After My Alpha Replaced Me with His Pregnant Mistress

The path to the sacred grove felt longer tonight, the shadows stretching like grasping claws across the mossy earth. Usually, this place was a sanctuary, a pocket of ancient magic where the moonlight filtered through the canopy in soft, silver ribbons. But tonight, the air tasted metallic. Wrong.

I knelt by the circle of moonstones I had painstakingly arranged five years ago. My hands trembled as I reached for the pouch of sage at my waist, but I stopped cold. The protective wards—runes carved into the bark of the elder trees—had been defaced. Smears of something dark and foul-smelling covered the sacred symbols, disrupting the flow of natural energy.

Sabrina.

The scent of her synthetic floral perfume clung to the devastation, masking the rot of the dark substance she’d used. My heart hammered against my ribs. Without these wards, the energy transfer would be volatile, dangerous for both of us. But I didn't have time to fix it. The crunch of boots on gravel signaled Drake’s arrival.

He emerged from the darkness, his silhouette jagged and imposing. The moonlight didn't seem to touch him; it repelled off him, pushed away by the chaotic storm of his aura. He reeked of the wolfsbane elixir he’d downed in his study—acrid, burning, and wrong.

"Drake," I whispered, standing slowly. My hand went instinctively to my stomach, shielding the tiny life he didn't know he was destroying. "The wards are broken. It’s not safe. We need to wait."

He laughed, a harsh, grating sound that made the birds in the trees fall silent. "Wait? You always want to wait, Celine. You want to keep me weak."

He stepped into the circle, ignoring the way the air shimmered and cracked with unstable magic. His eyes were no longer the warm silver I had fallen in love with. They were blown wide, swimming with muddy red veins, the wolfsbane twisting his perception into paranoia.

"I am trying to save you," I pleaded, reaching out. My fingertips glowed with faint healing light, a desperate attempt to stabilize his erratic energy. "Your wolf is dying, Drake. Please, let me help."

"Help?" He slapped my hand away. The impact stung, but his words cut deeper. "Sabrina told me the truth. You drain me. You use these rituals to bind me to you, to make me dependent on your pathetic magic because you know you aren't enough of a woman to keep an Alpha satisfied."

The accusation stole the breath from my lungs. "That’s a lie! She’s poisoning you!"

I tried to channel the moonlight, to force the healing bond open despite the broken wards. I had to purge the poison from his blood. I stepped forward, grabbing his forearms. "Look at me, Drake! It’s Celine!"

The magic flared, reacting violently to the wolfsbane in his system. A spark of silver light exploded between us, hot and searing.

Drake roared, not in pain, but in blind, chemical-fueled fury. "Get off me, witch!"

He shoved me.

It wasn't a playful push. It was an Alpha’s strike, backed by the unnatural strength of the elixir. I flew backward, the world spinning in a dizzying blur. My back slammed into the unforgiving trunk of an ancient oak tree, the impact jarring every bone in my body. I crumbled to the ground, hitting the roots hard.

A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my abdomen. It was unlike anything I had ever felt—hot, wet, and final.

"No," I gasped, the word bubbling up with a copper taste in my mouth.

I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn't obey. A damp warmth spread between my legs, soaking into the cold earth. The scent of blood—my blood, our child’s blood—filled the air, thick and devastating.

Drake stood over me, his chest heaving. For a split second, clarity seemed to flicker in his drug-hazed eyes as the scent hit him. He took a stumbling step back, looking at his hands. "Celine?"

Then, a scream tore from my throat. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated grief, a mother mourning the future that had just been kicked out of her.

"Drake!"

The name wasn't mine. It was a roar from the edge of the grove.

Clark burst through the brush, his face a mask of absolute terror. He didn't look at his Alpha. His eyes locked onto me, onto the blood pooling beneath my dress.

"Don't touch her!" Drake snarled, the confusion in his eyes hardening back into possessive rage. He used the Alpha tone, the command slamming into the clearing like a physical weight. "Stand down, Beta!"

Usually, a Beta would crumble. Usually, the biological imperative to obey would freeze Clark in place.

But Clark didn't stop. He didn't even slow down.

"No," Clark growled, his voice vibrating with a defiance that shook the leaves from the trees. He broke the command, shattering the hierarchy for the sake of the woman bleeding on the ground.

He slid to his knees beside me, his hands hovering over my stomach, his face draining of color. "Luna... oh goddess, Celine."

"My baby," I sobbed, clutching his shirt, my vision graying at the edges. "He killed our baby."

Clark’s jaw tightened until I thought his teeth would shatter. He scooped me up into his arms, cradling me against his chest as if I were made of glass.

"Put her down!" Drake bellowed, stepping forward, his aura flaring with menacing intent. "She is my mate!"

Clark turned. For the first time in his life, the Beta looked at his Alpha with nothing but pure, unbridled hatred.

"You have done enough," Clark spat.

Without waiting for permission, without bowing his head, Clark turned and ran. He sprinted toward the pack clinic, his heart beating a frantic rhythm against my ear. I let my head fall back, the canopy of trees blurring into a dark tunnel. The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was the moon, cold and distant, watching silently as my world fell apart.