The Alpha’s Biggest Regret: Begging For A Second Chance

CHAPTER TWO

Sara's POV

"Luna, the morning briefing has been moved."

I stopped walking and turned around. Kira, one of the junior omegas, was standing in the hallway with her clipboard pressed to her chest and her eyes anywhere but my face.

"Moved where?"

"The east sitting room. Alpha said it's more comfortable for — for the recovery process."

"That is my sitting room."

"Yes, Luna." She still wouldn't look at me. "Alpha said so."

I looked at her for a long moment. She was just doing what her Alpha told her and she was terrified of being caught in the middle of something she didn't start. I recognised that feeling.

"Fine," I said, and I walked away.

*****

The briefing was already in progress when I arrived. Isolde was sitting in my chair — the one by the window, — with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap, listening to Elder Vonn with focused concern. Caden was beside her. He looked up when I entered and something moved behind his eyes but he said nothing.

I took a seat at the far end of the room.

Elder Vonn didn't acknowledge that anything was different. Nobody did.

****

Three days later I went to the kitchen to find Marta and instead found Isolde standing at the counter with a handwritten list, telling Marta that she thought the week's menu should be lighter, that heavy food slowed her recovery, that she was sure Luna Sera wouldn't mind.

Marta saw me in the doorway and her face did something complicated and painful.

"Luna," she said carefully. "I was going to—"

"It's a small thing," Isolde said, turning with a warm, apologetic smile. "I should have asked you directly. I just thought since Caden mentioned you wouldn't want me uncomfortable—"

"Caden mentioned," I repeated.

"He only wants what's best for everyone." She tilted her head. "I'm sure you understand."

I looked at Marta. Marta looked at her list.

"Of course," I said, and I left the kitchen that I had stood in every morning for four years.

****

The fever started on a Wednesday. By Thursday I couldn't get out of bed without the room tilting sideways. I drank the water Kira left and sweated through two sets of sheets and waited.

Caden didn't come. Not once.

I asked Kira to tell him I was unwell and would like to see him. She came back forty minutes later with her eyes down and said, "The Alpha says he'll look in on you this evening, Luna."

He didn't.

In the morning I heard through the wall, one of the pack warriors telling someone in the hallway that Isolde had woken up with a cold and the Alpha had been with her since.

He would rather be with her and not his wife.

Marta came in the afternoon with soup and bread and sat in the chair by my bed and ladled it out without saying a single word about why she was there and Caden was not. I ate the soup. We didn't talk about it.

*****

The pregnancy test had been in my drawer for two weeks. My period had been missing for three months now. My wolf, though how little she spoke to me, had been restless.

I decided to take the test to put both her and my heart at rest. But I didn't expect the two pink lines staring at me.

I sat on the toilet seat, my legs weak. My hand covered my mouth as a delight gasp went through. After four years of trying. After four years of being blamed because I was half human. Now I had the best gift the moon could give me.

I went and found Marta in the kitchen.

I put the test on the counter in front of her and watched her face.

Her hands flew to her mouth. Her eyes filled up immediately, completely, the way Marta did everything — all at once, no holding back. She grabbed both my hands across the counter and said, "Oh, Luna. Oh, this is a gift.".

"Nobody knows," I said. "Not yet. I need to tell Caden first."

She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. "Nobody will hear it from me. I promise you that."

"Thank you, Marta."

She held my hands for another moment and looked at me with so much feeling that I had to look away. "He will be happy," she said. "When you tell him, he will be happy. A child changes everything, Luna."

I nodded. I told myself she was right.

---

I found him that evening.

His office door was open a few inches and I pushed it and I stopped.

Isolde was wrapped inside his arms with her face pressed against his chest. His chin rested on top of her head. His hand moved slowly, steadily, up and down her back — the long, certain strokes of someone who knew exactly where to touch a person to make them feel safe. The way he had not touched me in six weeks.

Neither of them saw me.

I stood there long enough to understand completely what I was looking at. It was over.

Then I pushed the door all the way open.

Caden's head came up. Isolde pulled back. He said, "Sera—"

"Don't." My voice came out louder than I expected. "Don't say my name like I am the one doing something wrong in this room."

"This is not what it looks like—"

"Then tell me what it looks like, Caden, because from where I was standing it looked exactly like what I had been watching happen in my own house for six weeks." I stepped fully into the room. "You moved me out of my bedroom for her. You sat her in my chair. You let her walk into my kitchen and rearrange my home. I had a fever for four days and you didn't come once but she sneezed and you hadn't left her side." My voice was shaking and I couldn't stop it. "I came here tonight to tell you something important. I came here because I thought—"

"Sera, lower your voice."

"Do not tell me to lower my voice."

Isolde stepped back toward the wall with her eyes wide and her hands pressed together and that expression she wore of a woman who was being wronged very quietly and bearing it with grace.

Caden's eyes hardened. "You are making a scene."

"I am making a scene." I laughed and it didn't sound like laughing. "Your wife is making a scene. Not the woman standing in your arms in your office at night. Your wife."

"Isolde and I have a history that you do not understand—"

"Then explain it to me. You have had six weeks to explain it to me and you have said nothing."

He was quiet for a moment. "If Isolde had not disappeared, I would never have been matched with you. She was supposed to be here. You are in her place." He held my gaze. "That is not fair to her."

The room went completely silent.

I heard myself breathe.

"The Moon Goddess chose you for me," I said slowly. "You didn't choose. She chose. So what are you telling me — that our entire marriage has been an inconvenience to you?"

"I am telling you it was not fair—"

"Is it fair to me?" My voice cracked on the last word. "Is any of this fair to me?"

He said nothing.

"You are standing in front of me defending your affair and calling it honour," I said. "You are a coward, Caden. You have been a coward this entire time and you wrapped it up in guilt so you could look at yourself in the mirror."

"I have never been unfaithful to you."

"Divorce me." The words came out of me sharp and cold. "Go ahead. I will sign every paper you put in front of me." I looked at him — really looked at him, this man I had built my life around, this man who moved me out of my own room — and I felt something that had been warm inside me go completely, permanently out. "You disgust me. I disgust myself for loving you. I curse the day the Moon Goddess was stupid enough to call you my mate."