< The Alpha Who Never Loved Me
Chapter 21
Serena
Jenna turned to me on the bench, shopping bags forgotten at her feet.
“Have you given up on him?”
I looked at her.
I wanted to answer. I tried to find the words that would make sense to her, to a woman who still believed her brother could be saved.
But I hadn’t given up on Kieran.
Kieran had given up on us.
–
The night he left me on the floor in the dark, the night he drove to Sophie instead of answering my call — that was when our marriage ended.
Not when I filed the papers.
Not when I burned the photographs.
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He killed it. I was just burying the body.
Jenna watched me, waiting, and when no answer came, she exhaled and picked up the shopping bags.
“Let’s go.”
She dropped me off with a hug. I watched her car disappear before going inside, kicking off my shoes, and climbing back into the center of the bed where my textbooks waited.
Aina settled as I read. She’d always been calmer when my hands were busy.
Gerald arrived to the hospital at seven. I was there at six forty-five.
He didn’t look up from his microscope when I walked in. “You’re early.”
“You said seven. Not nine.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Hang your coat, wash your hands, start cataloguing the samples on bench three. If any seals look compromised, set them aside.”
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I was moving before he finished.
The morning dissolved into compound charts, sample inventories, and Gerald barking corrections whenever I mislabeled a classification. Raymond appeared around nine with coffee and a patient file tucked under his arm.
“Survived the first two hours?” He handed me the cup.
“Barely.”
He grinned. “That means he likes you. When he doesn’t like someone, they don’t make it past thirty minutes.”
By the time my shift ended, the awareness hit me with full force.
I hadn’t seen a doctor. I hadn’t confirmed how far along I was, whether the baby was healthy, whether the fever and the stress and the nights I’d spent on cold floors had done damage. I was working in a hospital and hadn’t taken care of the one thing that mattered most.
I needed a checkup soon.
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Иparents’ new house sat on a narrow street near the western edge of pack territory. Two bedrooms, one
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bathroom, a kitchen that opened into a living area barely large enough for a couch and a bookshelf.
It was the smallest place they’d ever lived.
And it was beautiful.
My mother had hung light cotton curtains with embroidered edges. Wildflowers sat in a jar on the kitchen table. My father’s reading glasses rested beside a
mug.
They were sitting together when I walked in. My father with grilled fish and rice. My mother peeling an orange beside him, the rind coming off in one long spiral.
They looked up at the same time, and the smiles on their faces made my eyes sting.
I wanted to stay and to curl up on their small couch and fall asleep listening to my father turn pages.
But the textbooks were at the house, and Gerald expected me to know compound interactions by next week.
Lhugged them both at the door. My mother held on a 1:10
second longer, her hand pressing against the back of my
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head.
I showered, changed, and spread the books across the bed again. Two hours dissolved before headlights swept across the bedroom window.
My pen froze.
An engine cut off. A car door shut.
Aina lifted her head, ears pricking forward before flattening against her skull.
He was back. His business trip was supposed to take longer. I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
The front door opened, and his scent filled the house. The ease that has settled in the house evaporated with his presence, and I hated how my wolf still recognized his before my brain could override her.
He walked into the bedroom without a word and straight
into the bathroom.
Kieran was a clean freak. Every single time he came home, the shower came first before food, before
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conversation, before anything. Years of living with him
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had wired the habit into me too. I’d started doing the same without realizing it, scrubbing the outside world off the moment I stepped through the door.
Listening to the water run, I realized I couldn’t focus anymore. The words on the page had scrambled themselves. I closed the textbook and set it aside.
He came out in black pajamas, toweling his hair. Hist gaze landed on the books beside me. He picked one up, thumbed through the pages.
“Why the sudden interest in medical texts again?”
I didn’t answer.
He set the book down. “I can find you something less demanding. A position that doesn’t require-”
“My parents moved.”
He went still.
“The house password wasn’t changed, nothing was damaged and they would like you to take it back.” I met his eyes. “They found a place near the western border, Close to my father’s job.”
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Displeasure settled into the hard lines of his jaw. “I’m the Alpha of this pack. Your parents are family. They shouldn’t be living on the outskirts like that.”
“They don’t want to owe you.”
His mouth curved but not into a smile.
“Owe me?” He tilted his head. “Hasn’t your family already taken far more than that?”
Shame crawled up my neck. I bit the inside of my cheek and said nothing.
He watched me swallow it. Then his tone shifted, almost
conversational.
“As long as you remain my wife, my properties are yours. My accounts, my resources, all of it. There’s no reason for your family to struggle.”
“I don’t want your money.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “I want a divorce.”
He looked at me without looking away, or even the slightest change in his expression.
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“Return the money first. Every cent, medical expenses, housing, the allowances, maintenance for your former pack members. Bring me the full amount, and I’ll sign.”
I shook my head. “What crime did I commit to deserve
this?”
He didn’t answer. He was pulling back the comforter on his side of the bed, arranging pillows, settling in like the conversation was already over.
No remorse.
No emotion. He’d put a price on my freedom the way he’d price a piece of territory. Five years of marriage reduced to a balance sheet. Every meal I’d cooked, every night I’d waited up, every storm I’d held him through, he could assign a dollar amount to all of it and feel nothing.
He could let me go easily. Without a single crack in that
composure.
That was what hurt the most. Not the number but the
ease.
“Did you see Sophie today?”
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My head snapped up.
Kieran was sitting against the headboard now, legs stretched, expression unchanged.
“I told you to stay away from her.”
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