His Luna or His Mate

Chapter One

Chapter One

Paige's point of view

“I’ve arranged an additional meeting. I’ll eat at the office. Don’t wait up”

I slammed my phone down against the marble kitchen counter and let out a growl of frustration. Jacob Walker had stood me up again!

Jacob was my husband of almost three years, and I had booked our dinner in his diary nearly a month ago. In truth, I was so used to the man canceling on me, I had actually booked our dinner last week and the week before. This one was my final shot.

“Everything alright, Luna?” My personal Omega Jasmine asked in alarm as pieces of my phone flew in various directions across the kitchen.

Shit! I’d been so mad I’d forgotten I had company. Lunas were supposed to be calm and serene. They certainly weren’t allowed to lose their cool around their staff.

I changed the expression on my face to one that belied my true feelings.

“Everything’s fine Jasmine, I’ve just realized that I left the tarragon out of my béarnaise sauce.” It wasn’t the greatest of reasons to smash up my phone, but I couldn’t tell Jasmine that her Alpha was being a d**k to his wife! Again.

She didn’t buy it. But as my most loyal and professional member of staff, she held her tongue.

“I’ll go and cut some from the gardens, Ma’am.”

“Thank you. Oh, and, could you get me a new mobile whilst you're at it?"

I handed her over the broken object that had once been my phone. Jasmine curtsyed and left the room.

I blew out a lung full of air and stared at the food I had spent all afternoon preparing. Another total waste of my time

.

This was the third Friday in a row that I had spent making my husband’s favorite dinner. First course, ribeye steak crostini with Horse r****h sauce. The main consisted of a 72 oz fillet steak with béarnaise sauce, patatas bravas and asparagus. The potatoes and vegetables weren’t worth a dime to my husband, they would be pushed around the plate and eventually eaten in order to get to the dessert - red velvet cake, and finally chocolate bourbon balls to go with our coffee.

And the reason I was going to so much trouble? I wanted a baby. I wanted one so badly I ached on the inside. I’d never really considered motherhood as something I was desperate for. But it crept up on me slowly until it was constantly in the back of my mind.

Nearly all mated wolves conceive within months if not weeks of finding each other.

But Jacob and I are not fated mates. We are a marriage of convenience.

Jacob’s father, Thomas, was my father, Joseph's best friend. My father had been his Beta. Had I been born a boy, there was no doubt that I would have been Jacob’s Beta. But due to genetics, I became his wife instead.

Jacob and I had always felt connected. We hadn’t dated because we were waiting for our destined mates. I truly believed that we were fated mates, but sadly that wasn’t the hand we were dealt. Nevertheless, we remained close. I had a lot of instability in my life. Jacob was my constant.

My mother died when I was four. I remember her scent and her smile, but that was it.

My father was inconsolable for all of five minutes before he found someone else to move on with. I had joked many times as I got older that the leftover food from my mother's wake had been served for his and Lydia’s wedding breakfast.

Lydia gave birth to her daughter and my step-sister six months after they were married to the day. Kimberly arrived and she was perfect. I loved her from the second I laid eyes on her.

Sadly, from the moment she was born, I ceased to exist in my parents' minds. Kimberly was quite literally the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl.

I had been so excited to have a baby sister, but as we got older it became blatantly apparent that she did not feel the same way. She ignored me through most of the early years until she learned the arts of cruelty and deceit to make my life a living hell. She was a spoiled little madam and still is to this day.

I tried everything to gain my Dad and stepmother's respect and love by working hard at school, but nothing I ever did was good enough to earn their praise. ‘Kimmy’, as they called her, would receive praise for simply existing. Designer bags, designer shoes, designer clothes. If she asked for it, she got it. As simple as that. And the older I got, the madder I became.

I took that anger and started training with the future Alpha. Two hours every morning, two hours every evening and most of the weekend. If Jacob had Alpha training, then I trained with his best friend and Beta Kai, or his Gamma Marcus. And still my Dad wouldn’t give me the time of day.

By the time I was nineteen, things at home had become so unbearable that I was desperate to get the hell out of there. Kimberly had morphed into a Grade a b***h and was constantly setting me up to take the blame for things that had nothing to do with me. It was a miserable existence.

At the same time, Jacob was under pressure to take a mate. He was twenty-five and had been searching for seven years. His father was in poor health and needed to take things easy, but he refused to step down from the pack until Jacob had a wife.

And Jacob chose me. Because I was capable, I was dependable, and I was respected within the pack. And I was lethal when it came to combat, and had the smarts to help with the various businesses that the Walkers were invested in.

But the main reason I accepted his proposal was because Kimberly, not to mention her mother, thought that she should become the next Luna. The spoiled, immature brat threw a fit when she found out that not only had Jacob proposed, but I had asked to consider it for a few days. She thought I was crazy, my father was furious, and gave me a black eye to prove it.

Honestly, it was the best ‘f**k you all’ moment I had ever had.

But now standing in my kitchen, in my six-bedroom mansion, with cinema, indoor and outdoor pool, gym and spa, I’m starting to regret the choices I made.

Because over the last four years I have fallen in love with my husband, and I’ve seen glimpses of my husband falling in love with me. But they became further and further apart, and now I sense no real feelings from him at all.

We run the pack together, but we are not together. My family has turned their back on me, and as much as I am loved by the pack, their pledge is to their Alpha.

I feel like the loneliest twenty-three-year-old on the planet.