Betrayed By Mate and Pup: She Chose His Nemesis

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

ANNALISA

The words echoed in my mind like a death knell: *Can Aunt Alice be my mom instead?*

I stood paralyzed in the doorway, watching my son continue his animated conversation with Derek through the tablet screen, completely oblivious to the devastation he'd just unleashed on me.

The child I had carried for six agonizing and painful months, and I had delivered after thirty-six hours of grueling labor that nearly killed us both, the baby I had nursed through countless sleepless nights. This was this same child who wanted me to be replaced by the woman who was constantly ruining my life and marriage.

My legs felt unsteady as memories crashed over me in waves. Chase's first year had been a nightmare that had been filled with daily hospital visits and specialist appointments.

Born premature with a compromised immune system that made him susceptible to all kinds of illness that so much breathed his way, he'd been so fragile that even a common cold could have been fatal.

The doctors had warned us about his hypersensitive digestive system and how sugary intake could trigger a shutdown of his developing organs.

While other mothers worried about scraped knees and bedtime tantrums, I'd spent nights monitoring Chase's breathing, measuring his food portions to the gram, researching every ingredient that entered his body, trying to stop him from consuming anything that would compromise his chance at life.

Back then,Derek had been understanding, grateful even, as he watched me change our kitchen into a nutritionist's laboratory.

I'd learned to make sugar-free birthday cakes that actually tasted good, to hide vegetables in smoothies, to turn healthy eating into games and adventures.

"Your mother is keeping you alive," Derek used to tell Chase during those early years when our son would cry for the candy he saw other children eating and would go to him, to cry about the injustice that he assumed that I was doing. But DErek back then was someone who saw what I was actually trying to do and would console him.

"She loves you more than ice cream, more than chocolate, more than anything sweet in this world."

But somewhere along the way, that narrative that he used to give Chase had slowly shifted into something else. As Chase's health got more stronger and better after his third birthday, my vigilant care began to look like overprotective hovering and it was not needed by either of them anymore.

My nutritious meals that I had painstakingly made for Chase became "boring" compared to Alice's indulgent treats that Chase craved because it was yummy.

My concern changed into nagging in their eyes, my love into limitation, and leashes that kept them from enjoying life to the fullest.

Alice, with her infectious laugh and indulgent attitude, swooped in like a fairy godmother offering everything I had denied him.

She didn't understand the terror of watching your child's lips turn blue from an allergic reaction, didn't know the weight of making life-or-death decisions about birthday cake. She only saw a little boy who wanted candy, and she was happy to be the one who said yes.

The irony was suffocating. My very devotion to keeping Chase alive had driven him away from me.

I stumbled backward from the room, my chest constricting as if invisible hands were squeezing the breath from my lungs.

The walls of the house seemed to close in on me with every breath that I took. I needed air, needed space, needed to escape the sound of my son's voice declaring his preference for another woman as his mother.

Without a word, I grabbed my keys and fled.

The morning air was cold against my tear stained face as I walked aimlessly, without a purpose through the neighborhood.

My feet moved without direction, as I walked past homes that had families laughing and playing together, all of them in their family bubble, while my mind kept spiraling through years of pain. How the hell had I become so dispensable? How had the two people I loved most in the world learned to live so easily without me?

The cruel answer had been building in the back of my mind for years but I kept suppressing it down, not strong enough to face it, ever since that night seven years ago when my wolf had whispered the truth I'd longed to hear: Derek is our mate.

The recognition had been instant and overwhelming, a surge of certainty that filled every cell in my body.

I'd been harboring a secret crush on him since our teenage years, watching from afar as the future Alpha dated other girls, not even daring to imagine a life with him by my side.

But I couldn't shift. Despite coming from a prominent werewolf lineage, despite having Alpha blood running through my veins, my wolf remained locked away, inaccessible even on the nights of full moon, when everyone took the opportunity to run free and wild in the woods.

After a lot of unsuccessful attempts over the years. The pack had written me off as wolfless— which was a shameful anomaly in our supernatural community.

Without my wolf's presence, I couldn't prove our mate bond. Derek couldn't sense it either, couldn't feel the connection that burned so clearly in my heart.

Our one-night stand had not been out of love, but actually our of grief, on the night that he buried his father. He was lost in the drinks and needed to lose himself in comfort.

I had offered that comfort to him and he accepted. None of us had expected the pregnancy that followed, or the whirlwind courtship that led to our mating ceremony.

Derek had done the honorable thing, other men might shy away from doing, he had claimed me as his mate despite the fact that there was no proof. For a while, I'd believed love might be enough to bridge what fate hadn't provided.

Then Alice returned from her studies abroad, looking radiant and confident, announcing to everyone at Chase's third birthday party that she could sense Derek as her mate.

The entire pack had watched in fascination as Derek's eyes glazed over with recognition, as he nodded slowly and admitted he felt it too—that pull, that certainty I'd never been able to give him.

But something about their "discovery" had never sat right with me, and no, I did not say this because I was desperate to live on a lie and keep ALice from her true mate.

Werewolves typically recognized their mates upon reaching maturity, when their wolves fully emerged. Derek had gotten his wolf at eighteen; Alice at seventeen.

They'd known each other for years before her departure, had even dated briefly in high school, when nobody was stopping them from being together, or had responsibilities that would stop them. Why would the mate bond only manifest now, nearly a decade later, after everything that I had lived through with Derek?

My wolf stirred uneasily in me whenever I pondered this question, as if she knew secrets she couldn't share with me but wanted to.

But without the ability to shift, I couldn't access her knowledge, couldn't prove my growing suspicion that something was very wrong with Derek and Alice's supposedly fated connection.

Lost in my tortured thoughts that was twisting my heart and putting me through pain, I found myself standing before Lumière, the French bistro where Derek and I had celebrated our early anniversaries, when life was still bright and I had hope that this might not end up being the worst mistake Derek had done regarding his life.

Through the large windows, I could see him clearly, his dark head bent attentively toward Alice as she gestured animatedly with her fork. Chase sat between them, chocolate smeared across his grinning face as he worked his way through what appeared to be the restaurant's famous triple-layer cake.

They looked like a family. A real family, happy and content in the way that I never achieved with them.Alice threw her head back, laughing, at something Chase said, her hand landing naturally on Derek's arm.

He covered it with his own, his thumb stroking across her knuckles in a gesture so intimate it made my chest ache.

I pressed my palm against the cold window, watching this scene.

Chase jumped up from his seat to hug Alice, planting a chocolate kiss on her cheek. She didn't scold him about his messy face or worry about the sugar crash that would follow, after the high.

She simply hugged him back, whispering something in his ear that made him giggle with pure joy.

This was what Derek had always wanted, and I wasn't blind to it. He wanted a mate who complemented him instead of challenging him on things, he wanted a mother for his son who said yes instead of no.

Watching them together, I finally understood that I had never been Derek's choice. I'd been his obligation, his burden, his mistake that he'd tried to make work out of duty and honor.

But Alice was his desire. Alice was his future. Alice was everything I could never be.

The realization didn't bring the agonizing heartbreak that I expected would follow,seeing that I was unwanted. Rather I felt numb and clearheaded for the first time in a long,long time and frankly I was grateful. I had reached my limits and was done bending my back over for them. I knew what I had to do.

They didn't need me. They were better without me. And maybe, just maybe, I would be better without them too.

It was time to let them go.