Alpha Raphael’s Second Chance Mate

Chapter 15

NORA

I was getting ready for pack training when Isolde walked into my room without knocking.

She looked at me the way she had been looking at me since she arrived. Like I was something unpleasant she kept finding in places she did not expect.

I greeted her. She ignored it completely.

"Go help in the kitchen. You'll be serving the pack after training," she said, her eyes moving around my room like she was inspecting it.

"Ma'am, I was supposed to be at pack training," I said, keeping my eyes on her.

She laughed. Short and sharp.

"You think you belong here? In my pack?" She rolled her eyes. "You're a stranger under this roof. That makes you a slave. Go join the maids."

I pressed my foot into the floor slowly.

"I was never a slave, ma'am. If you want me gone, I will go. But I won't be treated as one."

"Any stranger living under this pack is a slave. You are here. That is what you are." She turned toward the door. "My son's captive. Nothing more."

"With due respect, ma'am." She paused at the door. "I wasn't planning to stay. I have a pup to find and a life to get back to. I'll leave tonight if that works for you. No trouble, no problems."

I walked past her before she could respond and left her standing in my room.

I wouldn't want another bully to take on me, like Kael and Lena.

It's high time , I start fighting for myself and right now, that's what I would do regardless of whom I am going against.

**

Serena was in the corridor near the kitchen entrance, moving fast. She saw me and her face lit up immediately.

"You are here! You look better today," she said, falling into step beside me.

"You look well too," I told her. She did. Better than she had the night I gave her my

sweater in the cold.

We walked into the kitchen together and she stayed close.

"Are you leaving?" she asked. "I heard you say tonight."

"I have things I need to sort out, Serena. My pup. I can't keep putting it off."

"But you're, the Luna , here. Why would you go?"

"A Luna nobody wants isn't really a Luna," I said lowly, making sure the other maids nearby couldn't hear me. "I don't belong here. Not completely."

Serena hugged me suddenly. Tight. Then pulled back fast, her eyes dropping to the floor, her whole body going stiff. The change was instant. Head down. Eyes fixed somewhere past me. Shoulders pulled in.

"Serena. What's wrong?" I reached for her.

She moved back. Wouldn't look at me.

"Why are you here?"

The voice came from behind me.

Cold. Deep.

That particular tone that made every person in the room smaller without him trying.

Alpha Raphael.

I turned slowly.

His eyes were on me. Not soft. Not warm.

He gave me the kind of look that said he was reading everything and had already formed an opinion he wasn't sharing.

"Working," I said. "Shouldn't the alpha be at the training center,with his people? Or are Alpha's now allowed into the kitchen, to invade privacy and instill fears in their captives or maids?”

The whole kitchen went quiet at my question.

Everyone's eyes cut away fast. Back to their work. Heads down. The energy in the room dropped several levels at once.

Serena gave me a small careful smile. The kind that said please be careful with this man.

"Back to your post," Alpha Raphael said to her.

His voice was calm and final.

She bowed and disappeared into the activity of the kitchen without another word.

"You're coming with me. Now." He looked at me.

"You don't have to do this here, Alpha Raphael," I said.

"How dare you ignore my order." His voice dropped lower. The alpha aura came with it. Everyone around me made small sounds of discomfort, their eyes reddening under the pressure of it.

Funny.

It still didn't work on me. I didn't know why. I wasn't complaining.

"You don't need to use that on the people in this kitchen," I said. "They didn't do anything."

His hand closed around my arm before I finished the sentence.

He pulled me along and I had to move fast to keep up with his pace, my breath going unsteady, my legs working hard.

"Alpha Raphael, let go," I said.

He stopped. Ran a hand through his hair and exhaled once.

"Don't ignore my orders. Don't raise your voice at me. Not in this pack. Not while you're here," he said, his alpha tone sitting underneath every word.

"You're not my alpha," I said back. My voice came out louder than I planned. "I don't belong to your pack."

He stared at me.

"How are you doing that," he said. More to himself than to me. "My alpha tone has no effect on you. And you're pushing back with your own alpha aura. How?"

I scoffed. Me. Alpha aura. That was genuinely funny.

"I need you at the training center. Not in the kitchen doing chores. You don't belong there." He looked at me directly. "You're my—"

"Stop." I cut across him. "I know what you're about to say. And I also know Iris is your chosen mate and you are getting married and your mother made that very clear. So don't finish that sentence. I'll decide what I do until I leave."

He went quiet. His eyes stayed on mine.

"The lunar meeting is in two weeks," he said.

"Iris can go. She's your chosen mate, isn't she?" I said. "And while we're talking. Kael is the Alpha of the Greenwood pack. He was my chosen mate. My husband. When he comes looking for me, I'll go with him."I stated, obviously that would be the right thing to do.

I would never let him have my child.

Raphael's jaw tightened.

"You should be angry. He's your sworn enemy and I was his wife," I said. "Doesn't that bother you?"

His eyes were unreadable.

"Your pup," he said. "You were carrying Kael's child when all of this happened. He took the baby just to keep it from you. That's what this is."

My hands started to shake.

"We don't have to do this right now," he said, his voice dropping slightly. "When you're ready to talk about it, we will."

"Rapheal! Luna! You're both late!" Wren's voice came loud and bright from somewhere behind us.

We both looked down at the same time.

Our hands were connected. Somewhere in the argument we had ended up holding hands without either of us deciding to and neither of us had noticed until now.

"Is she the Luna?" A voice in the crowd asked.

"She's beautiful. But what about Iris? Is he mated to two she-wolves?"

Wren's face changed. She looked around and clearly regretted saying anything.

Isolde appeared. Her eyes found me instantly. She walked straight toward me and before I could say a word her hand connected with my face.

The crowd went silent.

My cheek burned.

"How dare you walk around with your alpha holding his hand. You are a slave. You are replacing his actual mate by standing here like you belong next to him," she said, her voice shaking with anger.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I didn't mean to but—"

"But you did. You walked through this pack under his influence holding his hand," Iris's voice came through, tight and shaking, her eyes cutting into me.

I looked at Alpha Raphael.

He was looking at me. Pain in his eyes. Pity maybe. But he was still standing there squeezing my hand without letting go and doing nothing else. Just watching his mother humiliate me in front of the whole pack.

Wren was staring at us. Caden had gone still.

"Raphael and Iris are getting married this week," Isolde announced to the crowd.

"Their fathers and I have agreed. It will happen soon."

The crowd murmured.

Iris smiled.

My chest went tight and I pulled my hand free from Alpha Raphael's and turned away before anyone could see my face properly.

"Congratulations," I said quietly toward Iris. "I mean it."

And I walked away fast before my voice gave me out.

Raphael called after me.

Wren called after me.

I kept walking.

He had a chosen mate.

A marriage date.

A mother who had already decided everything. And I was standing in a pack that was not mine holding the hand of a man who would watch me get slapped in public and not do a single thing about it.

I have been here before.

Different pack. Different people. Same ending.

I hated that I had let myself forget that even for a second.