Second Choice

Six agonizing months had bled away since the night Saskia claimed this modest room for herself. The brutal reality of their severed dynamic played out in the dead of night, a recurring nightmare she could never wake up from. The space around her was stark, stripped of the grandeur of the Luna Suite, holding only the bare essentials of her solitary existence. Saskia lay on her side in the suffocating darkness, her eyes fixed on the man lying beside her on the mattress.

Dominic’s broad back was turned to her, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm that suddenly hitched. The heavy silence of the room shattered without a single audible sound being made. Saskia felt the subtle, sickening vibration hum through the air—the unmistakable tension of a telepathic mind-link snapping into place.

Dominic tensed, the thick muscles along his spine going rigid beneath his skin. He stared into the darkness, his brow furrowing as he absorbed whatever words were being transmitted directly into his mind. He drew in a sharp, ragged breath, holding it in his lungs for a long beat before letting out a heavy, exhausted sigh that echoed in the quiet bedroom.

He mentally severed the link, dropping the connection. Slowly, he sat up. He pulled away from Saskia’s warmth, letting the cold, biting night air rush into the empty space between them on the bed.

"Kelsie wants to see me," he stated bluntly, his voice flat and void of any real warmth.

Lying beside him in the dim light, Saskia said nothing. She did not part her lips. She did not utter a single syllable of protest. She didn't argue, and she certainly didn't plead for him to stay. She knew this exact, humiliating routine all too well. It was etched deeply into her bones.

He was going to throw off the heavy duvet. He would stand up, drag his sweatpants over his hips, and pull a shirt over his head under the convenient guise of some urgent, manufactured conversation that Kelsie desperately needed to have right this second. He would walk out her door and head straight down the carpeted hallway to the younger girl. Once there, he would soothe whatever fake crisis Kelsie had concocted. Then, he would push Kelsie down on the mattress and fuck her. He would bury his cock deep inside his younger mate, thrusting until he was spent, and then he would simply fall asleep in Kelsie’s bed, wrapping his arms around her instead of the woman he had spent two decades with.

Then, when the sun rose and the pack began to stir, Dominic would drag himself back to Saskia's room. He would stand near the door frame, rubbing the back of his neck, and offer a hollow, pathetic apology. He would claim he accidentally crashed. He would blame the sheer exhaustion of having sex with both of them on the same night, insisting that the fatigue caught up to him and he just fell asleep in Kelsie's bed by mistake.

It was a lie, and they both knew it. It was a conscious, fully willing choice Dominic made every single time to leave Saskia alone on her specifically designated night. Nothing was ever so urgent that it required the Alpha’s presence at midnight. If the pack was truly under threat or facing a real emergency, the alarm would sound, and everyone would know.

This was no emergency. It was Kelsie’s deliberate, calculated method of proving to the entire pack that she held the supreme power. It was a display of dominance, proving she could summon their shared mate away from the first Luna whenever she damn well pleased. And Dominic proved her right, because he always went. He always chose to leave.

Feeling the mattress shift and groan as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, Saskia just rolled away. She turned her back to him, facing the cold plaster of the wall, aggressively ignoring the intense, squeezing ache erupting in the center of her chest. It felt as though a physical hand was wrapped around her heart, crushing the life out of it.

In the beginning of this nightmare, she had tried arguing. She had fought tooth and nail for her rightful time, desperate to hold onto the man she loved. Back then, Dominic used to swear and promise. He would hold her arms, look into her eyes, and desperately claim he would come right back after dealing with whatever minor inconvenience Kelsie was crying about.

But he never once kept that promise.

When Saskia finally reached her breaking point, she cornered him. She called him out on his blatant abandonment, demanding to know why he couldn't just tell Kelsie it was Saskia's night and that the issue could wait until morning. The confrontation had blown up in her face. Dominic had grown instantly defensive, his features twisting in deep annoyance. He glared down at her, his Alpha aura flaring in a harsh warning.

"It isn't bloody necessary for you to track my every single move like a warden," he had muttered harshly, his tone dripping with venom.

After that stinging rebuke, she simply stopped fighting for him altogether. She stopped asking. She stopped demanding fairness. She stopped pointing out that it was cruel to spend five nights a week with Kelsie and only two with her.

For the past four exhaustive months, she had lain in the dark just like this, silently watching their legendary twenty-year mate bond slowly crumble into dust. The invisible tether that had once been a roaring fire of connection was now fraying, snapping thread by thread, and Dominic didn't even seem to care. He had a new, younger mate to entertain him.

Saskia was rapidly becoming nothing more than the glorified accountant and administrative Luna. She balanced the sprawling pack ledgers, coordinated the complex border guard rotations, managed the intricate trade disputes with neighboring territories, and ensured the pack thrived on a daily basis. She was the operational backbone of the entire community, yet she was being stripped of her true identity as a beloved wife. She wondered if, one day soon, he would forget she was even a part of the pack at all.

A deep, bitter part of her soul intensely regretted ever forgiving him. She stared at the blank wall, hating herself for letting the betrayal slide after he had broken his initial promise by having sex with Kelsie in the Alpha Suite.

Following that catastrophic violation of her boundaries, he had spent a full month groveling. Dominic had brought her massive bouquets of imported roses, profusely apologizing at every turn. He showered her with expensive jewelry, silken garments, and useless trinkets in a desperate bid to mend their fractured bond. For a solid month, Saskia had remained cold. She hadn't let him touch her skin once. If he reached for her hand across the dining table, she shifted away. If he leaned in to kiss her cheek, she turned her face to the side. They were both exhausted, grumpy, and miserable in their shared spaces. Even his Beta, Callum, had mentioned how terrible Dominic looked, noting that the Alpha wasn't sleeping well due to being at such intense odds with his first mate.

Saskia had eventually caved. She convinced herself he was genuinely sorry. She convinced herself he still loved her and that they needed to stay together for the sake of their bond. She ignored the half-knowing smirks she saw on Kelsie's face, ignoring how the younger girl seemed to revel in watching a two-decade-long mate bond be torn apart.

But Saskia's forgiveness meant nothing, because Kelsie’s quiet, insidious manipulation had ultimately won the war.

Kelsie expertly and relentlessly played the insecure, fragile victim. She shed crocodile tears on command, her lower lip trembling as she cried to Dominic in the middle of the packhouse. She whined that she felt worthless and inferior compared to Saskia's two decades of monumental pack accomplishments. She claimed she didn't belong, that Saskia was too perfect, too intimidating, and that there was no need for Kelsie to even exist in this hierarchy. Kelsie put Saskia on a towering pedestal, making it look as though she could never reach up and touch it, painting herself as the helpless, fragile underdog who just needed a little extra love to survive.

By doing so, she successfully weaponized Dominic’s primal Alpha protective instincts against his first mate. Dominic would look at Saskia with a helpless expression, as if asking, 'What else can I do but comfort her?' He saw a delicate creature needing his constant reassurance, and he prioritized her manufactured tears over Saskia's silent, agonizing heartbreak.

Now, the reality was stark and undeniable. Kelsie practically coveted and controlled both the massive Alpha Suite and the luxurious Luna Suite. The younger girl claimed she just needed to keep a few things in the Luna Suite for when she slept there, but half her wardrobe remained inside. She filled the vanity, dominated the space, and made it clear she would only move back in with Dominic when Saskia stopped being mad at him. It was a calculated move to ensure Saskia could not reside within her rightful quarters.

Saskia was left displaced in this small room on a lower floor, effectively stripped of her title, while the younger girl smiled knowingly at the total destruction of Saskia's sacred bond.

Dominic, blinded by his new infatuation, saw no issue with the glaring imbalance. When Saskia refused to go back to the suites after walking past and seeing them both coming out of the Alpha Suite first thing in the morning, Dominic stopped trying to convince her. He had looked guilty the first time, but after a week, he said nothing. Even though he had promised Kelsie wouldn't be allowed in the Alpha Suite again, she never left it.

Even his physical intimacy with Saskia had degraded terribly. When they did share a bed on her rare nights, their sex had faded into something that felt rushed, detached, and strictly obligatory. He didn't take hours to worship her body like he used to, tracing her curves with reverence and drawing out her pleasure until she screamed his name. There was no endless pleasure, no lingering touches in the dark, no desperate need to be close to her soul. It felt as though he was just going through the motions. He would strip off his clothes in a hurry, push her legs apart, and slide his hard cock into her wet pussy, thrusting with a harsh, mechanical rhythm. The sessions grew shorter and shorter, lacking any true passion, eye contact, or emotional connection. It was painfully obvious that he enjoyed fucking Kelsie more than he enjoyed being with her. Not even Saskia's wolf, Vara, cared to take part in the physical act anymore, withdrawing deep into the recesses of her mind whenever Dominic touched their shared body.

The rustle of clothing stopped. Dominic finished dressing. He stood by the edge of the mattress, a tall shadow blocking out the dim light filtering through the window.

He leaned down over her. His lips pressed briefly against Saskia's bare shoulder in a swift parting kiss.

The touch felt like pure autopilot. It was a hollow, mechanical remnant of a man she still deeply loved. For twenty years, he had never left their bed without kissing her shoulder, whether he was getting up for early morning training in the mud or a late-night border patrol. Even in a half-sleeping state, she used to smile at the feeling of his warm lips on her skin, feeling the deep hum of their mate bond reassuring her of his devotion.

Now, the gesture felt dead and redundant. It was ingrained in his muscle memory, an automatic action performed without a single ounce of genuine affection or presence. He either deliberately ignored the truth, or he no longer possessed the emotional capacity to care enough to sense the excruciating pain radiating through her soul. As her mate, he should have felt her agony echoing through their bond, but he blipped right over it, dead to her suffering.

He straightened up and walked toward the exit. The floorboards creaked under his heavy boots.

The exact moment the heavy bedroom door clicked closed behind him, the dam broke.

Saskia pressed a trembling fist hard against the center of her chest, fighting the urge to scream. Hot, silent tears finally fell in the dark. They tracked down her cheeks, soaking into the cotton pillowcase. Her chest heaved with suppressed, ragged sobs as the sheer weight of her profound loneliness crushed her.

She lay alone in a bed that smelled heavily of his masculine scent, a scent she now both loved and hated with a burning passion. Two decades together, and he was letting it go so easily just because his younger mate was insecure.

As the tears flowed, Saskia replayed Dominic's pathetic justifications in her mind. He had sat across from her, holding her hands, and rationalized his blatant neglect by claiming he simply needed a few rough, intensive years to artificially build a deep bond with his younger mate. He argued that he needed to make his connection with Kelsie perfectly equal to their natural, two-decade-long history.

He had asked Saskia to bravely bear the emotional burden. He claimed their twenty-year bond was strong enough to weather the storm, promising that her sacrifice would ultimately make the pack stronger in the end. He told her that once he created an unbreakable bond with Kelsie, everything would settle down.

Saskia understood his desire to form a bond with his new mate, but she could not understand him letting Kelsie eclipse what they had. His initial, sworn promise of splitting his time perfectly equally had rapidly devolved into a sickening 80/20 split in Kelsie's favor.

And that twenty percent was rapidly dwindling into nothing.

He might be scheduled to stay with her two nights a week, but they only had sex once a week at most. Every other week, on that second designated night, he was gone before they even pulled the covers over their shoulders. He would arrive, sit on the edge of the bed, and within thirty minutes to an hour of his arrival, Kelsie's manipulative mind-links would summon him away.

Even on her incredibly rare, designated nights, she was robbed. He packed up his things, offered a pathetic excuse, and walked out her door.

And exactly as predicted, he simply didn't come back.