Alpha Mate Slept With His Sister-in-Law, I Left Chapter 05
By daylight Kael was still on the floor at Asher’s door. He was digging into the gap of the couch cushions with his fingers. He pulled out one long dark brown hair. It was mine. He closed his fist around it.
He slept on the couch.
He woke to someone laying a blanket over him. Eyes still closed, he caught the wrist and said my name.
“Sera.”
He opened his eyes. It was Vivienne.
Her hair was loose. The thing she was wearing was the cream cashmere cardigan Kael had spent three hours picking out for me last anniversary. He recognized it on sight.
In the dim living room, the outline of her hair almost looked like mine for half second. Then the cloying woody perfume, the one I would never wear, cut through the illusion.
He threw her hand off. He stared at the cardigan. His voice was cold enough to shake.
“Take her clothes off.”
“Kael, I was worried about you-”
“I said. Take it off.”
Vivienne bit her lip and slid the cardigan off her shoulders, slowly. Halfway out the door she turned back. “You’ll come find me sooner or later. Where can she go? It’s all Rogues out there.”
Kael didn’t answer.
After she left he started going through the apartment, inch by inch
A half-empty bottle of the cheap hand soap I’d been using since college, in the bottom drawer under the bathroom sink. He opened it, smelled it, put it back. The bottle of vanilla extract on the spice rack, the brand I always used, a third left. A stack of meal-prep containers in the freezer. Asher’s lunches for the next two weeks. Sandwiches Monday. Pasta Tuesday. Chicken nuggets Wednesday. Mac and cheese Thursday. Curry rice Friday.
Under the coffee table he found a form. Asher’s preschool emergency contact sheet. Under “emergency contact” was my name and my number. That number was now in the fireplace. Under “father” the box was blank.
Kael stared at the blank box. His hands started shaking.
He remembered six years ago, the very small backpack I’d carried over the wall of that Northcrest border outpost and into his car. Inside were a few changes of clothes and one photo of my parents.
I had thrown all of Northcrest behind me and walked out with him. He had thought that was just how it was supposed to go. I am an Alpha. I can take care of her and any future child. Plenty of room to spare.
He locked himself in our bedroom and called my number again and again. Each time the line was dead.
He switched to texts
“I have not completed the ceremony with Vivienne. I’ll end it.”
“It’s full of Rogues out there. You and Asher are in danger. Tell me where you are.”
“You will be the only Luna. Asher is my only heir.”
“Sera. I need you.”
Every one was sent. Not one was read.
He didn’t know my SIM card was already ash in the fireplace, along with the small grey wolf.