Soraya
The drive back to the pack house should have taken twenty minutes. I stretched it to forty, taking the long route through the forest roads where Grandmother used to take me mushroom hunting. Where Jordan and I had first kissed when I was sixteen, before Magda read my diary and decided she wanted him too.
The streets of Paradise Pack blurred past my windshield.
"You're my best friend, Raya," he'd said that day, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "You'll always be my best friend."
Best friend. Not fated mate. Not the love of his life. Just... best friend.
Three months later, Magda found my diary. She'd read every pathetic entry about my crush on Jordan Rutherford, future Alpha.
Had laughed about it at the dinner table, waving my diary in the air like a trophy while Vivienne smiled and my father said nothing.
And then she'd decided she wanted him.
It had taken her less than two weeks. Two weeks of batting her eyelashes, playing damsel in distress, being everything I wasn't— sophisticated and legitimate.
Jordan had been eighteen, drowning in Alpha training and his father's expectations. And Magda had offered him everything by being a suitable mate from a good family, someone his father approved of, someone who looked perfect on his arm.
I'd never stood a chance.
Jordan hadn't been there that day at dinner. He'd been at Alpha training. By the time I'd summoned the courage to tell him about my feelings, he'd already asked her to be his girlfriend. I'd been forced to watch from the shadows as the boy I loved fell for my stepsister's calculated charm.
By the time I pulled through the iron gates, my jaw ached from clenching. I watched Jordan park beside me in the rearview mirror. I parked in my usual spot near the front entrance and forced myself to get out slowly. Calmly. Like nothing was wrong. Like my world wasn't ending for the second time tonight.
Move, I told myself. Get out of the car. Face this.
But I couldn't. Because once I stepped out of this car, once I faced him, everything would become real. The lie would be spoken aloud. The betrayal would be confirmed. And I'd have to decide what came next.
Jordan got out first. I watched him open the back door and carefully lift Eleanor from her car seat. She was fully asleep now, her head resting on his shoulder, one small hand fisted in his shirt.
My daughter. Because she WAS my daughter in every way that mattered. I was out of the car before I could think, my door slamming with enough force to wake Eleanor. Jordan's eyes met mine across the hood of his Ferrari.
"Soraya." His voice was careful, measured. "We need to talk."
"About what?" I kept my voice light, desperate to keep my emotions locked down. "About how you were in Silver Ridge Pack all week? Or about something else?"
His jaw tightened. "I was going to tell you. Don't do this here."
"Where should I do it, Jordan?" Something in me cracked, just a hairline fracture, but enough that I could feel the rage starting to leak through.
"When would be a good time for you? Tomorrow, after you help Magda plan my grandmother's funeral? Next week? Next year? Maybe in another five years when you finally figure out what you want?"
"Mommy?" Eleanor lifted her head, her eyes wide and frightened. "Why are you yelling?"
The question shattered any little control I had left.
"I'm not yelling, baby. I'm sorry." I reached for her, and Eleanor leaned toward me, her little arms outstretched. Jordan had no choice but to hand her over.
"Let's get you to bed, okay?"
"Will you sing the moon song?" she asked, her fingers tangling in my hair the way they always did when she was scared.
"Of course I will." I held her close, breathing in the milk, honey and the lavender shampoo I used on her hair. "Whatever you need, baby."
I walked past Jordan without another word, carrying Eleanor up the stairs to her bedroom. The one I'd decorated myself with hand-painted stars on the ceiling and fairy lights around the windows. The room Magda had never seen, never asked about, never cared about.
"Mommy?" Eleanor mumbled as I changed her into pajamas. "Why was Aunt Magda with Daddy? I thought she was gone forever."
My hands stilled on the buttons of her sleep shirt.
"Who told you that, baby?"
"You did. You said Aunt Magda had to go away for a long time. But she came and got me from school today with Daddy. She said..." Eleanor yawned. "She said she was back for good now. That we could be a real family."
The room tilted.
"She... got you from school?" My voice sounded far away, even to my own ears. "With Daddy?"
"Uh-huh. She was really nice. She bought me ice cream and everything." Eleanor's eyes drifted closed. "She looks like the princess in my storybook. Is she going to live here now?"
I couldn't answer. I couldn't speak past the boulder lodged in my throat. Magda had picked up my daughter from school. With Jordan. While I was at the hospital finding out I was pregnant with his child. While my grandmother was dying.
And he'd let her.
He let her play mommy to our daughter while you were mourning Grammy, Honey snarled.
I finished getting Eleanor ready for bed on autopilot, tucked her in, and sang the moon song. By the time I closed her door behind me, my hands had finally stopped trembling.
They'd gone perfectly still.
I walked down the hallway to the master bedroom I shared with Jordan and locked the door behind me. Then I walked to the bathroom, closed that door too, and turned on the shower so he wouldn't hear.
Only then did I let myself break.
The sobs came from somewhere deep, somewhere primal, ripping out of my chest in great gasping heaves. I slid down the tile wall until I was sitting on the cold floor, my dress pooling around me, and I screamed into my hands until my throat was raw.
Five years. Five years of patience. Five years of being second choice. Five years of raising her daughter and running his pack and being the perfect Luna, and the moment she came back...
He chose her again.
No, Honey whispered fiercely. He ALWAYS chose her. You were just the consolation prize.
Sorry, Raya.
The truth of it destroyed me worse than anything else could have.
I'd never asked for much. I just wanted him to choose me. Once. Just once. After all my sacrifices for him, I just wanted someone to choose me for once in my forsaken life! I had grown up unwanted and unloved.
When the tears finally stopped, I was hollow. I felt empty . A shell of the woman who'd woken up this morning excited about a pregnancy test.
I pulled myself up, caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were swollen, makeup destroyed, my carefully styled hair a mess. I looked exactly how I felt—broken.
But underneath the grief, underneath the devastation, something else stirred. Hot rage coiled in my spine as my grandmother's last words echoed in my mind "Choose yourself. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts."
I washed my face, fixed my hair, and changed into simple black silk pajamas. By the time I walked out of that bathroom, my mask was firmly back in place.
There was a knock at the bedroom door.
"Soraya? Can we talk now?"
I opened the door and looked at my husband. The man I'd loved since I was twelve years old. The man who'd never once said he loved me back. And I realized with crystal clarity that I didn't know him at all.
Maybe I never had.
"Of course," I said, my voice perfectly calm. I stepped aside to let him in.
As he passed, I caught his scent—his usual cedar and rain, but underneath it was something floral and sweet—Magda's perfume.
My hand moved instinctively to my stomach, to the secret I hadn't told him yet.
"Let's talk."