When My Mate Chose His Mistress Over Our Pup

The champagne flutes on my tray caught the chandelier light like tiny trapped stars. I moved through the crowd the way I'd learned to move through everything in this house—invisible, efficient, forgettable. My back ached. My feet throbbed in the cheap flats I'd bought three sizes too big so no one would notice the swelling. The oversized servant's uniform hung off my frame like a tent, which was the point. No one could see the curve of my belly underneath all that fabric.

No one was supposed to know.

Across the ballroom, Tobias stood at the center of a circle of visiting Alphas, his hand resting on Mara's shoulder. She wore silk—deep emerald green, cut low across the back. I recognized it immediately. It had been mine once, years ago, before I'd packed away everything that marked me as Eloise Knight and became just another faceless Omega in the Silverclaw Pack House.

Mara caught my eye over the rim of her champagne glass. Her smile was slow and deliberate.

Then she tipped her wrist.

The glass tumbled in slow motion, champagne arcing through the air in a golden spray that splattered across the marble floor. Gasps rippled through the nearby guests. Mara's hand flew to her mouth in mock horror.

"Oh no," she said, loud enough to carry. "How clumsy of me."

Tobias turned, frowning at the mess. His eyes found me immediately—not with concern, but with the flat expectation of a man who'd just identified the person responsible for fixing his problem.

"Eloise," Mara called, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "Be a dear and clean this up, won't you?"

I set down my tray and crossed the floor, my pulse steady and slow. I'd done this a thousand times. Humiliation didn't sting anymore when you stopped expecting anything else.

I knelt with the towels, soaking up champagne while designer heels stepped carefully around me. Mara crouched beside me, close enough that her perfume—something expensive and cloying—made my stomach turn.

"You look tired," she murmured, her voice pitched low enough that only I could hear. "All that serving. It must be exhausting, playing slave in the house that should've been yours."

I didn't answer. I never did.

She leaned closer. "He doesn't even see you anymore, does he? You're just part of the furniture now."

I wrung out the towel into the bucket and stood. My hands didn't shake. I'd learned that too.

"The kitchen needs more ice," Mara said, louder now, for the benefit of anyone listening. "The cubed kind, from the walk-in freezer. Not the crushed. You know how particular the guests are."

I nodded and turned toward the kitchen.

The walk-in freezer sat at the back of the industrial kitchen, a massive steel box that hummed with cold. I pulled open the heavy door and stepped inside, my breath misting immediately in the frigid air. Rows of metal shelves lined the walls, stacked with supplies. I scanned for the ice.

The door slammed shut behind me.