Pregnant and Rejected by My Alpha Mate

POV: Selene Cross "Something is wrong." I whispered it to myself as I walked down the corridor leading to Ryker's private wing. No one heard me. That was the problem. No one was around to hear anything. The pack house was never this quiet on a Friday night. There should have been laughter spilling from the common room, the smell of food, the low rumble of male voices arguing over something stupid. There should have been guards posted at the east entrance and another pair flanking Ryker's hallway. That was protocol. That was always how it was. Tonight, there was nothing. My wolf shifted inside me, restless and low, the way she moved when danger was close but unnamed. I pressed a hand against my stomach without thinking, then pulled it away quickly. I had not told anyone yet. I barely let myself think about it. Focus, I told myself. Ryker called you here. He said it was important. Important. The word had felt warm when his beta delivered the message three hours ago. I had actually smiled. Ryker was not a man who called things important unless they meant something. After eight months of tension between us, after the cold silences and the careful distance he had been putting between himself and me, I had let myself hope. I was foolish for that. The door to his wing was slightly open. A thin line of warm light fell across the stone floor. I slowed my steps, my ears sharpening the way they always did when my wolf pushed forward. Then I heard it. Soft laughter. A woman's voice, low and comfortable, like someone who knew exactly where she belonged. My chest tightened so fast it felt like someone had pressed two fists against my ribs from the inside. I stood still for one breath. Two. I told myself it could be nothing. A cousin. A guest. An omega who had wandered into the wrong hallway. But my nose knew before my mind did. Wolf, Female And something else wrapped underneath it, something deep and biological and unmistakable. Ryker's blood. I pushed the door open. The woman on the bed looked up first. She was lying propped against the headboard, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, a sheet draped over her swollen belly. She was beautiful in the way that made you feel stupid for noticing. Her eyes found mine and she did not flinch. She did not look afraid or embarrassed. She looked settled. Like she had been there a long time. The room tilted. I gripped the doorframe with one hand and the wood creaked under my fingers. "Selene." Ryker's voice came from the left. He stepped out of the bathroom, hair damp, no shirt, a towel folded over one arm like he had just finished a normal evening routine. He looked at me the same way he looked at pack reports. Measured. Unmoved. No guilt. Not even the small, human courtesy of looking away. "You came," he said. "What is this?" My voice came out quieter than I wanted it to. He set the towel down on the dresser and turned to face me properly. "Exactly what it looks like." "Ryker." I heard how broken my own voice sounded and I hated it. "Who is she?" "Her name is Calla." He said it simply. "She's been with the southern pack for three years. We have an arrangement." "An arrangement." "The pack needed an heir, Selene. You were taking too long." He clasped his hands in front of him, patient, like he was explaining a business decision. "This was necessary." Necessary. That word hit me somewhere I had not known was soft. I had given him two years. Two years of standing at his side at every council meeting, defending his decisions to wolves who whispered that I was too young, too quiet, not fierce enough to lead beside an alpha like Ryker Cross. Two years of building something I thought was real, even when he pulled away, even when the warmth between us thinned into something barely there. I had stayed. I had waited. I had told myself that men like Ryker did not know how to show love easily, that it would come. Necessary. "You could have told me," I said. "I am telling you now." "That is not the same thing." Something flickered across his face. Not guilt. No regret. Something closer to irritation, like I was making this harder than it needed to be. "Selene, this is pack law. An alpha must produce an heir. I gave you time." "You gave me silence," I said. "There is a difference." From the bed, Calla shifted. I had almost forgotten she was there, which was probably what she wanted. She placed both hands over her stomach, slow and deliberate, her fingers spreading wide. Protective. Possessive. The gesture of a woman who had already won and wanted to make sure I understood the score. She smiled at me. Not cruelly. Almost gently. That was worse somehow. My wolf let out a sound inside me, low and fractured, not a growl but something rawer than that. A cry. Because the bond between Ryker and me was still there, still threaded through my chest like a wire that had not been cut, only bent. And bent wire still hurts. I opened my mouth to say something. I do not know what. Something with dignity in it, something that would let me walk out of that room without breaking in front of them. Then I felt it. Small, Undeniable, A soft flutter just below my ribs, the kind of movement that is so gentle it could almost be ignored. Almost. My hand moved to my stomach before I could stop it. I caught myself and dropped my arm fast, but not before my whole body had understood what it meant. I was pregnant. I had known for six days. I had not told a single soul. I had been waiting for the right moment, imagining Ryker's face when he heard, telling myself it might be the thing that finally broke through whatever wall he had built around himself. Now I stood in his doorway, looking at another woman carrying his child, and the flutter beneath my ribs felt like the loneliest thing I had ever felt. He was watching me. He had not noticed where my hand went. He was already moving toward the door, ready to close this conversation the same way he closed everything, efficiently, without remainder. "You should go," he said. "We can discuss your role in the pack tomorrow." My role. I backed away one step. Then another. The hallway swallowed me and the light from his room shrank behind me as I walked, then faster, until I was moving through the quiet pack house with my hand pressed flat against my stomach and one thought pulling tight around everything else. I'm carrying his child. And he chose someone else..