My Husband's Love Was a Lie,So I Made Him Lose Me Forever

Then Vesper's face lit up with joy as she pressed a hand to her lower belly.

"The pack healer says I'm expecting a pup. I was so eager to see you that I just..."

"Please don't be so harsh with me, darling. You're scaring me."

Alaric stood frozen. A long moment passed before he spoke again, his voice noticeably softer.

"You're carrying a pup? Then why aren't you resting at the nesting den instead of running around? What if something happens to you?"

Vesper gazed up at him with glistening eyes, her red lips pushed into a pretty pout. "I just couldn't wait to share the good news with you... Darling, won't you spend the day with me? Please?"

Alaric refused, his tone clipped. "I promised Selene I'd be with her today."

But Vesper wasn't giving up. A flush crept across her cheeks as she leaned in close, whispering something against his ear.

"Don't you miss me at all..."

Alaric's restraint crumbled. He pulled her into his arms and squeezed her body against his, letting out a low, rough laugh. "You little temptress."

"Same rules. Don't leave any marks."

I watched every shameless second of it, and it felt like a blade twisting between my ribs.

In all our years of mating, he had only ever been composed and dignified in front of me. The Alpha, measured and controlled, restrained even in our shared bed. I had never once seen him like this. His wolf had never surfaced like that in front of me, never slipped its leash for me. Not once.

Alaric helped Vesper into the back of the black sedan with exaggerated care. The driver pulled away from the curb, but the car didn't get far. It idled at the end of the block, the tinted windows fogged from the inside. They couldn't even wait.

I don't know how long it lasted. Eventually the sedan pulled forward again and merged into traffic.

I followed them the entire way. I watched Alaric slide an elegant silver claw-pin through her tangled hair and twist it into place. I watched them walk arm in arm through the old quarter of the territory, past the pack-run dens and the market stalls where wolves who answered to him lowered their gazes and looked the other way. I watched them sit at a corner den-tavern and share a single plate, his hand covering hers on the rough wooden table.

At last they climbed back into the sedan, laughing, and the car turned toward the highway heading out of the territory. I looked up and recognized the direction. The nesting den.

So Alaric could be this tender, this attentive, with another wolf after all.

I stared until my eyes burned. Only then did I look away and give the order to my driver.

"Take me home."

"And not a word about today. To anyone."

On the ride back to the manor, I couldn't stop seeing it. Vesper's hand resting on her belly, that soft, glowing smile. The faint scent of jasmine and copper that had clung to Alaric even from where I stood, layered over his cedar and cold iron like something that didn't belong but had been there for a long time.

And then I thought of the wolfsbane-laced suppressant Alaric had been feeding me for three full years, disguised as a Moonblessing conception tonic, and the grief was so thick I couldn't breathe.

Before today I had still been lying to myself. Even if Alaric had deceived me about the tonic, it didn't mean he felt nothing for me. Maybe he simply didn't want pups.

But just now, the way he'd looked at Vesper's belly. The way his voice had changed. He cared about that pup.

I remembered something he'd said before our mating ceremony. "Only two people who truly love each other should bring a life into this world together."

He had never loved me. Not from the very beginning. That was why he'd done everything in his power to keep me from carrying his pup.

But if he felt nothing for me, why bother with the lie? Why keep it going for so many years?

I drifted back to our rooms like a ghost and threw every last thing connected to him into the fireplace.

The carved moonstone screen he'd given me. The rare books he'd hunted down from every corner of the territory, first editions tracked through dealers and old blood-debts called in. The countless letters we had written together, line by line, in the early years when I still believed.

I watched them curl and blacken, inch by inch, until there was nothing left. Only then did the pressure in my chest ease, just slightly. Somewhere beneath my skin, my wolf lay utterly still, as though something in her had gone quiet too. Not a whimper. Not a snarl. Just silence where there should have been warmth.

No. Not enough. How could I have forgotten?

I stormed into Alaric's study like a woman possessed and found it on his desk, right where it always sat. The journal.

He had started it the day we met. Every little thing I liked, every habit, every preference, collected drop by drop over the years. By now it was thick as a fist.

I opened the yellowed pages, and every word made my eyes swell with pressure.

Selene has a sweet tooth and hates sour flavors. The den kitchen must prepare a sweet dish with every meal.

Selene gets cold easily. Have the hearth-fires lit in her rooms by the autumn moon.

Selene is afraid of the dark at night. She likes to fall asleep in my arms.

I love Selene so much, so much, so much. Remember: never let her cry.