Divorcing My Alpha Husband For His Uncle

His Wh$re

I snatched my wrist back quickly, wrapping my fingers around it.

My whole body reacted, I pulled away and took a step back, putting a distance between us like muscle memory. My heart was going so fast I could feel it in my ears.

I opened my mouth, ready to ask him what exactly he thought he was doing, grabbing me like that, but he beat me to it.

"Listen to me." His voice dropped dangerously low, the kind that made you pay attention whether you wanted to or not. He took one step toward me, and I planted my feet to the ground this time, refusing to move back even though every single part of me wanted to.

His eyes stayed fixed on mine, dark and completely still. "Whatever I do or don't do," he continued, "no one disrespects you. Not in this pack. Not anywhere near me."

He let that sit between us for a second, then added, "No one."

I didn't say anything. I genuinely couldn't find a single word to respond with, and standing there with my mouth slightly open wasn't doing anything for my dignity, so I closed it.

That declaration had absolutely no business hitting me the way it did. We had a contract. A piece of paper. That was what all this was, and men said things, especially powerful men, they said things that sounded like promises and meant absolutely nothing the morning after.

I knew that better than anyone. So I straightened my spine, tightened my robe around me, and told myself to stop reading into it.

I was still doing that, still actively talking myself down from feeling something, when we both heard it.

The clicking of heels against stone.

We turned at the same time, and a very beautiful woman came around the corner, still wrapped in his bedsheet, her hair was a mess, her lips swollen, looking exactly like what she was.

She spotted me first, and her eyes did that quick, sharp thing women's eyes do when they've assessed a situation and already decided where they stand in it.

She was sizing me up, a distasteful look in her eyes, but her small smile was plastered on her lips.

Then she looked at Alaric, and it was like watching someone put on a completely different face.

Her whole expression softened, her shoulders dropped, and she moved toward him like I wasn't standing two feet away watching her do all of it in real time. Her fingers trailed up his bare arm slowly, and I watched her lean into him just slightly.

"Why are you out here?" She said too sweetly, nothing like the sounds I'd heard coming from his room earlier, which my brain helpfully reminded me of right at that moment. I pushed that thought away so fast it nearly gave me a headache.

"Come back to bed." She drawled, her eyes sliding to me, just briefly. "Don't let this little interruption ruin our night."

Oh.

The response that shot up my throat was immediate and loaded, and she absolutely deserved every word of it.

But before I'd think of offloading them, I stopped.

I looked at her, really looked at her, standing there half naked and dripping in a confidence that came from knowing she'd just had exactly what she wanted, and I thought about it.

About what it would cost me to say what I wanted to say. About how satisfying it would feel for approximately four seconds, and then what?

She wasn't worth it.

She genuinely, truly wasn't worth a single syllable, and I had too much left of myself to spend it here.

So I shut my mouth, lifted my chin, turned around, and walked away instead.

"Sera."

Alaric's voice came from behind me, and I heard footsteps somewhere to my left.

Then, quieter, directed at me specifically, "Get her whatever she needs tonight."

I paused midstep. What is this? Am I some sort of charity case? Get her what she needs tonight?

I scoffed and slowly turned back just enough to look at him over my shoulder, and I made sure my face said everything before my mouth did. "I don't need anything." My tone was flat and final. "I can handle myself. I'm not a baby."

I held his gaze for exactly one second longer than was comfortable, then turned back around and kept walking.

The corridor was quiet around me as I moved, just the sound of my own feet and the distant noise of the estate settling into nighttime.

My head was loud, though. Way too loud. I was replaying tonight's event without meaning to. His voice when he said no one. The way his eyes hadn't moved from mine the whole time he said it. The fact that he'd followed me out here at all, shirtless, straight from whatever that was, just to say that to me.

What did that mean?

I was almost at the end of the corridor when the woman's voice rang out behind me, loud and completely unbothered.

"Is she one of your new whores?" she called out, deliberately. "Why is she acting so innocent?”