ALPHA BIKER WHO CLAIMED HIS BROTHER'S MATE

2

Maya's POV

For one heart-stopping second, I was sure I was dreaming. Rafe Cross, younger brother to Jalen, my so-called husband, had not just stopped me from killing myself. His eyes were sharp, taking in every detail of my tear-streaked face and ridiculous wedding dress. Rafe was also the leader of a motorcycle club and someone I had been avoiding for a long time.

“Go away,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.

His grip tightened as I struggled with his muscular body.

“I don’t believe in giving up, Maya. You fight until your soul has nothing left. Don’t hand your pain to the ocean. It hasn’t earned you.”

That did it. A spark of anger cut through the suffocating pain.

“I am not in the mood for your stupid pep talk!” I snapped, turning back to the water. “Just leave me alone!”

He ignored me and held on with infuriating ease. It was only when he physically maneuvered himself between me and the railing, becoming a massive, intimidating barrier to my planned exit, that he finally released my waist. I stumbled forward a step, whirling around to face him.

“No suicides on my watch,” he stated, his sharp eyes scanning me from the messy crown of my hair down to the ridiculous train of my wedding dress. “Bad for business. Worse for my conscience, believe it or not.”

He took a step closer and I took an instinctive step back, my back now against the cold wall of the ship’s superstructure.

He paused, then did the weirdest thing. He leaned in just a little and sniffed the air near my cheek, and a slow, knowing smirk spread across his face.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled. “So it’s finally happened, has it?”

I just stared at him, my heart beating loudly while the mate bond with his bastard brother kept searing brands of agony in my chest. How could he know? Who else knows, and how blind have I been?

His smirk didn’t waver.

“So, you finally saw what’s been staring you in the face all along?”

The air left my lungs in a whoosh as I gaped at him, the world narrowing to his unflinching gaze.

“W-What?”

“Jalen. And that snake-in-the-grass friend of yours. Tessa. You walked in on the whole bloody show.” He said it so casually, like he was commenting on the weather.

My face paled and my throat went dry.

“You… you knew?”

“Course I knew,” he shrugged, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather cut. “Not exactly subtle, those two. Been at it for months.”

Fucking months. The word echoed in my skull and my knees felt weak.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?!” My voice climbed shrill and broken. “You let me marry him! You stood there and watched me promise my life to a cheater!”

“‘Cause you would’ve believed me, would you?” he shot back. “Sweet, innocent Maya who’s been avoiding me like I’ve got the bloody plague for years? You’d have thought I was just stirring s**t, trying to break you two up so I could have a shot. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

He was right. I wouldn’t have. I’d always been a little scared of Rafe, of the power that rolled off him, and I’d chosen the safer, smoother, older brother. Look how that turned out.

A sob escaped from me and before I could stop myself, I launched at him. My fists pounded against his chest uselessly, like trying to break stone with feathers.

“You should have told me! You should have tried! Why didn’t you just try!”

He stood there and took it, letting me wear myself out against him until my hits became weak, pathetic taps, my body shaking with gut-wrenching sobs.

When I finally stilled, utterly spent, he spoke again, his voice lower.

“Look. I can help you out of this fix. But you gotta come off this deck with me. Now.”

Help me? The feared Alpha of the Iron Fang MC wanted to help me? The world had truly ended. I shook my head as a fresh wave of dizziness washed over me.

“I don’t need your help. I need… I need to be alone.”

I pushed away from him, intending to march right past him with the last shred of my dignity, but my body betrayed me. My foot caught on the hem of my own stupid dress and I stumbled, my balance gone.

His arm shot out, catching me around the waist again, pulling me upright against him. For the second time in five minutes, the world stopped, but this time, it wasn’t from shock or fear.

It was a jolt. A pure electric current zipped straight from where his hand splayed on my lower back right through my core, setting every nerve ending on fire.

My wolf, who had been a whimpering, wounded thing since I’d opened that cabin door, suddenly sat up and took notice, and she purred in a way that was entirely inappropriate. I gasped.

His eyes widened just a fraction as his grip on my waist tightened almost imperceptibly. He’d felt it too. That insane, undeniable pull.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

We were frozen there in a bizarre embrace on the empty deck, but the spell was shattered by the sound of laughter and voices. A group of people spilled out onto the deck for a late-night smoke.

Their laughter died the second they saw us. The Alpha of the Iron Fang holding the sobbing, disheveled bride of his own brother against him, for all the world, looked like a deeply intimate clutch.

I wrenched myself out of his arms like I’d been burned.

“Don’t follow me,” I choked out, not even looking back at him, or the stunned spectators. I fled.

My mind wasn’t on Jalen’s betrayal anymore. It wasn’t on Tessa’s traitorous face. It was laser-focused on the ghost of Rafe’s touch, on the way my wolf had reacted to him. What kind of cruel game was the Moon Goddess playing?

My husband cheats on me on our wedding night, and my wolf decides his terrifying brother is the one who gets the engine revving? Un-f*****g-believable.

I finally found my cabin, fumbled the keycard, and slammed the door shut behind me, locking it. I didn’t stop until I was in the bathroom, the lock clicked there too, my back against the door as I slid to the floor and let the tears come all over again.

I was there for what seemed like forever until a loud, frantic knocking on the main cabin door jerked me out of it.

“Maya? Maya, honey, are you in there? It’s Mom! Open up!”

Great. Just what I needed.

“Maya Chase! Open this door right now! There’s something you need to see! It’s… it’s disturbing!”

Disturbing? Well, that was a new adjective for this night. I peeled myself off the floor, splashed water on my puffy face, and trudged to the door.

I opened it, a sliver of hope sparking in my chest. Maybe Jalen and Tessa had fallen overboard and been eaten by sharks. Now that would be a wedding gift from the goddess.

My mom stood there, her face pale and her phone clutched in her hand like a lifeline. She didn’t say a word, just thrust the screen at me.

It was a post on SnapFace. The picture was a little grainy, taken from a distance, but it was unmistakably us. Me in my giant white dress pulled tight against Rafe.

My face was tilted up to his, his head bent down to mine, and the angle made it look like we were moments away from a seriously passionate kiss.

The caption read: Well this is awkward. Bride of the year? Just married Alpha Jalen but getting cozy with Alpha Rafe on the top deck! #packdrama #whichbrotherisit #cruiseshippingscandal

My stomach dropped to my feet when I saw the comments.

Wow, didn’t expect this on a wedding night… Poor Jalen. They were pitying the fucker? A man who ripped my heart into multiple shreds without looking back.

“Mom,” I gasped. “It’s not what it looks like! He was stopping me from… and then I fell… and Jalen! Mom, Jalen was… I caught him! I caught him banging Tessa!”

The words tumbled out as I told her everything. I even, in a moment of sheer insanity, admitted the stupid, traitorous zap I’d felt with Rafe and how I’d been avoiding him forever because of it.

She just stared at me and, when I finally finished, breathlessly and crying again, she just shook her head.

“Get to the main condo. Now. The elders are already there.”

The elders? Oh, moon and stars. This was that bad?

I followed her quickly, and when we entered, the elders of our pack, serious-faced men and women in their formal wear, were seated in a semicircle. Standing before them and talking with animated hands was Jalen.

He saw me the second I walked in and stopped mid-sentence. His eyes narrowed. He didn’t look remorseful. Not one f*****g bit. He looked triumphant.

He turned back to the elders, pointing a dramatic finger in my direction.

“And here she is now. The proof of her betrayal is all over social media! I knew something was off with her. I could feel it through the bond!”

He took a step toward me, his face faking pain.

“I gave you everything, Maya. My name, my heart, and this is how you repay me? Throwing yourself at my own brother on our wedding night?”

I opened my mouth to scream the truth, to tell them all what a lying, cheating bastard he was. He faked the pain properly as he forced tears in his eyes.

Then he spoke, his voice dropping into a formal, cold tone I’d never heard him use before. It was the shaky tone of a hurt Alpha issuing a decree.

“Therefore, before the elders of our pack, I, Jalen Cross, Alpha Heir of the Louisiana Iron Fang Pack, hereby divorce and reject you, Maya Chase, effective immediately. For infidelity and treachery of the highest order.”