While He Played Love, I Played War Chapter 01
For six years, I never paid my Alpha mate’s driver, Logan, an outrageous salary.
Instead, once every month, I invited his mate, an omega named Cassie, out for afternoon tea.
Without fail.
Derek always said I had too much free time.
“What is there to talk about with a driver’s mate? She’s just an Omega.”
I would just smile.
A driver’s mate talked far more than the driver himself.
Whatever Logan brought home, Cassie would usually tell me sooner or later.
Last week, she suddenly asked to meet me.
“Luna, I probably shouldn’t say this, but…” She lowered her voice. “Yesterday, Logan drove a she-wolf to see a pack doctor. She’s three months along. Your mate—Alpha Derek—was with her the entire time.”
Cassie sat across from me, nervously picking at the napkin on her lap.
Normally, she could talk for hours. Which pack member had found their mate. Which she-wolf was expecting. Who had been rejected by their mate.
But today, she only said that one sentence.
And panic filled her eyes.
“Which pack doctor?” I asked. “One from our pack?”
She gave me the name.
I nodded.
“What’s the she-wolf’s name?”
Cassie shook her head, “Logan didn’t dare look too closely. He only heard your husband call her Morgan.”
Morgan.
The moment the name left her lips, my stomach twisted.
My wolf stirred with immediate displeasure, as if she had been expecting this all along.
I knew her.
Morgan Vaughn.
An omega maid in our pack.
Twenty-six years old. She had joined our pack two years ago.
Beautiful. And every time she saw me, she greeted me respectfully.
At last month’s pack gathering, she had worn a low-cut dress while serving Derek a drink. I had even smiled and praised her for being thoughtful.
Cassie looked at me carefully.
“Luna, please don’t tell Logan I told you. He’s afraid of losing his job. Omegas like us are lucky enough to work for an Alpha as it is.”
“I won’t.”
I paid the bill and asked the server to pack a slice of cake for her.
Cassie didn’t take it.
“Luna… you’re really not angry?”
I smiled faintly.
“What’s the point of getting angry? First, I need to figure out exactly what I’m dealing with.”
That evening, when I returned to the pack house, Derek still wasn’t home.
I sat alone in the living room, replaying everything Cassie had told me over the years.
Every Wednesday, Derek drove into town.
He always claimed he was meeting Alpha allies to discuss pack business.
Cassie said Logan routinely dropped him off at a hotel, where he stayed for two hours.
On the fifteenth of every month, Derek never returned to the Alpha office.
He said he was going to the gym.
Cassie said he usually stopped at a bank first, then picked someone up near a maternity store.
Last year, Derek started wearing a different cologne.
He told me it was a gift from another Alpha’s mate.
Cassie said the back seat of the car often carried a sickly sweet scent.
I had never looked too deeply into any of it.
When you’ve been bonded for years, you start finding excuses for the other person automatically.
And after enough excuses, you realize you’ve only been digging your own grave.
At ten that night, Derek finally came home.
He tossed his jacket onto the couch and bent down to take off his shoes.
“Have you had dinner?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where were you today?”
He looked up. “At the Alpha office.”
“All day?”
“Yep, why?”
My gaze landed on his collar.
A long strand of blonde hair was caught there.
It wasn’t mine.
I reached out and removed it.
His expression changed instantly.
“What are you doing?”
“Hair.”
I placed the blonde strand on the coffee table.
He stared at it.
Then, half a second later, he smiled.
“Madison, are you checking up on me now?”
I smiled back.
“Is asking where you were considered checking up on you?”
Derek sat down on the couch and rubbed his forehead.
“I’m exhausted lately. Stop creating problems where there aren’t any.”
He had been using that line for ten years.
When we first sealed our mate bond, he started a company in the human world and failed miserably.
He was exhausted. I understood.
Later, the company recovered, and he was constantly entertaining clients.
He was exhausted. I sympathized.
Then younger she-wolves began appearing around him.
He told me I was being overly sensitive. I tolerated it.
Again and again.
Until today.
One sentence from Cassie had ripped apart all the dignity I had struggled to maintain.
I looked directly at him.
“Is Morgan pregnant?”
