CHAPTER 1: HIS PREGNANT MISTRESS
BRIENNA’S POV
“It’s just until she has the baby, Bree. Can’t you see? She might be having my child, but you’re my one true love!”
My husband, Adam, holds my hand, eyes full of devotion, begging me to understand why his secretary must move in with us.
She is three weeks pregnant. As Alpha, he is allowed his rights to sleep with multiple women—a tradition his philandering grandfather enforced.
Upon taking the title, Adam told me he couldn’t end it, and thus courted many women. We had only one rule: No lovemaking in our matrimonial bedroom. And no extra-marital children.
Well, until Fiora. His omega secretary.
“You broke our rule, Adam,” I say, my voice completely flat despite my bleeding heart. “We agreed. No pregnancies. And now you expect her to move in with us?”
“Don’t be difficult now, Bree. If you weren’t so barren, there would be no need for Fiora to keep her child. But I’m just a man. I need my heirs. And if anything, Fiora is doing you a favour. The entire pack would think the child is yours. Your shame would be gone. Honestly, baby, you should be thanking her.”
My mouth goes dry. The words hollow me out somewhere under my ribs. My wolf, Daiya, howls in great pain.
“I should be thanking her?” I ask, my tone dropping to ice. “I am your Luna. I have swallowed every mistress you dragged through these gates without a single complaint. And you stand here and tell me I should thank your pregnant secretary for your cheating?”
“Baby, look at me. Look at me. I don’t blame you for being infertile. Truly, I don’t. The Moon Goddess makes us what she makes us. Some women are born to birth kings. Some are born to raise them. Fiora is our miracle. We finally get our dream family. You are going to be the most wonderful auntie to my son.”
“Your—your what?”
“Fun auntie. You’re so good with children, Bree. It’s going to be beautiful.” He smiles like a fool, so proud of himself, like he has just given me a promotion. “I know it’s soon. But we’ve decided on the pup’s name. If it’s a boy, Elian. After your father.”
The room narrows.
My dead father’s name given to another woman’s pup. Of course. Adam has no father of his own to name a child after—not since my father-in-law walked away four years ago, eaving behind his title and rumors of a man more monster than wolf.
However. I am the Luna of the Willowcrest Pack. I have held my dignity with a straight spine for three years. I will not lose it now. I swallow.
“Fine, Adam. Fine. Where will she stay?”
His face lights up with relief.
“Ah. Now about that, baby. Fiora needs the Master chambers. Now, hear me out. The nurse’s wing shares a wall, and omega first pregnancies are delicate. So it’s best she gets our room, and we convert your office to a nursery. You’ll take the guest suite down the hall. It’s a gorgeous room, Bree. You’ve always said the light is better there.”
“W-What? You swore to me, Adam. You swore on our wedding night that none of your cheap affairs would ever touch our bed.”
“Fiora isn’t an affair anymore, baby. She’s the mother of my child. She’s special to us now.”
Before I can answer, a soft knock comes from the doorway.
Fiora hovers at the threshold, her small hand resting tenderly on her flat stomach. She wears a pale sundress, her face arranged into wet eyes and trembling lips.
But before she speaks, her eyes meet mine over Adam’s shoulder.
For one split second, Fiora smiles. It is a cold, calculated smirk—the look of a woman who has already won. Then, she blinks, the mask drops back into place, and a perfect tear rolls down her cheek.
“Luna. Oh, Luna, I am so sorry.” Fiora dabs at her eyes. “I tried to refuse him, I swear on the Moon I did. I told the Alpha I’d sleep in the omega bunks, in the pantry, in the stables! I begged him, but he wouldn’t hear me—” Both hands fly to her belly. “I only want the baby to be safe.”
“Fiora, sweetheart.” Adam’s voice goes soft, the soft he used to save for me. “Don’t cry, baby. It’s bad for the pup.”
“I’m sorry, Alpha.” She sniffles and wipes her nose on her wrist, then turns her wet eyes back to me. “I’m so sorry, Luna. Please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it. I have admired you since the first day I walked into this pack. The way you run the household, the way the pups flock to you, the way you carry yourself. Alpha says you have the biggest heart in Willowcrest, and I swear to you on my own baby’s life I never, never wanted to hurt you—”
“Oh, baby. Don’t swear on the pup. Shh. Come here.”
He pulls her gently against his side and kisses the top of her head. She leans into him with much warmth. Then she rushes to me with her hand outstretched.
“Please, Luna. Just say you’ll try. For the baby. I have no mother. I have no one to show me how to do this. Please. Say we can be sisters.”
She takes my hand. Her fingers are cold, stronger than it should be for a frail omega.
To pull my hand from a weeping pregnant woman in my own husband’s house would mark me as the cruel, cold Luna, and my reputation, the only thing I have left that is mine, would be dragged through the pack by sundown.
“…I don’t hate you, Fiora.” The lie makes my wolf growl.
“Oh, Luna.” Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. She brings my hand up and presses it to her cheek. “Thank you. Thank you. I’ll be so good to you. You’ll see. We’re going to be sisters.”
Adam makes a soft, delighted sound in his throat.
“See, baby? I told you she’d understand. My Bree has the biggest heart in this pack.”
He steps to me, cups my jaw, and smiles into my face with so much pride that my stomach turns.
“You won’t even know she’s here, I promise. I’ll be in your guest room every single night. You have my word as your Alpha. Nothing changes between us.”
He kisses my forehead.
That first night, I waited. Dressed for him, I sat on the edge of the unfamiliar guest bed as the clock ticked past nine, ten, eleven. Hope withered with each passing hour.
He never came. Not that night, or the next. What came instead were the sounds through the shared wall.
The wet, shameless, headboard-knocking sounds of my husband f*****g his sweet little omega in the bed where he used to f**k me. And worse, so much worse, were the things they whispered to each other when they thought the pack had gone to sleep.
“Really? She doesn’t go down on you?!”
“You know Bree. She’s such a prude, so worried about being graceful. She’s a good woman. But she’s just so…”
“Boring.”
“Well. Yes. f*****g boring, baby. I could fall asleep while f*****g her.”
They both laugh, my husband and his pregnant little omega, lying tangled together in my marriage bed, laughing at me through the wall.
“But I love her, baby. Don’t misunderstand. Bree is my Luna. She’d never leave me. She has no one else. She cooks, she cleans, she runs this pack house gracefully. She’s basically my live-in nanny and maid, and honestly, where else is she going to go? Let’s be honest, sweetheart. No one else could put up with her.”
“I’m getting jealous, Alpha. Tell me the truth. Do you love me?”
“Always.”
“More than Bree?”
My hand flew to my mouth, but not fast enough to stifle the wounded gasp.
Through the wall, my Alpha answered his pregnant omega without a second’s pause.
“Always more than Bree.”
