All Chapters of Promised to the Wrong Alpha: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

80 Chapters

Chapter Thirty-One: The Martyr's Path

JulianI didn’t know it would hurt so much.I had slipped back to the pack house for nothing more than a shower and a change of clothes. Sleeping out in the woods was manageable enough, but certain basics still required a roof. I had timed it for early morning, when the house would be quiet.As I pushed open my bedroom door, I could have sworn I caught Louisa’s scent. I told myself it was wishful thinking — her peonies bleeding through the gap in the dividing door, nothing more. I was going to need considerably more discipline over my own imagination if I intended to see this through.I paused at the dividing door anyway. Her room was still and quiet, which was unusual for this hour. Against my better judgment I nudged it open a few inches.I really needed to fix that door. If it latched properly I wouldn’t be faced with this particular temptation every time I walked into my own room.The room was empty. The bed was neatly made, and going by the way her scent was already dissipating,

Chapter Thirty-Two: Hammers and Heartache

JulianChloe looked less than thrilled when she pulled open the door. She had a well-worn pink fuzzy bathrobe cinched around her middle and a satin sleep cap on her head. She blinked at me with the expression of a woman who could not believe someone was on her doorstep at six in the morning.“Ah, Alpha… so nice to see you… so early.” She made a valiant attempt to sound pleased about it. “Won’t you come in?”“Sorry, Chloe,” I said, with all the sheepishness the situation warranted. Twenty years of reaching for my Beta when I needed backup — physical, mental, or otherwise — and apparently that instinct had no intention of retiring along with me. I needed backup this morning more than I had in a long time.She led me to the kitchen just as Harrison came in from the hallway, smelling of herbal soap and fresh from the shower. He bent and gave his wife a kiss — not a polite morning peck, but the unhurried, toe-curling kind that still made her color rise. When he was done he gave her a gentl

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Delusions of a King

KaelenIt took three rounds in the shower before I finally felt clean. I scrubbed away every trace of Louisa’s flowery stench, had Mandi strip the bed, and sent all the bedding to the laundry.And yet I still felt soiled.I had no clear memory of the night. Was it possible her heat had come on and overwhelmed my senses? I had a vague recollection of feeling strangely drunk as I left the dinner table, and after that — nothing. A complete blank. I didn’t remember the act itself, which was simultaneously an alarm and a relief. Perhaps my brain had exercised a rare mercy and simply declined to record it.Whatever the case, I hoped my little soldiers had found their mark, because there would be no repeat performance.I came out of the bathroom to find Mandi fitting new shams onto the pillows, leaning over the bed with her back to me. Her petite frame was a considerably more welcome sight than the woman I’d ejected from my room an hour ago. I crossed the room quietly and cupped her through

Chapter Thirty-Four: First Steps

LouisaWas it really that easy?I locked my bedroom door and leaned back against it. The stench of fruity candy was all over me, so I stripped out of my clothes and dropped them straight in the garbage on the way to the bathroom. As much as I had loved that sleep set, I would never be able to wear it again without picturing Kaelen naked. No amount of laundry detergent in the world would wash that image out of my brain.It seemed our little deception had gone off without a hitch. Kaelen believed we had done the deed. I would wait a few more weeks, then make an appointment with Dr. Ramirez for an official test, and everything would be just fine.At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.The look on Julian’s face when he saw me coming out of Kaelen’s room was haunting me, even as I stepped under the shower. I cranked the faucet and filled a loofah with body wash, scrubbing until the bathroom was thick with steam and sage and tea tree, and every last trace of candy had gone down the dra

Chapter Thirty Five: The Weight of Whispers

LouisaGoing through trouble without anyone to talk to was bad enough. But I discovered it was even worse when you had good news and nobody to share it with. Mandi knew, of course — but she was making herself scarce again, and I suspected she was keeping her distance from me deliberately so Kaelen wouldn’t notice we were in cahoots.I had never felt quite this lonely. And I was absolutely dying to talk to someone.So I called Elara.For so long I had been occupied with taking care of my sister that I had never really cultivated friendships of my own. I was on good terms with some of the house staff back home, but not to the extent of confiding my deepest secrets to them. For years it had simply been Elara and me, living a mostly isolated life in the pack house. I hadn’t been lonely, because I had always had her, and she had always had me.I missed her now more than I could say.I went back and forth in my head about whether to tell her about the baby’s father. It would have been a rel

Chapter Thirty-Six: Steel and Scimitars

ElaraI threw my phone down on the bed in disgust.Disgust with myself, disgust at the whole situation. My sister was pregnant, and that should have been joyful news. But my sister’s baby daddy was my fated mate.I couldn’t help turning it over — if she hadn’t stepped in to try and save me from the arrangement, I might now be the one happily marked by my fated mate, the one making that announcement. Which was all kinds of messed up, and I knew it. I couldn’t be angry at Louisa. She hadn’t asked for any of this. She had only ever been trying to protect me. And yet some ugly, resentful part of me was sitting there being jealous anyway, and I hated myself for it.I flopped back on my pillows and stared up at the lacy canopy. There was no fixing this. Louisa had sacrificed her chance at a fated mate for my happiness, and now I was going to have to sacrifice mine for hers. It was as simple and as heartbreaking as that.I wasn’t a little girl anymore. It was time to face that reality withou

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Heir to the Throne

LouisaI didn’t have to fake being nervous when the time finally came to make it official with Dr. Ramirez. Fooling Kaelen was one thing. Fooling an intelligent woman with a medical degree was considerably more intimidating. And going public with the pregnancy — even just this far — made me feel exposed in a way I hadn’t anticipated.Dr. Ramirez had her stethoscope looped around her neck and her crisp white coat on, and was just ushering a small boy with a fresh set of stitches on his knee out of the office when I arrived. His eyes went wide when he spotted me, and despite the tear tracks still drying on his face, he grinned and thrust his knee forward for inspection. “Look, Luna! Six stitches!”“My goodness, that is impressive,” I said, squatting down to give it a proper look. “And how did you come by this injury, sir?”“Otis pushed me off the picnic table.” He wrinkled his nose. “Otis is my dog.”“Well, I hope you gave him a stern talking-to.”“Yeah, I told him he was a big dummy. A

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Means to an End

KaelenCould it really be that easy?If I needed any confirmation that I was on the right track, it was sitting on the desk in front of me. The universe was practically rolling out the red carpet. One night, and here we were. Further proof, as if I needed any, of my own potency.Sometimes I even surprised myself.Although — and I hadn’t anticipated this — I had never given much thought to actually being a father.For as long as I could remember, my ambitions had been about power and territory. Building an empire. Children had never featured in that picture, and if it hadn’t been for Alpha Forge’s stipulations, the idea would never have crossed my mind. I had taken it for granted all these years that Mandi had never fallen pregnant. If she had, I would have told her to take care of it.Personally, I despised babies. Noisy, messy, demanding little things with no useful qualities whatsoever. Children weren’t much of an improvement.Still — I had turned out well enough. No thanks to Julia

Chapter Thirty-Nine: A Toast to New Beginnings

LouisaSomething was going on. The whole house was in a tizzy — staff scrubbing windows, laundering drapes, shampooing carpets, polishing every surface to a shine. The level of industry was unprecedented.Kaelen was walking around looking insufferably smug and refused to tell me anything. When I questioned the kitchen crew, I gathered that a dinner party was being planned and that the guests were important, but nobody — not even Mandi — seemed to know who was coming.“Considering what he just spent on those tablecloths, it had better be the f**king president,” I muttered to myself as I headed upstairs.As luck would have it, Kaelen was standing at the top of the stairs waiting for me. I had every intention of pushing past without stopping, but he fell into step beside me as I moved toward my door. “I’m expecting our guests at 6:00 PM,” he said.“Great,” I said, reaching for the handle.“Dress nicely. Wear something flattering. Dark colors are supposed to make you look smaller, aren’t

Chapter Forty: The Long Game

KaelenEverything was going exactly according to plan. Best of all, I was seated directly beside my fated mate.She was everything I had imagined — and then some. I couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t stop breathing her in. Her hair, her amber eyes, the milky skin that seemed almost designed to provoke a response. I knew she felt it too. I could hear the flutter of her heartbeat, catch the warmth of her excitement, see the slight tremor that moved through her when I leaned close.She also had the intelligence not to announce our connection to the entire room, which I found deeply admirable. Elara had very little to say throughout the meal — a quality I considered a considerable virtue, and one that Louisa was sadly, constitutionally incapable of. The moment we were seated again, Louisa leaned toward me and said under her breath, “You could have told me you were announcing it like this.”“And spoil the surprise?” I beamed at her, not bothering to conceal my satisfaction, and helped

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