After My Mate Chose His Pregnant Mistress

Five years. One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days. That was how long I had stood on the precipice of my own life, waiting for it to truly begin.

I smoothed the silk of my midnight-blue dress—Dominic’s favorite color—and forced my hands to stop trembling. The Moonstone Pack House was alive with a nervous, electric energy. Streamers in the pack colors of silver and blue fluttered from the porch railings, snapping in the crisp autumn breeze. Below, the pack members gathered in a hush, their eyes darting between the driveway and me. They were waiting for the fairy tale. The Alpha’s daughter and the war hero, the adopted son who had fought for our safety, finally reuniting to lead them.

"He’s close, Serenity," Sienna, my wolf, murmured in my mind. Her voice was usually warm sunlight, but today she was pacing, her tail twitching with an anxiety I couldn't quite place. "I can feel him."

"I know," I whispered, pressing my thumb hard against the inside of my wrist, a habit I’d developed to ground myself. "He's coming home."

The deep rumble of heavy transport trucks shattered the silence. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Dust billowed at the end of the long driveway as the convoy appeared, the lead truck grinding to a halt right in front of the porch steps.

The door opened. A heavy boot hit the gravel.

Dominic Weaver stepped out. He was broader than I remembered, his jawline sharper, a new scar cutting through his eyebrow that only made him look more rugged. He looked like every dream I’d kept alive during the lonely nights of his absence. My breath hitched. I took a step forward, my smile ready, my arms already lifting to welcome him.

He looked up. His eyes met mine.

And then he looked away.

The smile froze on my face. Dominic didn't rush up the stairs. He didn't shout my name. Instead, he turned back to the open cab of the truck. He reached his hand in, his posture tender, protective.

A woman stepped out, taking his hand. She was small, with mousy hair and wide, fearful eyes. Blair O'Brien. I knew her—she was a low-ranking Omega who had left for the support lines a year ago. But it wasn't her face that sucked the air out of the courtyard.

It was the swell of her belly.

A collective gasp swept through the crowd. The streamers fluttering above me suddenly felt like a mockery, a cheap decoration for a funeral. Blair was visibly, undeniably pregnant. At least six months along.

Dominic guided her down to the gravel, his hand lingering on the small of her back. He whispered something to her, then looked up at the porch again. He didn't look at me. He looked past me, toward my father, Alpha Evans, who stood like a stone statue at the top of the stairs.

"Father," Dominic said, his voice rough with travel and something else—shame. "We need to talk."

He walked up the stairs. He walked right past me. The scent of him—pine, earth, and the metallic tang of old blood—washed over me, mixed with the cloying, milky scent of the pregnant she-wolf clinging to his arm. He didn't stop. He didn't acknowledge the five years I had waited. He treated me like a ghost.

Sienna let out a low, confused whine, pacing in circles within my chest. *"Why isn't he looking at us? Why does he smell like her?"*

I couldn't answer her. My blood had turned to ice. I turned, my movements stiff and mechanical, and followed them into the Grand Hall.

The elite members of the pack had already gathered. My father sat on the Alpha’s chair, his face unreadable, though his knuckles were white as he gripped the armrests. Dominic led Blair to the center of the room and knelt. Not to me. To the Alpha.

"Speak, Dominic," my father commanded. His voice was heavy, lacking the warmth he usually reserved for his favorite son.

Dominic kept his head bowed, but his voice was steady. "I have returned, Alpha. But I cannot fulfill the expectation of the pack."

The silence in the room was so thick it felt like it could crush bones. I stood off to the side, my hands clenched so tight my nails bit into my palms.

"I cannot mate with Serenity," Dominic announced. The words hung in the air, sharp and final.

Sienna howled. It was a sound of pure, shredded agony that echoed in my skull, but I locked my knees and refused to let it escape my throat. I was the Alpha's daughter. I would not collapse.

Dominic reached out and took Blair's trembling hand. "During the campaign... during a heat cycle... I lost control. It was an accident, but I am a man of honor. Blair carries my pup. My blood."

He finally turned his head. For the first time in five years, he looked at me. His eyes were pleading, begging me to understand, to be the good little girl who always sacrificed for him.

"Serenity," he said softly. "You have always been my greatest supporter. You are... you are like a sister to me. I know you would not want this child to grow up without a father. I ask for your blessing, and the Alpha’s permission, to take Blair as my mate."

*Sister.*

The word was a blade, twisted expertly in my gut. He had erased every letter I wrote, every promise whispered before he left, every moment we had spent building a future that didn't include a mousy Omega and a heat-induced mistake.

The pack whispered. I could feel their pity crawling over my skin like insects. *Poor Serenity. Waiting all this time just to be tossed aside for a breeder.*

I looked at Blair. She had her head down, acting the part of the terrified victim, but as she shifted, I saw it. A tiny, fleeting smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. She wasn't sorry. She had won.

My father looked at me, his eyes filled with a helplessness that made me sick. He wouldn't deny Dominic. He never denied Dominic anything. He was waiting for me to make it easy for him.

I pressed my thumb into my wrist until the pain grounded me. I shoved Sienna’s grief into a dark corner of my mind and pulled the mask of the Alpha’s daughter over my face. Cold. Composed. Unbreakable.

"A child is a blessing," I said. My voice was steady, devoid of emotion. It didn't sound like me. "If Dominic feels his honor binds him to Blair, then he should be with her."

Dominic let out a breath of relief, smiling at me as if I had just given him a gift rather than letting him destroy me.

"I reject any claim I had," I continued, my eyes boring into his until he flinched. "Congratulations, *brother*."

I turned on my heel and walked out of the hall before the first tear could fall. I would not let them see me bleed.