Alpha Regret After Cheating With the Poor Omega I Sponsored

The healer handed me the report and tapped the result with one finger. Pregnant. After eight years of sustaining Caleb and the pack in secret, I could finally picture a family of our own. I folded the report once, then opened it again just to read the word. For years, I had measured my days in tonic doses and the power Caleb needed from me. The report gave me something that belonged to us rather than to his rank or the pack's defenses. I held it against my chest on the walk home. The paper was warm by the time I reached his door. I hurried to his study with the paper pressed to my chest. By the time I pushed open the oak door, I already had the words ready. "We're having a baby." I never got to say them. Mia's cheap, sweet perfume hung in the room. I had paid for the orphaned Omega's food, lessons, and medicine. Now her scent clung to Caleb's curtains, his rug, and his shirt. I had brought Mia into our care when she had nowhere else to go. That scent turned every gift I'd given her into something sour. He looked up from his desk, annoyed by the interruption. His gaze went straight to the untouched vial of tonic at his elbow. "I was coming to find you. You forgot my dose this morning." The tonics stabilized the power I gave him. He treated them like breakfast, something that appeared because I always made sure it did. Then I saw his neck. A fresh red bite sat where my mate mark should have been. It was shallow, an Omega's cling rather than a true claim, but I knew whose teeth had made it. Mia. My fingers tightened on the report. "You smell like her. You let her mark you." The healing current beneath my skin had always answered Caleb's presence. This time it recoiled, leaving my hand cold around the paper. Caleb glanced away, then rubbed a hand over his hair. "It was nothing, Elara. She had a nightmare and a panic attack. She's fragile. I was comforting her." In his study. Against the desk where we'd planned our future. "And the bite?" "It's how Omegas show gratitude. It'll fade." He waved the question aside and came around the desk. He stopped in front of me. "You're going to be Luna. Show some tolerance. Calming a distressed pack member is part of an Alpha's duty." He had turned his betrayal into a duty and my hurt into bad behavior. I creased the corner of the report between my thumb and forefinger. Caleb watched me as if he expected jealousy, tears, and then surrender. The words I'd carried to his study stayed behind my teeth. I couldn't hand him the report while Mia's mark still shone on his neck. "You're right," I said. "You have your duties." I left the study and crossed to the guest suite at the far end of the hall. Once inside, I shut the door and slid the bolt into place. His steps stopped outside a moment later. "Elara, stop acting like a child. Jealousy doesn't suit you. Get yourself together and report to the infirmary in the morning. We have work to do." He didn't knock. After giving the order, he walked away, certain I would bring his tonic in the morning and let the matter drop. I stayed awake all night. By morning, the report was still in my hand, its corner crushed beyond repair. A soft knock came at the door. I expected a servant and opened it. Mia stood in the hall. She wore one of my old silk nightgowns, a gift from the first week she'd arrived cold and alone. Her eyes were swollen and wet. Her hands didn't shake. They were wrapped around the Moonstone Crown. Generations of Lunas had guarded that crown. Only the sworn Luna of Moonshadow was allowed to wear it. Its pale light looked weak between Mia's fingers. The stones gave off a thin, uneven pulse. I could feel the ancestral power resisting her touch, but Mia held on as if the crown were another dress she'd been allowed to borrow. "I'm sorry to bother you," she said. "Caleb was worried about my nerves. He thought the crown's energy might help calm me."