After My Alpha Rejected Our Daughter for His Mistress

The back door clicked open at twelve minutes past one.

I sat at the dark kitchen island with a mug of black tea, listening to his boots scrape against the entry mat. He smelled of cold autumn wind, exhaust fumes, and the heavy, synthetic lavender lotion Luella bathed in.

Sebastian stepped into the kitchen, shedding his leather jacket. His hair was messy, dark shadows bruising the hollows beneath his eyes. When he saw me sitting under the single pendant light, his jaw tightened.

"You’re still awake," he said, tossing his keys onto the counter. The metal clattered loudly against the granite.

"Paislee waited by the auditorium glass until eight-forty," I said. My voice was low, flat, and steady. "She wore the navy dress. Her white socks were pulled straight. She didn't sit down because she didn't want the pleats to wrinkle."

Sebastian paused, a muscle ticking along his jaw. "Luella had a seizure, Ariana. Her throat closed up. The local healer couldn't stabilize her."

"Two Delta boys sat in the row ahead of her," I continued, staring into the dark circle of my tea. "They turned around and told everyone within three rows that she was a fatherless Omega stray. They laughed. Several adults joined in."

"I told Theron to explain—"

"She held her rabbit until the seam in its ear tore open," I cut in. I finally looked up, locking my eyes with his. "She didn't cry once. Not in that room. Not in the car."

Sebastian flinched. The reaction was tiny—just a twitch in his eyelids—before his Alpha pride slammed the shield back into place. He leaned over the island, his broad frame casting a thick shadow across my hands.

"You think I wanted to be in an emergency room?" he growled, defensive anger flaring in his green eyes. "A woman’s life was on the line. You have no right to interrogate me in my own house."

"I have a signed contract," I said, my tone clinical. "You promised presence. You promised thirty days of being a father in public. If you fail to show up again, the blood draws stop."

"Don't threaten me!"

His Alpha tone slammed into the room. It was an invisible hammer of sound that rattled the ceramic mugs on the drying rack.

I didn't flinch. A wolfless human had no pack instinct to compel, and whatever part of me had once bowed to him had died in a ditch seven years ago.

My silence unsettled him far worse than shouting.

He stared at me, his chest heaving. Then, deep beneath his ribs, a sound broke through. It was a low, dissonant whine from his wolf—a ragged, broken note that seemed to claw at the inside of his throat. Sebastian pressed a palm against his sternum, suddenly looking dizzy. He swallowed hard, stumbling back half a step.

"I will be there for the next one," he rasped, his voice rough.

I set my mug in the sink. "Goodnight, Alpha."

***

The clinic smelled of rubbing alcohol and chilled steel.

Pack Healer Darian swabbed my left arm with iodine, his hands slightly trembling. Across from my cot, Sebastian sat in a heavy leather recliner. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the thick veins running down his forearms.

"The residual bond channel opened wider after the first transfusion," Darian warned quietly, looking between us. "The draw will pull harder today. If you feel faint, Miss Alvarez, speak immediately."

"Just do it," I said.

Darian inserted the large-gauge needle into my crook.

The pain didn't hit like a needle prick. It hit like a blowtorch.

A sickening, tearing heat ripped straight through my left shoulder, digging into the silver brand beneath my sweater. The faint, decayed thread connecting my blood to Sebastian's violently dilated. My vision greyed out. My fingers clawed into the synthetic leather of the cot, my knuckles turning white.

Across the room, Sebastian's head snapped back.

His entire body locked rigid. His pupils dilated until the green in his irises vanished, completely swallowed by molten gold.

For three full seconds, the air in the room stopped moving.

Sebastian's chest expanded in a violent, desperate gasp. His nostrils flared, dragging in air like a drowning man breaking the surface. He wasn't breathing oxygen. He was drowning in a ghost—white jasmine and freezing winter rain. The scent hit him so hard and pure that the leather under his fingers shredded with a loud *rip*.

Claws burst through his knuckles. A guttural, agonizing roar rattled inside his ribs, threatening to tear his human throat open.

"Alpha?" Darian jumped back from the line, terrified. "Alpha, are you alright?"

Sebastian’s claws snapped back into blunt fingernails. He pressed both hands against his temples, sweat pouring down his pale neck. He was shaking. His gaze flicked wildly across the white tiles, completely terrified of whatever had just possessed his senses.

"I'm fine," Sebastian choked out, his voice hoarse and unrecognizable. "Keep draining."

He didn't look at me once for the rest of the hour.

Later that night, at three in the morning, a hollow crash echoed from the Alpha suite down the hall.

I stood in the dark corridor, watching through the crack of my doorway. Sebastian had thrown open the French doors to the balcony, letting the freezing mountain rain soak his shirt. He stood gripping the iron railing, drenched in cold sweat, his trembling hands reaching out into the empty dark as if trying to hold onto smoke.

***

The next morning, the kitchen was quiet and bathed in pale sunlight.

Paislee sat at the breakfast nook in her pajamas, swinging her bare feet. Beside her plate sat her small bowl of oatmeal, her rabbit Mud, and the worn, knitted baby blanket we had carried through every cheap motel for six years.

She picked up the corner of the yarn, holding it against her small nose.

"The Alpha smells like my blanket," she said.

The wooden spoon froze in my hand.

I turned around slowly from the stove. The kitchen felt instantly airless. "What did you say, baby?"

Paislee looked up, her grey eyes wide, calm, and completely certain. "My baby blanket. It smells like him. It smelled like him before we moved here, Mama. When we lived in the cabin."

My heart dropped like lead. The blood rushed out of my face, leaving my lips cold.

"It's just the pack house detergent, Paislee," I said, forcing my voice to sound casual, light, dismissive. "His scent gets on everything in the laundry."

Paislee held my gaze for three steady seconds.

She didn't argue. She didn't nod. With slow, unnerving precision, she folded the frayed edge of the blanket and laid it neatly beside her plate. Then she turned her head toward the hallway, listening to the heavy tread of Sebastian’s boots approaching the kitchen.

Her eyes weren't hopeful anymore. They were cold, analytical, and eerily sharp.

In my chest, behind the silver scar, Selene slammed her weight against my ribs.

The wolf's voice tore through my head, raspy, fierce, and utterly venomous:

*She already knows. She's known longer than you have.*

My hand violently jerked.

The glass pitcher struck the rim of the counter. Orange juice exploded across the pale oak floor, splattering the hem of my jeans just as the kitchen door swung wide.