The Alpha CEO’s Unloved Wife

Escape Plans 

Baron rose with the dawn, dressing with the golden light over him like a benediction. She watched him, wondering how something so beautiful could be the source of so much pain. He saw that she was awake and came to sit on the side of the bed, putting his hand onto her shoulder.

“It is a small thing, Jane,” he told her firmly. “My grandfather was murdered, his fortune stolen, my family’s pack scattered, and my family was cast out in poverty. These things happen to us in life. It would be nice if they did not, but they do. If my family can rise from their losses, and my mother and father still stand proud amongst their peers knowing all that was said of them, then you too can rise above this.

“Take today to recover, rest, but tomorrow night, I expect you to be ready to go out, do you understand, Jane?” He tilted his head until she had no choice but to meet his eyes. “Say: yes Baron.”

“Yes Baron,” she repeated obediently, hating him.

“Good,” he squeezed her shoulder and rose. “I will see you at dinner tonight.”

She lay in bed and thought on what he had said. A photo compared to the loss of a loved one, fortune, pack, and pride, seemed like a small thing, in theory, but the reality was that its repercussions would be felt for years, she knew. That was what pack life was like.

There would never be a time that she could walk into a gathering and not see sly looks and hands covering whispered gossip. Men would see the exposure of her body in that photo as invitation to touch and indecently proposition her. Her children would come to her after being teased about it by their peers.

As an omega, she was a victim who could not defend herself, and her alpha husband, who could offer some protection, openly kept and paraded his alpha mistress and so might as well have publicly declared his indifference to her. She was prey, set amongst natural predators. And they would prey, and prey, and prey until she was stripped to the bone.

his gaze politely averted. “Madam,” he said. “If I may speak freely. Bullies feed off the reactions of their victims. At the moment

are a beta,” she replied. “You do not understand what it is

replied. “And I understand what it is to be in a lesser social position. Think on

berating her for bringing shame on them. Late in the evening, around the time that

telling her tersely not to worry about returning. She

next week, entering her credit card details from memory. She had lost her job, but she would try again, from another direction,

an escape from her situation, she just had to

and sat picking at her lunch tray and reading

tray. “I can return, madam,

him, carefully keeping her screen angled away

worked on the computer following the course material to begin building her resume, though it was frightfully thin on information: her contact details, her education, and the course she

be discouraged. She had won that first job

bed, lying awake and trying not to

came in, as if it were a normal thing to do. He undressed, hanging his clothing over the back of the chair, and slid into the bed, his skin coming up against

his skin against hers as he descended, before lifting her legs over his shoulders. She arced, her eyes closing, her fingers pulling at the sheets, gathering them tightly

pressed off her heels, arching her back,