Page 1 of Rival Love

Chapter One

Selena

I walked into the house to the sounds of someone getting pleasured. Pleasured well. Very well. A gaspy sigh chased a deep grunt then both were followed by a stream of obscenities, punctuated by quick panting.

“Oh, God . . . I . . .” Moans mixed with a loud knocking sound, and I giggled.

“Vince, what in the hell are you watching, babe?”

I rounded the wall dividing the kitchen and the living room and skidded to a halt at the scene that assaulted me.

Two things hit me instantly.

One: my husband, Vince, was buried to the hilt in some blond chick he had pressed against the bookcases in our living room.

Two: that blond chick was my twin sister.

“Vera? What the fuck?” I stormed into the living room as the two of them jumped apart.

Vince was bare-chested with his jeans and boxers around his thighs. He struggled to yank them up, but it was far too late. I’d never be able to erase the image of my husband, my fated mate, humping my goddamn sister.

Especially when Vera’s dress was still hiked up around her waist, and she sent me a smug grin that I’d love to shake loose from her face with a baseball bat.

“Home already?” Vera arched an eyebrow at me. “We weren’t quite expecting you yet.”

“Clearly.” I paced the length of the couch. Back and forth, back and forth, trying to comprehend how Vince and Vera could do this to me. I’d been happy with Vince. So happy. We’d been together for five years now. Ever since Lunai, the Moon Goddess, had deemed us mates. My family’s pack, the Romeros, were dying out, a stream of infertiles in the bloodline halting the creation of new werewolves. The ones who were fertile, like my mother, rarely survived giving birth to their firstborns, never mind getting pregnant a second time. Twins were even rarer. Fraternal twins like Vera and I were almost unheard of among the wolves.

But here we were. Two fertile females born into the pack with the potential to carry on the Romero bloodline. Vince’s pack, the Morellis, was known for its fruitful genetic makeup. They saw no risk in taking me on as their Alpha’s mate because surely Vince could get the job done.

Fun fact: To date, the job had not been done.

Not that we hadn’t tried. Oh, how we’d tried. In every single room of this house. On every single surface available. Vince had an insatiable appetite for sex, which normally I loved.

Tonight? Not so much.

And you know what? We had not tried up against the bookcases. He apparently reserved that spot for having affairs.

“I thought we had something special here, something fated.” I gestured between myself and Vince, doing my best to ignore Vera as she righted her dress and finger-combed her hair.

“We did.” Vince cringed and shook his head. “We do, baby. You know I love you.” He gestured toward Vera. “This was a mistake.”

“Speak for yourself,” Vera said. “That was everything I hoped it would be and more.”

This was the point where I could have probably forgiven Vince and blamed the affair entirely on my sister. Unfortunately, instead of telling my sister to get out, instead of falling to his knees and begging for my forgiveness, instead of making me believe our marriage meant everything to him, Vince grinned at Vera over her compliment.

Fucking grinned.

A red haze instantly filled my vision, a key signal that I was about to lose my ever-loving shit in ten seconds. My sister and I were Omegas, second-tier werewolves, not in the running to ever lead a pack and pretty much zero threat to anyone.

But there was something about finding one’s husband with one’s twin sister that flicked a switch in one’s soul. My claws extended from my fingertips at the same time my canines lengthened from my gums. The familiar body tingle vibrated through me as all my senses focused on the two traitors in front of me.

“Selena, cut the shit.” Vince’s Alpha ’tude was turned up to eleven, but I wasn’t having any of that crap. Not tonight.

“I’ve given you five solid years of loyalty,” I said through clenched teeth, my voice getting lower and gravelly. “I thought we were in this marriage together. I believed we were mates.” I blinked back tears. “But our bond apparently meant little to you.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Vince threw his hands out to his sides. “You’re not getting pregnant. As the Alpha of the Morelli pack, I have to produce heirs, Selena. You know this.”

“And you’re blaming me?” My breathing and heart rate had changed to the faster pace of my werewolf form, but I was still human enough to understand Vince’s insinuation. “We’ve already established that the problem is most likely not me, Vince.”