Too Late, Alpha. Your Mate Is Gone.

Samuel's POV: After my Alpha wife became pregnant with her lover's child, I stopped doing everything she found annoying. I stopped reaching out through our mind-link. I stopped arguing when she spent the entire night with Simon Kessler. I stopped pressing a silver knife against the mark on the back of my neck, forcing her to choose between us. When she slept with Simon, pain tore through our mind-link and left me curled up in bed all night. I endured it. When she asked me to care for her during her pregnancy, I did that too. The whole North laughed at me. Some said I brought shame on every fated mate. Others used me as an example for their own partners. "Look at Samuel. He's so understanding." When the baby was born, Elsa White took my hand and kissed the back of it, just as she used to. "Our baby is so healthy because you took such good care of me. Simon and I have you to thank. Don't worry. He just wanted a child of his own. You're still my mate. That will never change." I pulled my hand away and tucked the blanket around her. Thinking I'd finally accepted it, she smiled and asked me to hold the baby. She didn't know I'd promised her grandmother, Odette Fenwick, to care for her only until she'd delivered safely. Odette had saved my mother and me years ago. As of today, I had repaid that debt. As for being Elsa's mate, whoever wanted the job could have it. ***** The night before Elsa gave birth, the healer witch rolled up my sleeve again. She held the syringe but hesitated. "Alpha, he can't take any more liquid silver. Please use a regular anesthetic instead." Elsa sat beside the bed, stroking the mate mark on the back of my neck. "Use the liquid silver. What if he wakes up halfway through and tries to destroy his mark again? What would happen to the baby?" I didn't promise I wouldn't cause trouble. I'd said it too many times already. The needle pierced my skin, and burning pain spread up my veins. My inner wolf gave a low whimper, then fell silent. Elsa kissed my forehead. "Get some sleep, baby. It'll be all right." By the time I opened my eyes again, she'd given birth. I was lying on the visitor's cot in the outer room. Through the doorway, she beckoned to me. "Samuel, come and meet Marcus. The register is here. Once you sign it, we can make his registration official." A guard handed me the pack register. Marcus White. I braced myself against the bed and sat up, my arm still shaking. The drug hadn't worn off, but the words were painfully clear. I stared at the name, my fingers slowly tightening. "You used that name." Marcus Vale was the name we'd chosen for our own child. I'd drawn our pursuers away five years earlier to save Elsa and suffered injuries that damaged my health. We'd spent a full year undergoing treatment so we could have a child. On the day we learned she was pregnant, I'd read the test results over and over. After that, I went into every baby store I passed, always afraid I hadn't prepared enough. When she was seven months pregnant, she went out one night and came home to tell me our baby was gone. She said Simon had gone into heat that night. She couldn't bear to leave him alone, so she'd stayed. She said sleeping with him had been an accident. But our child hadn't survived. I'd wanted his name entered in the pack register, some record that he'd existed. Elsa had refused to sign. She said it would remind her of the pain of losing him. I remembered how she'd held me that day and cried until she passed out. Now she'd given his name to Simon's baby, and she wanted me to sign as the father. "I just want him to grow up safe and healthy." She stroked the baby's face, her voice soft. I pushed the register back. "Register him however you want. Don't put him under my name." "Samuel..." "I have a child of my own." Her hand stopped. After a long silence, she said, "I want to watch a child grow up too. You know how hard it would be for us to have another." A noise came from the window. Simon had just climbed into the room when the guards seized his shoulders. "Elsa, I just want to see my baby!" Odette walked in, leaning on her cane. "Take him out." Elsa threw back the covers. "Grandma, he's the baby's father!" "Do you remember that you have a mate?" Simon struggled, calling for her. She shoved the bassinet toward me and rushed over to block the guards. Its frame struck my arm, reopening the injection site. Blood quickly soaked through the gauze. The pain reached her through our link. Her breath caught, and she looked back at me, but she didn't move aside. "Hasn't he been humiliated enough? Do you have to throw him out today?" She could see the blood. She could feel the pain. And still, she protected Simon first. Once, I would have asked, "What about me?" Now I only lowered my head and pressed a hand to the wound. When blood dripped onto the floor, she finally came toward me. "Don't move. I'll get the witch..." A dull thud sounded behind her. Simon had gone limp in a guard's arms. She immediately turned to support him. "Baby, I have to take him to the emergency room. Give me 30 minutes. I promise I'll be back." I replaced the bloodstained cotton without looking up. She hesitated, waiting for a response. When I said nothing, she hurried away with Simon leaning on her. The door closed. The baby's soft whimpers were the only sound left in the room. I kept pressure on my wound and didn't look toward the door again. "Go ahead." She probably hadn't even heard me. After 30 minutes, she still hadn't returned. Odette smoothed my sleeve into place. "I'll give her a piece of my mind," she said quietly. All this time, she'd known about every injection of liquid silver. Still, she'd kept asking me to hold on a little longer. At last, I'd held on until Elsa had delivered safely. "Grandma, are the papers to terminate the mate contract ready?" Her hand went still. With tears in her eyes, she patted my back. "You'll have them on the next full moon. I saved your mother because I respected her. I never meant for you to repay me like this. Samuel, you don't owe us anything anymore." I'd once thought repaying a debt like that meant caring for Elsa for the rest of my life. But in all these years, I hadn't even been able to protect my own child. Now she'd safely delivered Simon's baby. I'd done what I'd promised. I only had to wait until the next full moon, and then I would leave. This time, no one would talk me into staying.