Soraya
"I..." Jordan started, then stopped. His hand came up as he raked his fingers through his dark thick hair. Once, twice, three times.
That gesture. That specific, telltale gesture that made my stomach drop.
Fourteen years of friendship had taught me Jordan's manners. The way he rubbed the back of his neck when he was embarrassed. The slight twitch of his jaw when he was angry but trying to hide it. The way his left eye would narrow just a fraction when he was calculating his next move in pack politics.
But this, this repetitive raking of fingers through hair, the way he couldn't seem to hold still, the pacing that had started without him even realizing it, this was the tell that preceded devastation.
I'd seen it twice before in our lives.
Once, when he was sixteen and had to tell me that his father forbade him from attending my school dance because "it wouldn't look appropriate for the future Alpha to be seen with the Gamma's bastard daughter."
And when his parents died.
"Jordan." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Just say it. Whatever it is, just say it."
"I'm trying." He stopped pacing, facing the window, his broad shoulders rigid with tension. "I'm trying to find the right words."
"There are no right words for this, are there?" I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the room.
"Whatever you're about to tell me, there's no way to make it hurt less."
He turned to face me, and the anguish in his storm-gray eyes was so raw it almost made me want to comfort him. Almost.
"Jordan, you're scaring me. What is it? What's wrong? We've been through everything together. You can tell me anything. You know that." He laughed, a bitter, broken sound.
"Can I? Because I don't think..."
"Jordan." My voice dropped to a whisper. "What did you do?"
"I didn't mean..." He whirled to face me, and the anguish in his eyes nearly brought me to my knees. "You have to understand, it wasn't supposed to happen. It was a mistake. A horrible, unforgivable..."
"JORDAN!" I shouted, and he flinched like I'd struck him. "Stop dancing around it and just SAY IT!"
He opened his mouth, and I braced myself. This was it. The final blow. The thing that would shatter whatever was left of us.
But before he could speak, a voice rang out from downstairs.
"Hello? Anyone home?"
That was Magda. My entire body went rigid, and Jordan's face drained of color.
"I brought something Jordan forgot!" Her melodic voice floated up the stairs, too cheerful, too casual, like she belonged here. Like this was her home. "I know it's late, but I thought he might need it!"
"Up here," I heard myself say. The words came out automatic, robotic, even as my mind screamed at me to stay silent. To not let her in. To not face whatever was about to happen.
Jordan's eyes widened. "Soraya, don't..."
But it was too late. Her footsteps were already on the stairs.
She came to finish what she started, Honey snarled in my mind.
The bedroom door swung open, and there she stood. The designer trench coat was gone, replaced by a simple black dress that clung to her curves in a way that should have been elegant. Her golden hair was pulled back in a loose bun, a few strands framed her perfect face.
And in her hands, she held Jordan's leather jacket, the one he always wore when he travelled. The one that smelled like him, like cedar and rain and everything I'd loved for fourteen years.
"Jordan!" Magda's face lit up with that perfect smile, the one that had charmed everyone our entire lives. "I'm so sorry to intrude, but you left this in my car earlier. I know how much you love this jacket, so I thought I'd bring it by before..."
She stopped mid-sentence, as if just noticing me standing there. "Oh! Soraya. I didn't realize you were both... I'm so sorry. I should have called first."
The saccharine smile she gave me was pure innocence but her cold blue eyes held a cruel glint I was familiar with.
"It's fine, Magda," I heard myself say. My voice sounded normal. Too polite. Like we were discussing the weather and not the implosion of my entire existence. "Thank you for bringing it back."
She stepped into the room, extending the jacket toward Jordan. He took it automatically, his face still ashen, and I watched my stepsister's hand linger on his arm just a moment too long.
"I was telling Mother how wonderful you've been through all of this," Magda continued, her voice soft and grateful. "Grammy's passing has been so hard on all of us, but knowing you're here to help with arrangements... it means everything."
Grammy. She kept calling her Grammy. As if she hadn't ignored our sick grandmother for years while she went off with her friends. As if she hadn't broken the old woman's heart by abandoning her great-granddaughter and disappearing.
"Of course," Jordan mumbled. I could hear the discomfort in his tone. "It's the least I can do."
Magda turned to me then, that innocent smile still in place. "How are you holding up, sis? I know Grammy was... well, she practically raised you, didn't she? This must be so difficult."
Sis. The word dripped with false affection.
And then I saw it.
She'd turned slightly, reaching up to adjust her hair, and the movement pulled her dress taut against her body, against her stomach specifically.
The slight swell wasn't obvious, but I'd spent enough time around pregnant wolves to recognize the signs. Her breasts were fuller and her skin has a luminous glow under the bright chandelier lights. Then her hand had briefly moved to rest on her abdomen before she'd caught herself.
And then there was the scent.
Honey had been restless all evening, confused by something she couldn't quite place about Magda. But now, with my stepsister standing just a few feet away, the truth hit me like a physical blow.
Milk and honey and…
Magda was pregnant. The room spun in my vision and my chest constricted, a sharp, painful inhale that wouldn't complete.
I stumbled backward, my hand flying to my chest as if I could physically hold my heart in place.
"Soraya?" Jordan moved toward me, concern overriding his guilt for just a moment. "Are you okay?"
My legs carried me to the small table near our bedroom window that held a water pitcher and glasses. My hands shook so violently I nearly dropped the pitcher, water sloshing over the rim as I poured.
Breathe. Just breathe. In and out. In and...
But I couldn't.
Because the pieces were clicking into place with horrifying clarity. Jordan's "business trip" to Silver Ridge was about two months ago. The way he'd been distant, guilty, pulling away from me in small, incremental ways I'd told myself were just stress from pack business.
And now Magda was here, pregnant.
Oh goddess. Oh no. No, no, no.
"I should go," Magda said softly, and there was something in her voice, a note of satisfaction barely disguised as concern. She had fulfilled her purpose. "I can see this is a bad time. Jordan, we can discuss those... arrangements... tomorrow."
Arrangements.
The word settled like lead in my stomach.
She gave me one last innocent smile, and as she turned to leave, her hand moved to her stomach again. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to see. Just long enough for me to know she'd meant for me to see.
The sound of her footsteps retreating down the stairs echoed in the silence she left behind.
Jordan stood frozen, the jacket still clutched in his hands, looking at me with an expression I'd never seen before. The look of a man who knew he'd just destroyed everything and had no idea how to fix it.
I set down the water glass before I could drop it. The room spun around me, walls closing in, and I pressed a hand to my sternum, gasping for air that wouldn't come.
"Soraya..." Jordan reached for me.
"Don't." I stumbled toward the side table, my hands shaking so violently I nearly knocked over the water glass. "Don't touch me."
"Soraya, please..."
"You got her pregnant." The words came out flat. Dead. "You got her pregnant."
His silence was answer enough.
"AGAIN?!" The word exploded out of me, and suddenly I was screaming, all the rage and grief and betrayal of five years erupting like a volcano.
"Soraya..."
"While I was HERE!" My voice cracked. "While I was raising Eleanor! While I was being faithful to you! While I was helping you run your pack! While I was loving you with everything I had, you were with HER?!"
My hands were shaking so badly I had to press them against my thighs. My ears were ringing, a high-pitched whine that made it hard to think, hard to process what was happening.
This was worse than divorce. This was worse than when I fell in love with him, only to have them announce their relationship to me as if Jordan hadn't kissed me the month before.
This was... this was...
"How could you?" The question came out as a whisper. "How could you do this to me? To Eleanor? To..."
I stopped myself just in time, my hand flying to my stomach. Our baby. Our baby that I hadn't told him about yet. Our baby that was growing inside me while he was having another child with her.
Jordan took a step forward, one hand outstretched. "Let me explain..."
"DON'T!" I backed away, and he froze. "Don't you dare touch me right now. Don't you dare."
But I could see it on his face. The guilt, yes, but also something else. Desperation.
"It was a mistake, I didn't know how it happened..."
"A MISTAKE?! You got the woman who bullied me my entire life pregnant?! The woman who made every day of my childhood a living hell?! The woman who abandoned your daughter like TRASH?!"
"I'm sorry..." His voice broke. "Raya, I'm so sorry..."
"You were about to tell me." The realization hit like a sledgehammer. "That's what you couldn't say. You were going to tell me you got her pregnant."
The look on his face, guilt, shame, desperation, confirmed it.
"Oh my god." I backed away from him, my hand flying to my mouth. "And then what, Jordan? Then what were you going to ask me to do?"
His silence was damning. And suddenly, with crystal-clear clarity, I understood.
"Oh my goddess." My hand went to my mouth.
"You weren't going to ask for a divorce." The pieces clicked into place with sickening precision. "You were going to ask me to... what? Accept it? Raise this child too? Watch while you... while you..."
I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't put into words the horror of what he'd been about to propose, but I could see it in his eyes. He had been hoping that maybe, just maybe, I would be understanding.
That I would forgive him. That I would do what I always did—put aside my own pain and take care of his mess.
That I would let Magda move in and remain the perfect, patient Luna while he built a family with the woman he actually loved.
"You really thought..." I shook my head in disbelief. "You really thought I would just... accept this? That I would help you raise her child while watching you love her the way you've never loved me?"
"Soraya, please..."
Something inside me snapped. My hand went to my throat, to the delicate silver chain that had rested there for twelve years. The necklace Jordan had given me on my fourteenth birthday, a crescent moon pendant with a tiny diamond at its center, with a promise to always be there for me.
I'd worn it every single day for twelve years.
Through everything. Through Magda stealing him away, through his parents' deaths, through their relationship that should have been mine, through five years of unrequited love. I'd worn his promise around my neck like a collar.
And he'd just shattered that promise into a thousand irreparable pieces.
"Soraya, don't..." Jordan saw what I was about to do, started forward, but it was too late.
I grabbed the necklace and yanked. The chain bit into my skin, burned, and then it snapped, falling to the marble floor.
"Raya..." His voice was anguished as he reached for me. "Please don't do this. We can figure this out. We can..."
"Figure this out?" I stared at him, this stranger wearing my best friend's face. The boy who'd held my hand through my mother's funeral.
The teenager who'd kissed me under the stars. The man who'd promised to choose me. And I didn't know him at all.
I was done waiting, done hoping, done breaking myself into smaller and smaller pieces trying to fit into the space he'd left for me in his heart.
"I gave you everything," I whispered, my hand moving unconsciously to my stomach, to our baby, the one he didn't know about, the one I wasn't sure I could tell him about now. "My heart. My body. My soul. My dreams. My life. I gave you everything I had, Jordan. And it still wasn't enough."
Honey surged forward with a snarl, and my eyes flashed gold. She was angry and she had every right to be. Tonight I had finally learnt something—men like Jordan would never know the value of what they had until they lost it.
"I'll move into the guest wing tomorrow. We'll maintain appearances for the Pack and for Eleanor. But you and I?" I met his eyes. "We're done. I hope she's there for you the way I was. Because I'm done being your anchor."