Mated To My Cheating Ex's Powerful Alpha novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Wine and the Stage
Wine is poured down Freja's front, Rhett looks away, and then he announces his engagement to another woman in front of three hundred wolves; she walks out and a stranger on the terrace says he disagrees.
A woman in a red dress poured a full glass of white wine down my front while three hundred wolves studied the chandelier.
It happened an hour before the induction, at the reception in the ballroom.
I had come for a glass of water.
Every guest at the door had pressed a thumb to the registry pad before they were let in.
Rhett had waved me past it, like always. "Slow line, Nor. Not worth your time."
I was the only packless wolf in the room, so I stayed near the water table and listened to two wolves beside me talk about the strongest wolf in our world.
"He's coming tonight," said the woman in the red dress. "The strongest Alpha alive, at an induction."
"Can you imagine being claimed by him?" said her friend, the one with the diamond earrings.
"Never happen. He wouldn't look twice at anyone below a Beta bloodline."
I reached past them for a glass.
"Were you listening to us?" the woman in red asked. She looked me up and down. "You're Rhett's interpreter, aren't you? The one he calls when his French needs fixing."
"I work with him, yes."
"Must be nice, being in his orbit." She smiled at her friend. "Even in a professional way."
I should have taken the water and gone.
Instead I said, "A wolf like Declan Cobham probably can't tell any of us apart."
The woman in red laughed, and her friend laughed with her.
"Honey," she said, "we have a pack. We have a bloodline. You have nothing. You are nothing, and everyone here knows it."
She tipped her glass.
The wine ran cold from my collar to my hem.
"Oh no," she said. "I'm so clumsy."
Nobody near us moved.
Across the room, Rhett was looking straight at me.
He saw the glass. He saw my dress. Then he turned his back and went on talking to an old Alpha.
I walked to the bathroom with my arms crossed over the stain.
My phone buzzed against the marble sink.
Rhett had texted: I saw. I hate it. I can't make a scene tonight of all nights. Stay for the ceremony, Nor. Tonight changes everything. Trust me.
I read it twice.
Eight years of waiting, and now he had told me the wait was almost over.
I pressed a wet towel against the stain until the fabric turned grey, and I stayed.
At nine, the old Judge of the Seven walked onto the stage and the whole ballroom went quiet.
He swore Rhett in as Alpha of the Garrison pack, and Rhett took the silver pin in front of everyone.
I stood at the back in my ruined dress and watched him say every line perfectly.
Look at me, I thought. You don't have to say my name. Just look.
His eyes went over the room and past me.
Then he said, "I also have an announcement."
I smiled a little. I actually smiled.
"I'm honored to tell you that I'm engaged," Rhett said. "To Marianne Aaltonen, daughter of Alpha Aaltonen."
The applause started before he finished the name.
Cora Aaltonen, Marianne's cousin, clapped loudest in the front row, and she was still in her red dress.
A blonde woman in white came up the steps and he put his hand on her waist.
He smiled down at her the way he used to smile at me when we were alone.
Marianne smiled out at the crowd. Then she glanced toward the back of the room, right at me, with a small puzzled frown.
I didn't remember crossing the ballroom.
I was just at the foot of the stage, looking up.
Rhett looked down.
"You promised me," I said.
My voice was too small for the room.
"Not here, Freja."
"Eight years."
"This is how it has to be."
People were staring now. I could feel it on my skin, and I didn't care.
"Look me in the eye," I said. "Tell me you don't love me."
He looked.
For one second I saw the boy who had kissed me in the ashes of my old pack's land and said you and me, always.
Then it was gone.
"I'm sorry," Rhett said, very gently. "But I need you to leave."
He turned away, and Marianne went with him.
He did not look back.
I took the brass key to his house off my ring.
I had carried it for six years.
I set it on the bottom step of the stage, where everyone could see it.
So I left.
The terrace was cold, and I was glad of it.
I held the railing and bent over it and cried, and the sound I made was ugly.
"You are pathetic," I said out loud. "You are so pathetic, Freja."
"I disagree."
I spun around.
A man stood in the dark at the far end of the terrace.
He was tall and broad through the shoulders, with a scar through his left eyebrow, and his eyes were so pale they looked silver.
I knew who he was before I could think.
Every wolf in the city knew that face.
Declan Cobham, the Apex.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend