I Was Only His Backup Mate, His Second Choice Luna Chapter 10

I Was Only His Backup Mate, His Second Choice Luna Chapter 10

He took it without looking, still thinking about the planners, and asked, “Does everyone think Aelia

d I are together?”

The Beta knew about the marriage. He’d spent years quietly thinking Estella deserved better.

He picked his words carefully.

“You and Miss Blaze grew up together. In company matters and pack matters, you’ve always taken her side publicly. And Miss Blaze has never once corrected the rumors. It isn’t a surprising conclusion, Alpha.”

He added, “Once your ceremony with the Luna is public, that resolves itself.”

Magnus’s expression eased.

“Right. Once we hold the ceremony none of this touches her, and she can stop being jealous.”

His mouth turned up at one corner. “Pick out a few bags she’d like. Have them sent to the house before you leave tonight. I haven’t been home in days. She’s still sulking.”

The Beta went.

Magnus opened the folder.

A letter from the Elders. Black parchment, one line of silver ink.

[The Moon Goddess has heard your petition.]

What.

The whole month came back at once, and he understood that a full lunar cycle had passed. He’d spent it at Aelia’s bedside. He had never gone to the altar to withdraw.

He’d told Estella to go and do it.

Sitting there with the parchment in his hand, he went back through every conversation since and could not find a single moment where she had agreed to.

He had been so certain the bond was leverage. That she was doing what she always did, threatening to leave because she knew he’d fold, because she knew he cared.

It had never once occurred to him that she was simply done with him.

Everything from the past month started running through his head at speed.

Every time he’d come home to make peace, she’d looked at him like a stranger who’d wandered in.

He’d been furious with her for not knowing when she was being given something. He had not heard what she was actually saying, which was the same thing, over and over: I am not coming back.

He reached for the bond.

It had thawed out from under him like snow off a roof.

No camellias. He couldn’t find that scent anywhere. Nothing answered on the other end, not her wolf, not her, nothing.

His own wolf went up in a howl of pure animal panic and threw himself against the inside of his

skull.

He was out of the chair and out of the office with the letter crushed in his fist.

The SUV took the whole way at speed and stopped outside the house.

They used to work at the same company. Even with the marriage hidden, when he stayed late he’d

send her home first.

At this hour the windows were always lit.

She always heard the engine before she saw him. He’d get out of the car and she’d be at the door already, coming down the steps into him, and her scent would settle his wolf after twelve hours of holding a territory together.

He stood there in the dark and couldn’t place how long it had been since any of that had happened.

His chest ached with a dull, spreading pressure. He pushed the door open on the last of his hope.

Nothing in the house had moved. But there was dust drifting in the air, visible in the light from the

street, the kind of dust that only gathers in rooms nobody walks through.

She was gone.