He Swore He'd Reject Me, Then Fate Made Me His.

Chapter 2

NORA

When the paramedics reached me, my gown was soaked through with wine and blood.

"Stay still, ma'am. Don't try to shift your weight," a young medic ordered, wrapping a rigid brace around my leg. "We've got bruised ribs and an ankle sprain. On three, lift!"

The jolt of being hoisted onto a stretcher forced a gasp from my throat, but I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

As they wheeled me through the grand foyer and out the doors, the freezing night air hit my face.

The courtyard had become a triage zone. Blue and red ambulance lights sliced through the mist, lighting the frantic faces of the pack's elite as they huddled under heated tents. I turned my head on the stiff pillow. I didn't have to look hard to find him. I just had to follow the shouting.

"I don't care about the protocol! Look at her arm, she's bleeding! Treat her right now!"

Julian's voice tore through the air with an aggression I had never heard him use. My stretcher was rolled into the secondary triage lane and parked less than twenty feet from where my husband stood.

He had cornered a pack healer. Behind him, on the tailgate of an ambulance with a blanket over her shoulders, sat Shanna. She was holding her forearm, her face pale, tears spilling down her cheeks.

"Mr. Vance, please lower your voice," the healer said, gesturing to the triage tents. "The cut on her arm is superficial. She is a shifted wolf. That scratch will close on its own in less than ten minutes. I have elders with crushed sternums and omegas with compound fractures who need immediate—"

"Do you know who I am?" Julian roared, stepping into the healer's space. He pointed at Shanna. "Her wolf is fragile! She is in shock! If you don't attend to her right this second, I will have your license revoked by the Alpha Council before dawn!"

Lying on my stretcher, I stared at the man I had called my husband for five years.

He was threatening to destroy a man's career over a scratch. He hadn't checked his phone, hadn't asked a single guard to sweep the hall for the wife he had left behind in the stampede.

"Julian..." Shanna whimpered, reaching out with her uninjured hand. "Don't fight with them. I'm just so scared..."

Julian abandoned the healer at once and dropped to his knees. He took Shanna's hands in his and pressed kisses to her knuckles. "I know, baby. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

"Daddy!"

The shriek of a child cut through the sirens.

My heart stalled.

A pack guard was walking out of the main building, carrying a little girl wrapped in a large coat.

It was Lily.

My four-year-old goddaughter.

Shanna’s child.

The child I had loved, spoiled, and rocked to sleep in my own home countless times.

The child whose first words were my very own name.

When her eyes found Julian, she didn't call for her mother.

She twisted out of the guard's arms, her small feet hitting the pavement, and ran full speed toward my husband. "Daddy! Daddy!"

Julian didn't flinch. He didn't look around to see who might have heard.

He opened his arms and caught her as she threw herself at his chest. He buried his face in Lily's neck, his shoulders shaking with relief as he held her tight.

Shanna slid off the edge of the ambulance, wrapped her arms around both of them from behind, and rested her chin on Julian's shoulder.

They clung to each other.

A father, a mother, and their child.

On my stretcher twenty feet away, the world stopped turning. The sirens faded to an underwater hum. The fire in my ankle dissolved into numbness.

The pain in my heart was brutal, lethal and fatal.

Daddy.

The pieces slammed together.

Four years.

Lily was four years old.

Shanna had gotten pregnant exactly one month into my marriage with Julian. I remembered holding her as she cried, listening to her lie about a one-night stand with a rogue mate who had rejected her. I had believed her. I had taken her in.

It wasn't an affair. An affair was a secret meet up in a hotel room. An affair was a drunken mistake in the dark.

This was a five-year relationship between them.

They had built a life, a family, right in front of my face.

Julian hadn't just cheated on me. He had planted his mistress in my home, allowed me to raise his illegitimate child, and watched me break myself in half trying to give him an heir he already had.

They must have been laughing at me. Every anniversary. Every holiday. Every tear I shed.

My heart turned to ice. The desperate girl who had been crying for her husband ten minutes ago was gone. In her place, something ruthless and calm opened its eyes.

I didn't want to scream, or drag myself off the stretcher and claw at Shanna or Julian’s face. They weren't worth it.

I am going to divorce him.

The decision dropped into my mind like a guillotine blade.

And then I am going to erase him from my life.

"Ma'am?"

A different medic stepped into my line of sight, blocking my view of Julian's secret family. He held a glowing digital clipboard.

"We need to transport you to the central clinic for work on that ankle," he said gently. "Because you are unshifted, the anesthesia protocol requires a familial override. Where is your Alpha representative? Or your husband? I need a signature before we can load you into the ambulance."

I looked past his shoulder.

Julian was standing now, lifting Lily into his arms. He kissed the little girl's cheek, then leaned over and pressed a lingering kiss to Shanna's temple, whispering something that made her smile.

I turned back to the medic. There was no warmth, grief, or pain left in my voice.

"I have no family," I said.

The medic blinked. "But ma'am, the pack registry—"

"I said— I have no family." I raised my blood-stained right hand and reached for the digital pen clipped to his board. "I’ll sign for myself."