"Pup, what pup?!" I roared from within, utterly inflamed eyes shifted between my mate and his mistress. 

Liliana's face scrunched with pain as she folded over Caden's thigh, in a single breath he scooped her from the bed like she was made of ice. 

"My moonlight..." He said looking into her face as he held her princess style, she reached up to cup his cheek but halfway true her hand slumped and she continued to wince. 

It was all too much, I was right here and the man that was meant to be mine was fawning over this tramp! 

"Caden..." I called helplessly, calling for his attention. 

But he wasn't even looking at me, his eyes were all over her, with a tenderness I'd never seen. 

The Caden I knew was stoic and hardened like a blade's edge. All these years I filtered through his actions convinced my affections were reciprocated, now I see what this all was. 

I was never the one for him. 

He just let me believe that. 

Caden finally looked at me, all the tenderness in his eyes gone, replaced with staggering spite. 

"You better pray to the moon goddess that no harm comes to this woman Serena, or else..." He left the rest of the threat dangling then brushed past me like I was furniture. 

He was gone. 

His scent fading, my heart aching and my wolf wailing. 

This was not how tonight was supposed to go. 

I've waited for so long, all for this?! 

My feet wobbled until they caved to the stress and I collapsed in a fit of tears, mascara running as I cried myself senseless. 

This was too much. 

If it had been just a one night stand I would have no choice but to put my pride aside and remain by his side as his infidelity remained like a perpetual dagger lodged in my heart. 

But the way he looked at her like she was life, love and everything in between. I couldn't remember when he had ever looked at me like that. 

She was pregnant, and it made my heart sink deeper knowing who the father was without asking. 

•••••

"Why are you still asleep?" I was awakened by a pail of ice cold water dumped over me, sending sharp shivers over my skin and forcing me to violently upright, a chill penetrating my soaked clothes. 

"Belinda?" I recognized my mother in law, she stood hands crossed, behind her was a shivering servant holding a pail. 

"You didn't answer my question, why are you still asleep?" She yelled at me. 

Her tone shocked me, Belinda treated me like her daughter. Where was all of this anger coming from?

I stood up from the floor where I had unceremoniously fallen asleep last night, too hurt emotionally and physically to drag myself to bed. 

Icy water was still dripping from my clothes to the floorboard, my surprise was slowly slipping into anger. 

Had both mother and son lost their minds? 

"Belinda, why would you tell a servant to dump cold water on me?"

She huffed; "because you deserve it for sleeping here while my son is in the hospital right now,"

Every singular muscle in my body went taunt, last night replayed in my head the pain of his betrayal came crushing down with me like a wave. 

"Did he tell you why he was in the hospital?" I asked, barely getting the words out.

She waved the servant out of my room then turned back to me saying what shattered what was left of my world.

"I'm his mother of course he tells me everything."

I staggered back, nearly sliding off my balance but somehow managing to keep both legs planted on the floor. 

"You knew?" I said the words barely a whisper. "For how long?"

"I've known from the beginning," she said without a hint of guilt in her eyes. 

I ran my fingers through my wet hair digging in till I felt my scalp being scraped by my fingernails, my wolf was beginning to stir again.

"Why didn't you say anything Belinda? It's been 3 years!" I screamed at the top of my voice. She just rolled her eyes like I was overreacting. 

"You had failed to live up to your responsibilities and my son considered other options, instead of being angry you should be thanking him," the ground was spinning the more she spoke. 

"Thanking him? While I was here running the pack for him? Keeping everything together so it wouldn't fall apart like a stack of cards? Grinding myself to nothing? Wasn't that supposed to mean something to him?"

She waved her hand in the air like there was an incessant fly hovering around her face. 

"Enough with that, I've had the lion share of the work and you contributed once in a while stop acting like I dumped everything on you,"

But you did. The thought ran through my mind. Not just her but the Beta's mate too. Everything from budgeting for the pack to meeting those stuck up elders fell to me while they were only available for get- togethers, galas and other parties that I had to arrange. 

However I had never uttered a peep of a complaint, anytime I got tired I would imagine Caden's face smiling at me for the first time proud that I had been able to keep the pack together in his absence. 

But turns out I've just been a fool.

"This can't be happening to me..." I said trying to sit down but she grabbed me by my arm holding me upright. 

"What do you think you are doing right now?"

I looked at her, too swollen with pain to speak, only yesterday she had spoken to me kindly saying I was the daughter she never had and she couldn't wait for her son to come back and officially claim me as his mate.

She had said a variation of that over the past 3 years all of it lies.

"Leave me be!" I said too tired to even fight out of her grip, then what she said next came like a blow to my goat.

"How can you think of sitting?Get up, we're going to see  Liliana in the hospital"

Serena's POV 

"We're here to see Liliana Rosemary."

Even her name sounded gentle and sweet, it didn't match the conniving image that was her. 

My mother-in-law grabbed my arm again leading me from the receptionist counter after we had been told where to find Lillian 

My mate's mistress 

It was such a putrid thought in my mind. When my mother-in-law Belinda wanted to drag me here my first instinct was to yell at her and command her to leave my presence with my lunar aura if I had to. 

But morbid curiosity took over, I allowed her to drag me here while she swung the basket filled with sweets and treats. 

Invisible shreds that tightened my chest kept coming when I saw it. 

In all the years I have known her she has never done something so thoughtful for me. 

Several times I had collapsed from the sheer weight of carrying the pack on my back, she had not so much as given me a generic get well card or even come to see me. In fact she would avoid me as if I carried some horrid contagious plague but when I recovered she was quick to load me back with work making a million excuses why she couldn't be there for me. 

She saw me staring and tucked the basket away from my sight, muttering something under her breath.

We reached the wardroom and before entering she glanced back at me. 

"Remember Serena's behavior , for now you are still Luna and you should act like it."

For now? I took a sharp breath saving my retort. 

She walked in first, "Liliana!" She called out her name with a glee that had never been directed at me. 

I came in after, she had Liliana wrapped in her arms and on the other side of the hospital bed was my mate Caden cautioning her. 

"Reel it back, Mother, Liliana is still tired."

His mother pouted, "this is my first time meeting her, can't I show her my excitement?"

I was completely forgotten even as I stood in the middle of the room.

Humiliation that was already coursing through my veins intensified when she was the one to acknowledge me first.

"Luna Serena it's nice to finally meet you," her eyes perked with this wicked glint she quickly hid away afterwards, "I'm sorry, this isn't our first time meeting, is it?" 

I marched forward, having enough of this disrespect. 

I froze in my steps before Cadens stood between us, blocking my view completely but I had seen enough. 

"Caden, that girl she-" 

He grabbed my arm, herding me out of the ward room before I could finish my sentence. He finally stuck when we were in the waiting lounge and I yanked my arm away. 

"Have you lost your mind?" I screamed, "that's a child!"

Under the harsh hospital lights I got a good look at the girl other than the scars I could see on her arms and some on her face. She looked too soft, edges that should have naturally sharpened on her body with age didn't, because she wasn't that age. 

We were in our early thirties and he was messing around with a teenager. 

His whole body went stiff, dragging his palm over his face like I was the one being impossible. 

"She's not a child, she just turned 21," he said in full defense. 

I had been running the pack finances for 3 years so the math clicked in my head immediately. 

"She was 18 when you met her?" I said

He sighed; "Yes, eighteen and she's mature for a girl her age. She understands how the world works without being frigid and jaded like someone I know,"

His pointed comment hit me like a stab to the chest, all the feelings I had cried out last night were bubbling back up. 

"Is that why you betrayed me?" My wolf was crying within me as I spoke, "is that why you threw away everything we had?"

As an Alpha's daughter I always knew that I was more of a pawn than a person, that one day I'd be shipped off to the man with the heaviest pockets.

I managed to dodge and escape for years but at 25 years old my father gave me a choice, either I was mated or disowned.

On my moon shifting anniversary he invited all the eligible bachelors, I wafted past them like a ghost waiting for the night to be over then I locked eyes with him 

Caden Thornblood.

Tall, domineering and tactical.

He didn't throw himself all over me like the other men, confident that his energy was enough to reel me in.

He was right.

Before midnight he had me in bed, he was my first and it was a bit awkward but ultimately I chalked it as the best night of my life.

Until every other night became a variation of my first, the only difference was that it got worse.

More pain and less pleasure.

"Serena you are many things but you are not a fool surely you saw this coming, not only where you are incapable of giving me an heir but you couldn't even satisfy me in bed... "He took a deep breath looking directly into my now teary face as he continued.

"It's not like I jumped head first into an affair the moment I left, but Liliana was special I knew from the moment I rescued her from some enemy warriors." He took a long pause, "she is my mate Serena, my fated mate."

My jaw hit the floor, finding your fated mate was a rarity these days. Most people just settled on chosen mates.

I was gobsmacked, unable to and he saw that as an invitation to continue tearing my heart to shreds.

"I tried to resist her, I really did." He said that it was supposed to make me feel better. 

"But it had been so long since I had been satisfied in bed. I thought I'd keep her with me to keep my morale up but it became something more," he let out a defeated sigh, "Serena, I'm in love with her."