Cheated, Pregnant, and Sold to the Enemy Alpha

NYLA The front door was unlocked, and that was the first thing wrong. The Lawson mansion was always locked tight by seven in the evening, with two guards at the gate and the alarm system armed. Tonight the hallway was dark and silent, no staff moving, no music from the kitchen where Kade's chef usually worked late. I stood there with my suitcase still in my hand, my heart slamming against my ribs before my brain even caught up. My flight had landed three hours early. I wanted to surprise Kade. Inside my purse was a small velvet box, and inside that box was a white plastic stick with two pink lines on it. I had been smiling the whole drive home, picturing his face when I showed him. I worked as the lead forensic accountant for Lawson Industries, the company Kade's family had built over three generations. Six years ago, I was the quiet scholarship girl who crunched numbers in the basement office. Now I was married to the Alpha who ran the whole company, and I had just spent four days proving someone inside it was stealing. Then I smelled her. The perfume hit me before I even reached the stairs. Sweet, heavy, and so familiar that my stomach dropped. I had bought that perfume myself, for her birthday, two months ago. Tessa. My wolf, Saela, went still inside me. Then she started to growl. I climbed the stairs slowly. My ears, sharper than any human's, picked up sounds I wished I could un-hear. A laugh. A moan. The creak of the bed Kade and I had picked out together on our honeymoon. I told myself it could be a mistake. Maybe Tessa was just visiting, and Kade was asleep, and the sound was the TV. I told myself a lot of things in those last ten steps down the hallway. Then I opened the door. The room was lit by candles, the same kind I had picked out for our anniversary dinner next week. Clothes were scattered across the floor. A woman's heels lay kicked off near the foot of the bed. Kade's head snapped up first. His eyes, the same gold eyes that used to look at me like I was the only woman in the world, went wide with shock. Tessa screamed and yanked the blanket over herself, but it was too late. I had already seen everything I needed to see. "Nyla!" Kade shot up, reaching for his pants on the floor. "It's not... this isn't..." "Don't." My voice came out flat, calm in a way that scared even me. "Don't tell me it isn't what it looks like. I'm not blind, Kade. I'm not stupid." Tessa's mascara was smudged down her cheeks, but she still managed to look annoyed, like I was the one interrupting something. "Nyla, can we just talk about this like adults?" Tessa was my half sister. We had shared a bedroom growing up, shared clothes, shared everything. Or so I thought. I laughed, and it wasn't a happy sound. "Adults? You're sleeping with my husband, Tessa. In my bed. While I was out of town finishing the audit you asked me to fly out for. The one that paid for the dress you're probably going to wear to my funeral." "Nyla, please," Kade said, stepping toward me with his hands raised like I was something dangerous. Maybe I was. I could feel my nails sharpening into claws. "How long?" I asked. He didn't answer fast enough. "How long, Kade?" "Eight months," Tessa whispered, looking away. The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I pressed a hand to my stomach without thinking, like I could shield what was inside me from the truth. Eight months. Our second wedding anniversary was in two weeks. Eight months ago was right when Kade started "working late" almost every night. Right when he stopped reaching for me in bed. Right when I got pregnant. My hand found the velvet box in my purse without me even thinking about it. I pulled it out and threw it at Kade's bare chest. It bounced off and hit the floor, popping open. The little white stick rolled out, the two pink lines facing up at all three of us. Kade's face went white. "Nyla, is that..." "Was," I said, my voice breaking for the first time. "I was going to tell you tonight." Tessa's hand flew to her mouth. I didn't wait to hear anything else. I turned and walked out, down the stairs and out the front door, into rain that had just started to fall. Behind me, Kade was shouting my name, his bare feet pounding down the stairs, but Saela was screaming at me to run, and for once, I listened to her. I got in my car and drove. I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I needed to be anywhere that wasn't there. The rain came down harder, the wipers barely keeping up, and tears blurred everything else. I should have pulled over. I knew that. But all I could think about was the way Kade's face had looked when that test hit his chest, like he was more scared of the baby than sorry for what he'd done. That was when something slammed into the front of my car. The impact threw me forward against my seatbelt, and the windshield cracked into a spiderweb of white lines. I slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded sideways before stopping hard against the curb. For a second, I just sat there, my whole body shaking, my ears ringing. My phone was already in my hand, my thumb hovering over the emergency call button. But my legs moved before my brain caught up. I shoved the door open and ran out into the rain. A man lay sprawled across the road. He looked tall and broad even lying broken on the wet pavement, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with rain and blood. I dropped to my knees beside him, my dress soaking through instantly. His shirt was shredded across his back, like something with claws had torn through it. "Hey," I said, my voice shaking. "Can you hear me?" Nothing. I reached for his neck to check for a pulse, my hand trembling. The second my fingers touched his skin, his eyes snapped open, glowing ice blue in the dark. His hand shot up and locked around my wrist like iron. "Don't," he growled, his voice rough and broken. "Don't call anyone." I froze, staring into eyes that glowed like moonlight on snow, and for one terrifying second, I forgot how to breathe.