifty eyes at me for a second before looking back at Coren and bringing his voice lower to a whisper, “The… um, the mother of the child says she wants you to be in the delivery room with her, Alpha.

As the father, you can come in if you want to.”

A bitter taste lodges in the back of my throat, and I let my eyes wander around the waiting hall, taking in the sterile white tiles on the wall, the round light bulbs shining down on us... anything to take my mind off what is happening right now.

Coren stares at me for a second with hard, worry-filled eyes before dismissing the doctor, “I’ll stay out here and wait for the results.”

I want to snap at him, shout at him to go to her, but I settle for looking away instead. Coren starts pacing, his fists clenched and his jaw tight with worry as every second passes by.

He’s nervous, and I can understand why.

It’s his first child.

Any man would be nervous for the birth of their first, even when the mother of the child is neither his wife nor fated mate.

Tears prick the back of my eyes but I blink them away and take a deep breath. This is happening and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

A year ago, my husband and mate, Alpha Coren, returned home from the war at the pack borders. As Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack, he had to be at the battlefront, and each day he was gone, I was worried sick over his safe return. I spent countless nights in the pack prayer hall, my knees on the hard stone floor and my head bent under the starry sky as I prayed to the Moon Goddess for his safe return.

The day he came back from war was one of the happiest days of my life, but he came back with news.

“It was a mistake, Destiny. I swear it was.”

I heard my blood rushing in my ears as his rough, gravelly voice lit up a need for him to be thrusting inside me. It also gave me a sinking feeling at the same time, like a carpet had just been pulled from under my feet and I realized I’ve been standing on quicksand all along.

“I would never willingly betray our bond like this, Destiny. It was just a one-night stand.”

A one-night stand.....

Coren and I have been married for four years, and I haven’t been able to get pregnant for him in all that time. He was away at war for one year, and his Beta’s sister conceived after a one-night stand.

Since he broke the news to me… I refused to have sex with him.

A loud scream rips through the walls of the hospital, bringing me back to the present and despite myself, I wince at the thought of the pain Tracy must be in right now. She might be a bitch, but she’s still a woman, and I don’t wish her harm, not in the labor room.

The nurse bursts out of the door and Coren stops pacing, eyes immediately at attention and body strung taut with tension.

The nurse is beaming as she announces, “It’s a boy! Congratulations, Alpha!”

What happens would have been cute if it weren’t in this particular situation.

Coren releases a loud shout as he jumps in the air, fist pumping, and joy lighting him up from the inside. 

There’s so much open happiness on his face as the nurses all come out of the room to congratulate him… I, I feel like I should too. I should, but there’s a lump in my throat.

I don’t know what will come out of my mouth if I open it. It could be congratulations, or it could be a sob.

Coren catches the stillness of my expression and tries to dampen some of the joy he’s feeling, acting more reserved as he clears his throat and asks, “Is Tracy okay?”

Beatrice, one of the oldest nurses at the pack hospital, responds, “Tracy is okay. She’s with the child right now. Are you going to come in to see them, Alpha?”

Again, Coren turns to me, and this time Beatrice’s eyes follow.

She’s one of the members of the women’s council I lead as the Luna, and for the past year, she’s instigated women to badger me about Tracy’s pregnancy. Rage and pain make a strange mix in me seeing her eyes on me again right now.

It feels like I’m being put in the spotlight unfairly.

Coren is waiting for my approval, but does he even need it?

In the seconds between them staring at me and my stomach rolling like I want to puke, my mind unstoppably flees to the memories of Tracy's venom-filled cruel words.

“Coren loves the child, and one day he will realize that I am his true love and you’re only an obstacle. You only bind him with his guilt, but how long will it last? You will be nothing to him in the near future.

Y’know he lied to you again. He said he was working late in the office, but we both know that he was with me. You mean nothing to him, barren Luna.”

Each time we met, Tracy would smile and remind me how, each day Coren saw her swelling belly, his looks lingered on her more and more, and how the unborn child between them would grow to be something more than the result of a one-night stand.

He’d grow to be the Alpha’s heir.

Tracy assured me I would fade into nothingness the day that came to pass, but each time, Coren would convince me it was just the talk of a hormonal pregnant woman.

Now, that unborn child has finally come, and the desperation to see him is clear as day in Coren’s eyes. His tall body is buzzing with tension and his eyes are filled with impatience as he stares at me.

He's getting irritated at my silence.

My wolf, Rhea, whispers bitterly in my mind, "Leave him to his mistress. After all, we’ll reject him as our mate tomorrow."

I nod, resigned, and the words to my response barely a whisper forming on my lips. I look up ready to tell him he can go see her, but I see that Coren is already halfway to the door of the labor room before I even speak.

I feel my heart shatter violently for a second time in the past year as the words, “You can go see your child.” die on the tip of my tongue. Never said.

He didn’t even wait for me

The final truth hits me like a gut punch as I watch his broad back get farther and farther away. He’s done waiting now that the child is here.

Now I think it’s time for me to leave.

It's time for me to let go of him and release myself from the embarrassment of this awkward love triangle.

My hands clench into fists as I seal my decision with a promise to myself and my wolf.

I will reject Coren tomorrow.