My Husband Demanded We Share Our Pack House With His Mistress — So I Married The Monster He Feared Most
Part 1
The heavy wooden doors of the pack house slammed shut behind me, the sound echoing through the empty hallway.
I adjusted the collar of my silver anniversary dress, my fingers trembling slightly as I took a deep breath.
Tonight was supposed to be a massive celebration of three years of marriage to Alpha Craig.
I had spent the entire week preparing his favorite roasted venison and arranging the wild lilies he used to pick for me when we were teenagers.
I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect for our esteemed guests.
Instead, the evening had quickly dissolved into a nightmare of whispered rumors and pitying stares.
Craig had barely looked at me all night.
He had spent the entire banquet hovering around Heather, the beautiful blonde daughter of a neighboring Alpha.
I had desperately tried to brush off the murmurs of the pack members, trusting the man who had promised to reject the ancient concept of fated mates just to build a life with me.
We had built this pack together from the ground up over the last three years.
I foolishly believed our bond was stronger than any magical destiny or political alliance.
The silence of the upper corridor felt incredibly oppressive as I walked toward our master bedroom.
I just wanted to find my husband and ask him why he was humiliating me in front of our entire community.
The heavy oak bedroom door was slightly ajar.
It spilled a thin slice of warm yellow light onto the dark corridor floor.
A soft, breathless giggle drifted through the crack, freezing the blood in my veins.
My stomach immediately plummeted into an icy abyss.
I pushed the door open, the old metal hinges whining softly in protest.
The sight before me completely shattered my reality.
Craig was lying in our marital bed, his hands tangled in Heather’s blonde hair.
They sprang apart at the sound of the heavy door hitting the wall.
Heather didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed or embarrassed by my presence.
She simply pulled the expensive silk sheet up to her collarbone and offered me a sickeningly sweet smile.
“Craig?”
I choked out, the word tearing painfully at my dry throat.
My husband casually grabbed his discarded shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head.
He didn’t rush to cover himself.
He didn’t offer a frantic apology or beg for my forgiveness.
He looked at me with an expression of mild annoyance, as if I had merely interrupted a mundane business meeting.
“Brenda,” he sighed heavily, running a hand through his messy hair.
“I can explain everything, but you need to calm down right now.”
“It’s our anniversary,” I whispered, the crushing betrayal burning hot behind my eyes.
“In our bed, under the roof we built together.
How could you do this to us?”
“Listen to me, Brenda, it’s complicated,” Craig said, stepping toward me with a deeply condescending tone.
“It’s quite simple, actually,” Heather chimed in loudly from the bed.
She casually traced a finger over the intricate embroidery of my favorite pillow.
“You see, Craig and I are fated mates.”
The words struck me like a physical, suffocating blow to the chest.
“You promised,” I said, glaring fiercely at Craig.
“You swore to me on the night we mated that we would reject the mate bond for love.”
“Things change,” Craig shrugged carelessly, showing absolutely no remorse.
“But rest assured, you’re still legally my Luna.”
He reached out to touch my arm, and I recoiled violently from his grasp.
“Heather is kind and innocent,” he continued, completely ignoring my obvious disgust.
“She’s not a threat to your political position.”
“Kind and innocent as she beds my husband and makes a joke out of me in front of the entire pack?”
I demanded.
“I want an immediate divorce.”
Craig’s face hardened instantly, his oppressive alpha aura flaring up to suffocate the air in the room.
“You are my mate and my Luna, and I need Heather just as much as I need you.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, looking down at me as if I were a misbehaving child.
“You must learn to share your husband.”
“You absolutely disgust me,” I spat.
I turned on my heel and bolted blindly down the corridor.
Tears blurred my vision as I tore through the pack house, ignoring the startled gasps of the remaining guests in the main lobby.
I burst out the back doors and sprinted into the dense, pitch-black woods of the Northern Ridge.
Branches whipped violently against my arms, tearing the delicate silver fabric of my dress into shreds.
I didn’t care where my feet were taking me.
I just needed to get as far away from Craig and his sickening entitlement as physically possible.
The night air was freezing, biting mercilessly at my exposed skin.
I ran until my lungs burned with exertion and my legs felt like lead weights.
Eventually, the familiar pine trees gave way to an unfamiliar, jagged landscape of black rocks.
I realized with a terrifying jolt of panic that I had inadvertently crossed the border into the cursed territory.
This was the forbidden domain of Alpha Brian.
He was a literal monster feared across the entire kingdom, the ruthless warlord my family had originally arranged for me to marry before I foolishly ran off with Craig.
Nobody ever entered his lands and lived to tell the tale.
A low, menacing growl echoed through the thick fog.
I froze instantly, my breath catching painfully in my throat.
Massive, unnatural shadows detached themselves from the dark tree line.
A towering figure stepped slowly into the pale moonlight, his amber eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity.
It was him.
I stumbled backward in sheer terror, my heel catching heavily on an exposed root.
The hard ground rushed up to meet me, and my head struck a heavy stone.
Darkness swam rapidly at the edges of my vision.
The massive alpha knelt beside my broken body, his intoxicating scent of winter pine and sandalwood overwhelming my senses before everything finally went black.
When I finally woke up, I was lying in a massive, opulent four-poster bed.
The grand room was dimly lit by a crackling fireplace.
Brian sat rigidly in a leather armchair in the corner, watching me with an entirely unreadable expression.
I pushed myself up against the headboard, my head throbbing fiercely.
“You’re awake,” he rumbled, his voice sounding like grinding stones.
“My runaway bride finally returns.”
“I’m not your bride,” I rasped, pulling the heavy velvet blanket up to my chin defensively.
“I made my choice three years ago.”
“And a remarkably poor choice it was,” Brian sneered, standing up and walking slowly toward the bed.
“You ended up with a cheater, a despicable, weak alpha who tossed you aside without a single second thought.”
He stopped at the edge of the mattress, his sheer physical presence demanding absolute submission.
“But you still have a specific purpose, Brenda.”
I swallowed hard, absolutely terrified of the infamous cursed alpha standing over me.
“What do you want from me?”
He stepped back and leaned against the heavy oak desk, his eyes locking onto mine, and offered me the one thing I wanted more than anything else—a contract that would destroy the husband who broke me.
