My Alpha Husband Gave Me to His Brother

"I, Blaine Vale, Alpha of the Alderfen Pack, reject you, Odette, as my mate and my Luna."

He said it in front of everyone.

Two hundred wolves filled the great hall. My hand was on my belly. Our heir was nearly three months along beneath my palm.

"Blaine." My voice came out thin. "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer me. He reached behind him and pulled someone forward.

Briony. My maid. The girl who braided my hair every morning.

She cradled a rounded stomach with both hands, chin lifted. "I carry the Alpha's child, my lady. His real child."

The hall erupted.

Then the pain hit.

It started at the mark on my neck, the place where Blaine had bitten me on our wedding night. It felt like someone had hooked a claw into it and pulled. I dropped to my knees. Warm blood ran down my collarbone and soaked my dress.

"Look at her," someone whispered. "The bond's tearing."

Blaine stood over me. His eyes were flat and cold.

"Tell them whose pup that is, Odette."

I stared up at him. "You know whose."

"I do." He turned to the crowd. "My Luna has been lying in my brother's bed. She carries Eamon's bastard and calls it mine."

My laugh cracked out of me, wet and ugly. The wolves nearest me flinched.

He was the one who had begged. He had cried in my lap. He had walked me to that door himself.

"You sent me to him," I whispered.

"Liar."

Three months earlier.

"Close the door, Odette."

Blaine's study smelled like cedar and old paper. He didn't sit. He paced, then stopped and slid a folded parchment across the desk.

"Read it."

I unfolded it. The healer's seal sat at the bottom. Three lines in neat ink.

Permanent. No treatment. The Alpha will not sire offspring.

I read it twice. "Blaine, this has to be wrong."

"I had it checked by three healers." He gripped the edge of the desk. "It isn't wrong."

"Then we'll adopt. We'll—"

"An adopted pup can't hold the Vale bloodline." His voice snapped, then softened. "The council will strip us. You know they will. No heir, no Alpha. No Alpha, no Luna."

I set the paper down. "What are you asking me?"

He didn't look at me. That scared me more than anything.

"Eamon," he said.

The name hung there.

"No." I backed toward the door. "Absolutely not."

"He has my blood. The pup would be a Vale. No one would ever know—just the three of us. When the baby comes, it's mine. Ours."

"You want me to sleep with your brother?"

"I want us to survive."

I walked out.

He didn't stop.

For four days, he found me everywhere. In the garden. In the bath. Outside the nursery we'd painted two years ago and never used.

"They're already whispering, Odette. Elder Corwin asked me last week when you'd quicken."

"I don't care what Corwin asks."

"You'll care when we're sleeping in the outer cabins and someone else wears your crown."

On the fourth night, he came to bed and put his head in my lap. His shoulders shook. I had never seen Blaine cry. Not once in six years.

"Please," he said into my nightgown. "I'm begging you. I'm a broken wolf. Let me give you this one thing."

I ran my fingers through his hair. "And after?"

"After, Eamon never comes near you again. I swear on my mark." He lifted his wet face. "I love you. That's why I'm asking."

I looked at the ceiling for a long time.

"Okay," I said.

The guest room was at the far end of the east wing.

Eamon was already there. He stood by the window with his back to me, taller than Blaine, broader through the shoulders. He turned when the door clicked shut.

"Odette." His voice was rough. "You don't have to do this."

"Your brother says I do."

"My brother says a lot of things." His jaw worked. "I said no to him three times."

"And yet here you are."

He flinched like I'd hit him. "Here I am."

I lay down on the bed. I couldn't look at him, so I looked at the canopy.

When he came to me, he moved slowly. Carefully. His hands were warm.

"I'm sorry," he murmured against my temple. "I'm so sorry."

I pressed my palm hard over my mouth.

I didn't want to make a sound. I didn't want to give anything. But my body didn't listen. Heat rose under my skin, and my hips shifted, and a soft noise slipped past my fingers anyway.

Shame burned through me so hot I squeezed my eyes shut.

I didn't open them again until it was over.

The mattress dipped. Then a blanket settled over me, tucked up to my chin, gentle as if I might break.

"I'll go," Eamon said quietly.

The door opened. Closed.

I stayed under the blanket and shook.

Blaine carried me to the bath that night.

He washed my hair. He wiped my cheeks with his thumb every time a new tear fell.

"You were so brave," he whispered. "I love you. I love you, Odette. I love you."

I leaned against his chest and let his voice fill my head.

This saves us, I told myself. This saves our marriage.

After that, Eamon came every month.

Blaine picked the dates himself. He marked them on the kitchen calendar with a small black dot. Two days before. The day of. One day after.

I started hating the sight of that calendar.

And every time Eamon left, Blaine waited in our bedroom.

"Come here."

He would pull me close and breathe in at my throat. His nostrils flared. His fingers pressed the faint red marks on my hip until they ached.

"He was rough with you?"

"No."

"Then why are you bruised?"

"Blaine, you're the one squeezing."

He let go fast. Then he smiled. "Just making sure he treats you right."

The next morning, I passed Eamon in the hall. He started to speak. I walked faster.

Two months later, the healer pressed her palm to my belly and nodded.

"You're carrying, Luna."

Blaine dropped to his knees on the bedroom floor. He kissed my stomach once, twice, his hands trembling on my waist.

"An heir," he said. His voice broke into a laugh. "We have an heir. Alderfen has an heir!"

I touched his hair. For the first time in months, I let myself smile.

Over his shoulder, the door stood half open.

Eamon was there in the hallway.

He had one hand raised, like he'd been about to knock. His eyes found mine. Then they dropped to my belly, where his brother's mouth was still pressed.

He lowered his hand.

He didn't come in.

He just turned and walked away, and I heard his footsteps all the way down the stairs.

Blaine was still kneeling, still laughing.

"Mine," he whispered against my skin. "This pup is mine."

Something in the way he said it made the hair on my arms stand up.