All Chapters of Alpha Mate Slept With His Sister-in-Law, I Left: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

Kael and I had been together for six years.Back then I was the heir of Northcrest, the only daughter of the Alpha King. My father said Kael, a small-pack Alpha, was nothing close to good enough for me. He almost cut me off. I gave up everything for love. I hid who I was and ran with Kael. The day I left, my father said only one thing.“The day you regret it, I’ll come for you.”I didn’t think it would take less than six years.The message had already reached me. The Marking ceremony with Vivienne was set.I sat on the bed and remembered my father’s face seven years ago, somewhere between furious and afraid. I closed my eyes. I was about to wake the wolf I had kept asleep for six years and reach back to my family in Northcrest.The door opened behind me.Kael was back from Vivienne’s wing. His suit jacket was over his arm, tie loose, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. He tossed the jacket on the chair. A folded slip of paper slid out of the inside pocket.I picked it up.It was V

Asher didn’t speak the rest of the day. He went into his room and closed the door.That afternoon Vivienne came by to pick something up. Kael wasn’t home.She let herself in. Asher was in the living room drawing. She walked over and looked down at his paper.She said, “You know your daddy’s going to have a new baby soon, right? That baby is the heir of Ironridge. You...” She paused. “The pack register lists you as an orphan.”I came out of the kitchen. Asher was sitting where she’d left him. The drawing was still on the table but the pen was down.“Get out,” I said to Vivienne. “You are not welcome here.”Asher walked himself back to his room. After a while I pushed his door open. He was sitting on the bed. He looked up. His eyes were red.“Mommy. What’s an orphan?”“Mommy. Daddy doesn’t want me anymore. Did I do something wrong?”I pulled him into my arms. “Asher didn’t do anything wrong. This is a grown-up thing. None of it is on you.”He leaned on my shoulder and didn’t speak. I tol

By daylight Kael was still on the floor at Asher’s door. He was digging into the gap of the couch cushions with his fingers. He pulled out one long dark brown hair. It was mine. He closed his fist around it.He slept on the couch.He woke to someone laying a blanket over him. Eyes still closed, he caught the wrist and said my name.“Sera.”He opened his eyes. It was Vivienne.Her hair was loose. The thing she was wearing was the cream cashmere cardigan Kael had spent three hours picking out for me last anniversary. He recognized it on sight.In the dim living room, the outline of her hair almost looked like mine for half a second. Then the cloying woody perfume, the one I would never wear, cut through the illusion.He threw her hand off. He stared at the cardigan. His voice was cold enough to shake.“Take her clothes off.”“Kael, I was worried about you—”“I said. Take it off.”Vivienne bit her lip and slid the cardigan off her shoulders, slowly. Halfway out the door she turned back. “

The Northcrest escort picked us up and took every route that bypassed Ironridge patrol points. The whole way I braced for my father’s anger. He had opposed Kael for six years. He had not seen me in six years.When we pulled up to the estate gates he didn’t say anything. He crouched down and opened his arms to Asher. Asher startled and hid behind my legs. My father stayed crouched on the step. Almost a minute.My mother was the one who finally moved. She fished half a butter cookie out of her coat pocket and held it out to Asher. He looked at it. He looked at me. I nodded. He put his small hand into hers. My mother’s tears came down at once. She said, “She’s too thin.”She meant me, not the child.My father stood and pulled me in without a word. The familiar cedar-and-old-library smell on his collar. Six years and he was still wearing the same cologne. He brushed the back of my neck. “Kael. We’ll talk about him later.”A group of pack children Asher’s age was on the lawn. They saw him a

I walked past Kael. Asher walked toward him slowly from the other end of the hall.He told me later what happened.Kael saw him, and his eyes lit up. This was his son. A year unseen, and half a head taller.Asher stopped in front of Kael and looked at him steadily. Kael reached for his head. Asher moved his head out of reach.Asher took something out of an inside pocket and pressed it into Kael’s palm. A rusted thumbtack with a small blue dot painted on the metal cap.Kael didn’t understand.“It’s the thumbtack I used to pin my drawings up with,” Asher said. “Mommy tore the drawings down. The thumbtacks were still there. I had grandfather’s people pull them off the wall, one by one, and mail them to me. Forty-seven of them.”He paused.“I was going to ask if you remembered the drawings. But thinking about it, you probably never noticed them at all.”Kael’s fist closed on the thumbtack. The point cut into his palm. He opened his mouth. He couldn’t get one word out.Asher took a step bac