The Alpha’s Secret Obsession Now novel Chapter 46

Paul’s POV

Two weeks feels like two centuries when you’re drowning in your own failures.

The library sits empty around me, shadows pooling in corners where lamplight refuses to reach. The whiskey in my glass catches amber reflections, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve refilled it since the sun went down.

Fourteen days of dispatching teams I trust implicitly. Fourteen days of watching Cormac return with reports that use words like cold trail and deliberate erasure — words designed to soften the admission that they have found nothing.

‘You’re spiraling again,’ Valdric observes, his presence restless and raw at the edges of my consciousness. ‘The alcohol won’t bring her back.’

“Nothing I’ve done has brought her back,” I mutter into the silence. “She’s vanished like smoke through my fingers.”

The pregnancy haunts me most. Elena’s words replay on a loop I cannot stop: Morgan is pregnant. Roughly eight weeks along.

The timing places conception squarely within the window where I gave her permission to do whatever she wanted, to be with whoever she chose, because I was too much of a coward to claim her properly and too proud to admit I was already hers.

I told her she was free to explore. I practically handed her to my brother on a silver platter. And now she carries a child that might not be mine.

‘You did this to yourself,’ Valdric says, and the accusation carries no heat—only exhausted acknowledgment of facts we both recognize.

‘You pushed her away with one hand while pulling her closer with the other, and you’re surprised she finally ran from the contradiction.’

“I know what I did.” The words taste like ash and regret. “I know exactly what I did.”

The wedding night rises unbidden, a memory I’ve tried to bury beneath layers of denial and strategic forgetting.

I performed my duties. Sarah waited in the bridal suite with expectation written across her features, and the treaty demanded consummation, and I did what was required of me while my wolf howled his protest from somewhere deep inside my skull.

Then I went to Morgan’s room.

She was awake, waiting, her eyes searching my face for truths I couldn’t give her. When she asked if I had touched Sarah, I lied.

And she believed me because she wanted to believe me, because the alternative would have shattered the fragile thing growing between us.

I built our entire relationship on that lie. Every kiss after that night, every whispered promise, every moment of connection was poisoned by the truth I refused to speak.

‘Are we even now?’ The question surfaces from the depths of my self-loathing. ‘She was with Zane. I was with Sarah. Does the betrayal balance somehow?’

‘You’re being naive if you think betrayal works like mathematics,’ Valdric responds flatly. ‘Pain doesn’t cancel out pain—it multiplies.’

He’s right. He’s always right when I least want him to be.

The bond stretches thin across whatever distance separates us, a thread pulled taut to the point of breaking.

I feel Morgan’s absence in my bones. Each day she stays hidden weakens what connects us, and the thought of losing her completely sends panic clawing up my throat.

‘If you had claimed her properly from the beginning,’ Valdric says quietly, ‘she would not have been able to run this far. The bond would have pulled her back to us by now.’

I drain the whiskey and pour another measure, watching the liquid catch lamplight like captured fire.

“When I find her,” I say, and the words come out rough with conviction, “I will claim her in every way our kind recognizes. No more half-measures, no more political calculations, no more protecting her from the reality of what she is to me. She will know that she belongs to me, and I will make certain she never questions it again.”

She circles behind the chair, and I feel her fingers brush across my shoulders.

“Sarah—”

“Let me help you relax.” Her voice drops to something she probably believes sounds seductive. “You’re so tense, Paul. Whatever burdens you’re carrying, you don’t have to carry them alone. That’s what a Luna is for—to share her Alpha’s weight.”

Her hands slide down my chest, and I close my eyes involuntarily.

Pretend she’s Morgan, some desperate part of my brain suggests. Just this once, imagine the hands belong to the woman you actually want.

But the scent is wrong. The touch is wrong. Everything about this moment screams wrongness so loudly that my wolf recoils with visceral rejection.

I stand abruptly, the pillow falling away as I put distance between us. Sarah’s expression flickers with surprise, then hardens into calculation I’ve learned to recognize.

“Don’t touch me again without invitation.” The words come out edged with revulsion I cannot fully conceal. “I have responsibilities that don’t include pretending affection I don’t feel, and I suggest you find other ways to occupy your evenings.”

Sarah’s eyes narrow, but before she can respond, another figure appears in the doorway.

Zane stands with tension radiating from every line of his body, his gaze darting between me and Sarah with an expression I cannot immediately read.

“Paul.” His voice carries an urgency that cuts through the awkward aftermath of Sarah’s rejection. “I need to speak with you privately. Now.”

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