Divorcing My Alpha Husband For His Uncle

A Contract Deal

~Althea

He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a folded document, placing it flat on the table between us without a word.

I frowned, staring at it like it had teeth and could bite me at any second, then looked back up at him, arching a questioning brow.

"A contract," he said. "Read it."

Despite his order, I didn't move. My hands stayed on my lap.

A contract?

This man, whom I had known for less than a full day, who I had woken up in front of with no memory of how I got here, was sliding a contract across a table at me like we were old business partners.

My heart kicked against my ribs. I didn't know whether to laugh or dash towards the door, but I think the latter is out of the window now, given my predicament.

Without a choice, I picked it up, his intense eyes following every one of my movements. The paper was thick. I gently opened it, and one word screamed at me painfully, and my breathing immediately became shallow.

Marriage.

A political marriage in name, precisely. My fingers crushed the edge of the file unknowingly as I continued reading in silence.

He promised he'd give me protection, legal standing, and the leverage I needed to get free of Nolan, finally.

In return, I'd serve as Luna of Darkmoor, help settle whatever internal tensions were eating at his pack, and stand beside him in political spaces when needed.

I read every line twice, swallowing hard. I knew this was going to be bad.

My face stayed still the whole time, but inside I was anything but still.

Marriage. Even said out loud, or on paper, the word made my stomach clench and turn. There's no way I was going back to it.

I had just escaped one, the ink on my humiliation wasn't even dry yet, and here I was, being handed another one to sign.

My fingers trembled slightly as I set the paper down on the table.

Think, I told myself, pulling my emotions together. Don't feel, Althea. Think.

But thinking was hard when I could feel him watching me from across the table, calm and unreadable, while I was two seconds away from either agreeing to something insane or bolting through a door my foot wouldn't survive.

I picked a glass cup, trying to look normal and not intimidated by his mere presence.

Nolan's name crossed my mind again, and an involuntary shudder ran through my body.

No, I can't go back.

He and Vespera would kill me as they did to my unborn child if I do.

But I have nowhere to go, unless this place, and so far—I looked around carefully— there hasn't been an issue or I haven't been kicked out yet.

Althea… I thought, squirming in my seat. I peeked at him from under my lashes. He was leaning on his chair and still staring.

Gods.

Go rogue or agree to this madness?

I battled with my thoughts until I finally gave up. My shoulders slumped a little before I picked them back up, unwilling to show any weakness. I cleared my throat.

"Who controls what?" I asked, grateful my voice didn't betray me and let me die of embarrassment. "If I'm Luna, where does my say actually begin?"

A surprised look crossed his face quickly, and he sat up straight. It was barely there; I even thought I had imagined it.

Wait.. was he expecting me to cry, or shake, or shove the paper back at him?

I scoffed internally. Good. Let him be surprised.

"Internal affairs are yours," he replied, recovering smoothly. "Pack disputes, welfare, domestic matters. Military and political decisions stay with me."

"And my freedom?" I pressed, crossing my arms and gaining a little confidence. "Can I move around freely, speak to whom I want, send correspondence without it being checked?"

He hesitated for a while, a confused look crossing his features, "Yes." His eyes didn't leave mine. "You're not a prisoner in this house."

The word prisoner scraped against something raw inside me, and I almost fumbled, but I kept my chin leveled. "And when Nolan comes?" I asked the most important question. "Because he will."

"I know he will," he said deliberately, running his tongue over his bottom lip. That simple action stole my attention for a bit before my eyes snapped back to his eyes.

I swallowed, "So what happens then?"

"I handle it."

That's all? Just three words, thrown at me so casually, like Nolan was a minor inconvenience and not the Alpha who had kept me locked in my own room for days, who had stolen years from me without flinching.

Who f*****g stole my womb!

I clenched my fist on my lap, searching his face for arrogance, for anything that screams fake, but there was none of that. He meant them.

The room was quiet, but it didn't feel empty. It felt full of something neither of us was saying. I was aware of the way he was leaning forward slightly, elbows resting on the table, his dark eyes steady on me.

I was aware of the distance between us, close enough that if either of us moved our knees, they'd touch.

I looked down at the contract again.

It made sense. Logically, it made every kind of sense. Protection, freedom, a legal path out of the worst five years of my life, all wrapped up in clean ink on thick paper.

But logic had never saved me before.

My chest tightened as panic quietly crept in around me.

I didn't know this man. I knew stories about him, rumors, whispers shared between pack members in low voices. Alaric Darkmoor, the Alpha whom other Alphas feared. The man women threw themselves at, and men stepped aside for, but secretly hated.

That was all I had.

And now I was sitting across from him, seriously considering signing my name next to his.

What if this is worse? The thought surfaced before I could stop it, pressing into the back of my mind.

What if you jump out of one cage and straight into another?

What if Nolan was cruel with his words, and this one is cruel in ways you haven't even imagined yet? They're family after all.

My fingers brushed the edge of the document, then I pulled my hand back.

"You're his uncle," I said quietly, and the air changed. It suddenly got a little tense.

I looked up at him. Alaric's expression didn't change exactly, but something behind his eyes did.

It wasn't as intense as it was before; it looked dim.

"Why would you protect me from him?" I continued, holding his gaze even though everything in me wanted to look away. "What do I actually mean to you? I'm basically a stranger."

He was quiet for a moment, his jaw clenching and unclenching. "My relationship with Nolan's pack died years ago," he said finally in a deep, cold voice. "His father made sure of that."

He paused briefly before continuing. "I don't owe them anything."

I waited for more details, but I guess he was done; he looked away from me for the first time, the tension in the air thickened, and I understood clearly I wasn't getting anything else on that topic.

But it was enough. Not because I fully trusted him. I didn't. I'd trusted someone completely once, and look where that landed me. Trust had cost me everything.

But something in the way he said it, the flatness of it, the way he closed off immediately, that told me the wound was real, old, but real. And that had nothing to do with me.

I studied him for a long moment without blinking. My chest did something strange and small that I chose to ignore entirely.

"I'll think about it," I said finally. His eyes found mine again immediately, and the corner of his lips twitched, not entirely a full smile. Something between a smirk.

"You have until morning." His deep voice filled the room again.

Of course I did, I resisted rolling my eyes, instead I nodded once and dropped my gaze back to the contract sitting on the table between us.

I heard him rise, the quiet scrape of the chair, the soft fall of his footsteps crossing the room. The door opened and closed behind him, and he was gone, taking whatever that charged, breathless thing in the air was with him.

I exhaled so slowly it hurt. That night, I lay on the unfamiliar bed staring at the ceiling, the contract now sitting on the nightstand beside me like it had a pulse.

I should have been thinking clearly now that he wasn't here. Running through the terms, the risks, every way this could unravel.

Instead, I felt it.

Something low in my chest. Faint and warm, like an ember that had no business being there. It didn't make sense.

I don't know this man, don't even trust him, and I was barely surviving the wreckage of the last person I had trusted with my whole heart.

But yet, it was there.

Quiet and persistent, pulling like a compass needle that had found something to point toward and didn't know how to stop.

I pressed my fist against my sternum and squeezed my eyes shut.

What is that?

I didn't have an answer.

So I lay there in the dark, fist pressed to my chest, and waited for morning to come.