He Shamed Me Publicly, I Married Rival Alpha

Chapter 2

The teasing rose again, edged now with malice.

Alpha Ethan turned his head. His gaze swept over me like a searchlight,cold, dismissive. The look one reserves for trash awaiting collection.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. The taste of iron flooded my tongue.

My nails dug into my palm. I welcomed the pain. It kept me upright.

"Don't be ridiculous," I said, lifting my chin. My voice came out steady. A small mercy.

"I'm single. Of course."

I even managed a polite, well-mannered smile.

Only then did Alpha Ethan turn away, satisfied. He raised his glass and laughed.

"To the unattached!"

A toast to his triumph. A heel ground into what remained of my dignity.

The crowd echoed the cheer. The sound drowned my breathing.

Inside me, Anly was keening,no sound, only that ripping pain that bled out from my chest into every limb.

She cursed him. She wept. She raged.

If he wants us single, she snarled, if he doesn't want us, then tomorrow we cross to the rival pack. Tomorrow we bind ourselves to that cruel Alpha.

The party rolled on. Music and liquor lulled most of the wolves into careless laughter.

I drifted to the edge of the camp, away from the firelight.

The night wind was cold. It couldn't touch the heat in my chest.

I pulled out my phone. A message from my father glowed there, sent three hours ago.

A signed marriage proposal. From Alpha Kane of the Shadowfang Pack.

Kane. The notorious tyrant. His pack was infamous for savagery,for fighting first and asking nothing.

I had refused him outright the moment my father first brought it up.

Until ten minutes ago.

The phone vibrated.

A new message from Alpha Ethan.

Nice performance. Very good.

A few clipped words. Driven cleanly between my ribs like a thrown blade.

I locked the screen without flinching and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

This was Alpha Ethan. He humiliated me to my face,and then sent a private note congratulating me for swallowing it without a sound.

I returned to the fire. All eyes were still on Alpha Ethan and Cora.

He sat at the head of the long log bench, Cora curled in the crook of his arm,a prize set out for the pack to admire.

Someone called out, slurred with drink: "Alpha Ethan, when are you finally going to give us a Luna?"

"Yeah! You've been single this long,don't tell me you've been waiting on someone."

Eyes flickered between Cora and me.

Cora was rosy and warm against his chest, the picture of bashful surrender.

He toyed lazily with one of her fingers.

"Fate," he said, "isn't something you rush."

I lowered my eyes. My grip on my glass tightened.

Loved and unloved,it was written plainly on him for anyone with eyes to read.

Six months ago, when I'd first been promoted to Gamma, Alpha Ethan had reached out one morning in his office and straightened my collar. The pet name had slipped from his mouth, easy and fond.

"Thank you, Iris."

His eyes had been soft then. Warm.

The next day, a junior officer overheard him use the name in passing and gossiped about it in the break room.

Within ten minutes, Alpha Ethan had posted a formal statement to the pack channel.

He had misspoken, the message read. Iris was a senior officer of this pack. He expected everyone,including himself,to maintain proper professional distance.

He stopped letting me sit beside him at pack dinners after that.

I watched as Cora, jostled deliberately by the others, tumbled into Alpha Ethan's lap. He stiffened,only the slightest flinch.

But he didn't move her away.

He caught her, smooth and easy, the corner of his mouth lifting like a man indulging something he secretly enjoyed.

A thin, bitter smile pulled at my own lips.

So it wasn't that he disliked being touched.

It was that he disliked being touched by me.

There was no propriety. No professionalism. None of it.

Only the simple, ugly truth,he didn't want to claim me.

"What a magnificent night for a Spring Hunt party!" someone hollered, swaying drunk on his feet. "Alpha Ethan has lived like a monk all these years, and Cora's only just come back single,this is what the Moon Goddess wants! Anyone with eyes can see it!"