Discarded by My Mate, Claimed by My Adoptive Brother

2

KATHERINE

No.

That was the one thought that kept running through my mind.

No.

I wouldn’t die right now, and I wouldn’t die this way, taken under by waves and abandoned by the one who should’ve cherished me the most.

I had not survived the m******e of my birth pack just to die like this.

I’ve got you, a gentle, familiar voice said from within me. My wolf.

A moment later, an unknown strength filled my body and my limbs, and I started fighting against the waves and the currents, trying to swim toward the yacht.

There!

I managed to get a grip on a rope and held on tight, despite the boat’s harsh swaying and the strength of the waves crashing over me. From that rope, I managed to climb over the railing and, finally, onto the deck.

“Kat! Oh, Goddess, Kat! Are you alright?”

Strong, solid hands closed around my shoulders, shaking me.

“Kat!”

Lucian. It was Lucian.

“I… I’m okay,” I managed to stutter as he dropped a blanket over my shoulders.

“I’m so sorry. I was about to come get you, but… Diana can’t swim, and…”

But I was barely listening to him. His excuses had no meaning right now. Not while we were right in the middle of a storm at sea!

My instincts kicked in, and I slowly got back on my feet, scanning the deck. I was there, Diana was there, slowly regaining consciousness, Lucian was there…

My heart stopped.

“Wh-where’s Nathan?”

Diana’s question made an icy silence fall over the deck.

Lucian’s breath faltered. “He… he was with me, he…”

He rushed to the railing, scanning the raging waves.

“He was right behind me!”

But the sea was unfathomable, a raging, dark mass threatening our very lives every moment we spent in its deadly embrace.

And then it happened.

A piercing, blood-curdling scream erupted from Diana’s chest as she doubled over, clutching her heart.

My heart sank, and Lucian fell to his knees.

There was only one thing that could make a werewolf scream like that.

A mating bond is dying.

_____

“Brothers and sisters, it is with heavy hearts that we lay to rest our beloved packmate and Alpha, Nathan Lewis Farrow,” the Elder recited, standing in front of Nathan’s grave as Lucian, his Beta, and his Gamma slowly lowered an empty coffin into the ground. The sea had never returned his body.

“Alpha Nathan was a good and just leader,” he went on. “He will forever be remembered as one of the greatest Alphas our pack had the privilege to have. I ask you all to pray with me, so that he may be guided by our faith and our prayers into the Moon Goddess’s loving embrace.”

Along with the rest of the pack, I began muttering the prayers—words every werewolf had known since they were pups. This was not the first funeral I had witnessed, but it was surely one of the most heartfelt and painful I’d ever had to go through. It was one of the few times I muttered that prayer with full faith and hope in my heart. Nobody deserved to be at peace more than Nathan.

He’d been so good to me. So kind, even when the rest of his pack or his family wasn’t. He’d been there for me as a brother and as an Alpha whenever no one else was.

He would be greatly missed.

And not just by me, I thought, my heart heavy with grief as I watched Diana lead Mateo, her and Nathan’s son, toward his father’s coffin, a handful of dirt in his little, chubby hand.

The service ended shortly after, and after a few moments of lingering, most of the pack started to leave. In about twenty minutes, it was just Diana, Mateo, Nathan and Lucian’s parents, Lucian, and I standing over the grave.

“It’s all your fault.”

Our heads snapped toward Layla—Lucian’s mother. She was pale as death, her eyes wet and rimmed with red as she pointed a finger at Diana.

“Mommy?” Mateo asked, his voice faint.

“Layla…”

“No, Harold,” she insisted, shaking off her husband’s arm. “It is all your fault. You organized this godforsaken trip. Nathan didn’t even like swimming, but you insisted! And Nathan… my poor baby…”

And then she erupted into sobs. Awful, heart-wrenching sobs that could only come from a heartbroken mother.

“Mom, stop it.”

My blood froze.

“It’s not Diana’s fault, it’s mine,” Lucian declared. My heart physically cracked when he moved to stand right between his mother and Diana, shielding her and Mateo with his body. “I insisted on going diving even after Nathan noticed the weather was changing. Diana wanted to go back to the shore. If you need someone to blame, look no further. I’m here.”

My breath caught between my ribs.

He was lying—smoothly, easily so.

Protecting Diana’s reputation with his own. Always, always protecting her.

Never me.

Layla’s eyes narrowed into two thin slits, and she shook her head. She might as well have spat in Diana’s face, because the look she shot her was just as venomous.

And Lucian… Lucian stepped closer to her. Diana was quick to hide behind his broad, imposing frame, and Mateo quickly imitated her.

And I knew... I knew I shouldn’t have been jealous of a grieving widow and an orphaned child, but I was. I really was, because the three of them looked like a family. Lucian looked like a father protecting his own.

And I—his mate, his wife, his now-Luna—was just there on the sidelines.

Once again, forgotten.

This is too much even for you, I reprimanded myself. This is not about you. Lucian lost his twin. Mateo and Diana lost their father and husband. Have some composure.

“Let’s just go to the wake, darling,” Harold said, wrapping an arm around her thin, shaking shoulders. “Come on. Not in front of our grandson.”

It took a little more convincing, but in the end, Layla yielded, and slowly, we joined the rest of the pack in the packhouse for the wake.

I only managed to get back home late at night. It turns out that handling a funeral and a wake is a lot of work, especially for someone who had just been thrown into this whole "Luna gig" like I had. For the entirety of the afternoon, I’d rushed around the living room and the packhouse, making sure we had enough finger foods, enough drinks, enough of everything for everyone, all while trying my best to support Nathan’s grieving family.

And after all of that, I’d just been… dismissed.

“You should go home, sweetheart,” Lucian had said, gently but firmly. “You’re tired, and I still have things to take care of here. Diana needs help with some documents. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

I’d done my best to smile for the guests and nod, because that was the proper thing to do. In my stomach, though, humiliation burned hotter than fire. There he was, dismissing me in favor of Diana, to help her with a task that could have easily, reasonably been left until the following day.

I’m your Luna, I’d tried to beg him through the mind link. People will expect me to be at your side. Lucian, please… I’m sure they’ll understand.

It was your first real day as Luna, and you had to handle a funeral, he’d said. You don’t need to be an overachiever. But I have to look involved.

What hurt most about his behavior was that he wasn’t mean about it. He was casual, laid-back, and sincere. He was always honest. He never looked for excuses or easy ways out.

Casual cruelty was an awful thing to live with every day.

I dragged myself out of the car and into our small cottage, kicking my heels off at the entrance and making my way toward the kitchen. Then, with a glass half-full of red wine, I started wandering around the house, my mind both empty and full at the same time.

The problem was that wine had always gone to my head quickly, and this time was no different.

I was about halfway through the main corridor when a familiar door caught my attention. A door I had rarely crossed because I always felt out of place in the room it hid.

Lucian’s office.

The place where he spent most of his day, whenever he wasn’t out at Diana’s every beck and call.

I had no idea what pushed me to go in that night, maybe bravado, or maybe anger.

That man had married me. Nobody had forced him to do so. He didn’t have a gun pointed at his head while he promised to love and cherish me forever. I was so damn tired of feeling out of place in my own house, in my own marriage, and second-best to my own sister-in-law.

Especially now that I was the Luna—a title I’d never wanted but that had suddenly been bestowed upon me.

I stepped aggressively into the office, looking around. Tall bookshelves, an imposing desk in front of a brown leather armchair, and a big window overlooking the forest.

I sat in the armchair, breathing in my mate’s scent, hating how good it smelled and how good it made me feel—as if I were home.

That feeling vanished quickly when I noticed a heavy, leather-bound album barely hidden under his desk.

I opened it.

And it was like taking a punch to the stomach.

“Kat, you shouldn’t marry him,” Xander had begged me, his hand tight around my wrist.

I growled, shaking him off. “He’s my mate, how dare you?!”

“He’s not ready for this kind of commitment. He’s an i***t, Kat, trust me. I know him. We’re friends.”

“If it’s like you say, then how do you explain this?” I insisted, waving the diamond ring that sat on my hand. “He’s the one who asked me to marry him!”

“Kat, he’s in love with someone else!”

Two years—for two long years, I had ignored my brother’s warning, continuing to hope in a fantasy I had built myself: that one day, Lucian would turn the page, that he would finally see me, that he would choose me.

I flipped through the album with convulsive movements, my heart beating like a drum in my chest, and the more I flipped, the deeper the knife sank into my breast.

Diana laughing. Diana and Lucian are having a picnic. The two of them on the yacht—the same one Nathan had fallen from, never to return. Lucian is holding Mateo.

I remembered all the times Lucian had shown concern for Diana. A scratch, a cold, a sad day... he was always there. I had always thought it was because of Nathan, a sense of protection toward his brother’s wife, toward his Luna.

I would have never, ever imagined that the mystery woman, his great forbidden love, was her.