Chapter 1: Every man is anxious for their first.

Destiny’s POV.

I never imagined 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 before bringing his voice low 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. I take 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 brown eyes before dismissing the doctor, “I’ll stay out here and wait for the results.”

I want to snap at him.

I want to 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. 

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 prayed 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. 

“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 Tracy, the female warrior meant to be watching his back in battle, 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. 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 fine. 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 elderly 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 flees to the memories of Tracy's venom-filled cruel words.

“Coren loves the child, and one day he will realize that I’m his true love and you’re only an obstacle. 

You bind him with his guilt, but how long will it last? You will be nothing to him in the near future.”

Her lips curl in a cruel smile as she sneers at me,“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 wouldn’t fail to remind me of how each day Coren saw her swelling belly, his looks lingered on her more and more. She never let me forget how the unborn child between them would grow to be something more than the result of a one-night stand. 

The Alpha's heir.

Tracy assured me I would fade into nothingness the day that came to pass, but each time, Coren convinced 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 body is buzzing with tension and his eyes are filled with impatience as he stares at me.

"Leave him to his mistress,” My wolf, Rhea, growls in my mind “We’ll reject the bastard as our mate tonight.”

Rejecting Coren is the common decision my wolf and I have arrived at. If happiness and loyalty are no more guaranteed in a mate relationship, why should we still be trapped in it?

I’ve been ready to tell him Coren my decision for days now, but my words get caught in my throat as I watch what happens next.

Coren isn’t waiting for me to respond anymore. He’s already halfway to the door of the labour room.

He can’t wait to see his pup and Tracy.

I feel my heart shatter violently for a second time in the past year.

Coren walks faster and faster and he never looks back. He’s left me, his fated mate, behind, like an unnecessary burden.

That final truth hits me like a gut punch. 

My heart beats hard and loud in my chest as the door to the ward room closes behind him.

Tears roll down my face before I can stop them, blurring my vision. 

I can’t control myself from pretending everything is okay anymore. I shake like the air has been taken from my lungs.

When I shed my last tear away, my hands clench into fists and I seal my decision with a promise to myself and my wolf.

I must reject Coren as my mate.