Alpha Raphael's Second Chance Mate

NORA

The pack ceremony had been going on for hours and I had been standing at the far edge of it the whole time, invisible the way I always was at these things, holding my heavily pregnant stomach and wishing with everything in me that I could just disappear back to my room and lie down and pretend none of this existed.

The moon was high and full and the whole pack was gathered across the open grounds, dressed up and loud and celebrating like they had every reason to. I was the only one standing alone.

The only one nobody was speaking to.

The only one whose presence felt like something everyone had agreed to overlook. Even my own husband moved through that crowd like I was not there at all.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and breathed slowly through the ache that had been sitting in my lower back since morning. My stomach felt heavier tonight than it had all week.

My feet were swollen inside my shoes and the noise of the celebration was pressing in on me from every direction.

I just wanted to sit down. I just wanted one night where nothing happened to me.

"Look at her standing there like she actually belongs here," a voice said, loud enough to carry through the nearest group of pack members. Laughter followed it immediately. I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead and told myself not to react.

Zoey came from the side with her girls moving in behind her the way they always did, her eyes already locked onto me with that particular sharp pleasure she got from making absolutely sure I never once forgot what I was to this pack.

"The alpha's little womb," she said it out like an announcement, like she wanted every ear nearby to catch it. More laughter moved through the people closest to us. I said nothing. I kept my face still and my breathing even and I stared at a fixed point past her shoulder.

"It must feel so good carrying a baby that was never really going to be yours to keep," she added, stepping into my space, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off her.

I turned to walk away from her.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me back around to face the crowd. Right there in front of every pack member who had gathered for the ceremony that night. Every person who had been pretending not to watch was now watching openly without shame or hesitation.

"She actually thinks she is something because she is carrying that baby," Zoey said, her voice lifting and carrying right across the grounds so that even the people at the back could hear every word. "She is nothing. She has always been nothing. She was an orphan and a slave and all she ever will be is someone who got used and is still too blind and too foolish to understand