Two Alphas, Two Babies, One Mate

"Mommy, why am I a spotted leopard?" my daughter asked, swishing her newly awakened spotted tail. Ice flooded my veins.

My husband, Vance, is the pureblood alpha of the black panther shifters. For years, I had paraded around his territory.

Because I gave him heirs, I had the audacity to make him shift into his panther form just so I could ride him around like a tamed mount.

But now… A series of floating, malicious comments flashed before my eyes, scrolling rapidly like a hostile livestream chat: [What a dumb bitch!

She doesn't even know she slept with the wrong guy, and she's making the top alpha raise a bastard!] [The alpha's first love is already back.

The second he realizes he's been cuckolded, he's going to throw her to a pack of wild beasts to be ripped to shreds!] Right on cue, Vance shifted.

The massive black panther materialized with practiced ease, lowering his sleek, muscular body to the floor right in front of me. He waited for me to climb onto his back.

My lungs seized.

I stumbled backward, my heels catching on the rug as my spine hit the cold wall. "I'm not riding you," I choked out, my chest heaving. "Not ever again." Chapter 1 I rolled my eyes.

These mysterious floating words, looking exactly like comments from internet haters, had been following me around for three days. They spewed nothing but vicious, baseless garbage.

If the kids weren't Vance's, then whose could they possibly be? I looked down at the massive black panther in front of me.

His sleek coat gleamed like liquid satin in the evening sun. In his human form, Vance was as cold as a glacier. But in his beast form, he was much more obedient.

He never made a sound, no matter how much I messed with him. Defying the haters' complaints, I let a slow smirk touch my lips.

I lifted my bare foot and pressed it right against the panther's fuzzy ears, rubbing and stepping down repeatedly. "Hey, keep your head still!" The black panther only let out a heavy snort.

He tilted his head away slightly, then brought it right back. Finally, he closed his golden eyes in resignation. He was pushed to the edge of his tolerance, yet helpless against me.

After all, if he so much as frowned at me on a normal day, I would threaten to pack up the kids and leave his territory.

It wasn't my fault his noble alpha black panther bloodline was notoriously difficult to breed. And me? I had popped out two powerful bloodline heirs for him in one go.

My status was secured by my children, giving me the ultimate leverage to treat this apex predator like a glorified riding horse.

The floating comments exploded in a meltdown [What kind of decent woman acts like this?

She's flashing everyone when she lifts her leg!] [The male lead is so disgusted by her he won't even look at her.

He only acts like a living, breathing person when he's around the female lead.] [How can a dignified alpha allow himself to be humiliated like this?!

No wonder he threw her to a pack of wild beasts the second he found out the kids weren't his…] I scoffed.

I was just about to swing my leg over his broad back when my gaze accidentally flicked toward the second floor. A small spotted leopard padded out of Eden's bedroom.

She squeezed her little body between the balcony railings, staring down at us with wide eyes. Tawny fur. Black rosettes. Her tail flicked back and forth in nervous, jerky movements.

Ice flooded my veins. My foot slipped. I practically collapsed backward onto the sofa, sitting up ramrod straight.

I shot a frantic, wideeyed look at my daughter, silently screaming at her to get back into her room.

Noticing my sudden stillness, the massive black panther snapped his golden eyes open.

He stared at me, his gaze unreadable. "What is it?" His deep voice rumbled. "Do you need me to lower myself more?" I swallowed hard. My vocal cords trembled. "I'm not riding you.

Not ever again…" Vance's fluid shift back to human form ended with him towering over me.

His dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "What's wrong?" I glued my eyes to the floor, terrified to meet his gaze. "Nothing.

Just go do your own thing." Vance's brow furrowed, a flicker of irritation crossing his face—just like the haters in the comments said, annoyed by my erratic behavior.

But he didn't bother pressing the issue. "Suit yourself." He turned toward the stairs. "I'll go check on Eden and Rosie then. They're due to awaken their beast forms soon.

I need to keep a close eye on them…" I lunged forward, throwing my entire body across the bottom of the staircase to block his path. "No need! They're asleep. Played hard today.

Crashed early." "Then I'll read them a bedtime story." "Also no need. You've been working hard all day. You're exhausted. Let me do it." His gaze slowly slid back to my face.

His dark eyes were razorsharp, slicing right through me. Sweat gathered on my palms under his intense scrutiny.

I forced a bright, fake smile, playing the considerate wife. "Didn't your friends ask you to hit the club with them last time?

You should go." I babbled, the words rushing out of my mouth. "Even though we're married, you need your own social life.

You can't just revolve around me and the kids after work." His frown deepened, carving a harsh line between his brows. "Are you sure?" I nodded my head vigorously, practically giving myself whiplash to prove my sincerity. "Fine." He let out a dark, cynical chuckle.

He snatched his jacket off the rack and stormed out the door. Chapter 2 [LOL, she's actually trying the "hard to get" routine.

Too bad Vance doesn't give a damn about her.] [Vance is such a good dad.

He's only tolerated this woman for the sake of the kids until he's completely numb.] [Only the female lead can actually make him feel something.

No matter how much this sidecharacter throws a tantrum, it's all useless.] [Hehe, keep it up, Sloane!

Your little stunt is just going to push Vance right into the female lead's arms sooner.] Knowing my actions were actually fasttracking him to another woman made my stomach twist into a knot.

My first instinct was to scream his name, haul him back here, and tell him to stay ten miles away from any other woman. But I forced myself to stay still.

I gripped the edge of the cold glass window, watching as Vance's car disappeared down the driveway. My chest throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache.

Over four years of marriage, and no matter how much of a nightmare I acted like, I couldn't crack his icy exterior. I couldn't provoke a single spark of genuine emotion.

That was why I'd spent these years becoming more and more unbearable—I was desperately trying to tear through that suffocating layer of indifference he wrapped himself in.

I turned away and headed to the second floor. The moment I pushed the door open, a small spotted leopard lunged at me.

Eden swiped her rosettecovered tail against my legs, letting out a pitiful whimper. "Mommy, I'm sick! Look!" she cried, her voice trembling. "My tail is the wrong color.

It's covered in these circles… It looks nothing like Daddy's.

Mommy, am I going to die?" Rosie, who hadn't awakened her beast form yet, came running over on her toddler legs and clung to my knees. My breath hitched.

I stared at my two daughters, my mind spinning. Their eyes, their mouths—they were carbon copies of Vance. I couldn't wrap my head around it. How could they not be his?

And how on earth were they leopards? I was from the rabbit tribe. Vance came from a line of purebred black panthers going back eighteen generations.

There was no biological way for us to produce a spotted leopard. It all went back to that night. I had been secretly in love with Vance for seven years.

I was finally ready to confess when I overheard that he had someone else in his heart. Then, my heat hit.

My foxshifter best friend saw how miserable I was and dragged me to a club to blow off some steam. "Let's go order the most expensive VIP escort," she'd urged, shoving a drink into my hand. "Or better yet, find an elite male stripper who looks exactly like Vance to be your rebound for the night." I downed another glass, shaking my head.

A man with Vance's godtier looks would never be working as a stripper in a place like this. I was wrong. The second the manager led the man in, my eyes were glued to him.

The resemblance was uncanny. The rest of the night was a blurred, feverish haze. Halfway through, the reality of what I was doing started to sink in.

While the man was in the bathroom, I tried to make a break for it.

I didn't make it past the hallway before he cut me off. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

I bit my lip, my heart hammering against my ribs as I took in his cold expression.

After a second of hesitation, I reached out and shoved a thick stack of hundreddollar bills directly into the space between his tensed abs and the edge of his leather belt.

I stood on my tiptoes and bit his thin lower lip, following it up with a sharp, insulting smirk. "Take the money and get lost," I hissed. "And don't let me see your face again." I didn't even finish the sentence before he took control, deepening the kiss until I couldn't breathe.

He hauled me back into the room. We didn't stop until the sun started to peak through the curtains. The next morning, sunlight hit the devastatingly familiar face lying next to me.

My lungs seized. "I thought I ordered a stripper!" I blurted out. "What are you doing here?" Vance's face went pitch black.

He let out a dark, mocking laugh. "Is that so?" he said, his voice dripping with venom. "Then I suppose I've truly disappointed you, Miss Sloane." Chapter 3 He dressed in stony silence.

The rigid lines of his muscular back radiated cold rejection. Being tossed aside like a used toy instantly ignited my temper.

I clamped my jaw shut, swallowing the bitter ache in my throat, and opened my mouth to fire back. My mind hit a solid wall.

I realized with a sick drop in my stomach that my memory of the night was wiped clean.

I couldn't figure out how, after getting just a little buzzed during my heat, I actually went through with everything I'd only dared to imagine in my dirty dreams.

The next time we met, I was staring at a positive pregnancy test. We sat across from each other at a formal sitdown between our families, negotiating a shotgun wedding.

He wore a frigid, strictlybusiness expression the entire time. I kept my head down, sweating with guilt. Just like that, we got hitched in a chaotic blur.

Thinking back now, there were a lot of details from that night that didn't add up. For instance, when Vance cornered me in the hallway, why had he specifically changed his clothes?

I chewed on that thought for a long time. Taking a deep breath, I crouched down to eye level with the girls.

I fixed them with a deadserious look. "Babies, Mommy needs to tell you something." I paused. "Daddy… might not be your biological dad." Eden tilted her head, her face a picture of confusion.

Her immediate response was to ask, "But are you our real mom?" I nodded frantically. "Of course I am!" Eden gave a solemn, adultlike nod. "Then that's all that matters.

I don't have any other questions." Rosie, happily chewing on her thumb, bobbed her head in agreement. "All that matters!" A tight sensation gripped my throat. They just accepted it?

Just like that? These two definitely didn't inherit my anxiety. It seemed their mystery baby daddy was just as cool under pressure as Vance.

Eden had just awakened her beast form, so she couldn't shift back and forth smoothly yet.

She managed to force herself back into her human body, but that spotted tail stubbornly refused to retract. Vance despised liars more than anything.

If he found out the kids weren't his… My mind flashed to the haters' comments about being thrown to a pack of wild beasts. A violent shudder wrecked my spine.

I looked down at a strand of my own dyed pink hair, and a crazy idea hit me. Half an hour later, I marched Eden into an exclusive, highend salon.

The manager escorted us straight toward the VIP lounge. "Are you absolutely sure this organic blackberry dye is safe for children's skin?" I asked, pushing the door open. I froze.

Someone was already sitting inside. The second I recognized the silhouette, the words died in my throat. The man lounged on the plush leather sofa.

His long legs were casually crossed at the ankles, his head bowed as he tapped on his phone. The sharp, striking lines of his profile were terrifyingly familiar.

He looked almost exactly like Vance. He lifted his head at the sound of my voice. His lazy gaze swept over the swaying little shadow behind Eden before finally locking onto my face.

In a split second, Eden's spotted tail whipped forward and tucked itself safely inside her jacket. My stomach dropped. I shoved Eden behind my legs and pivoted, ready to bolt.

Jaxon stood up. He flashed a perfectly harmless, charming smile. "Sloane. What a coincidence." Jaxon. Vance's cousin. A spotted leopard shifter. We'd only met once, at my wedding.

He had been completely wasted that night. The gossip going around was that the woman he was in love with had just gotten married to someone else.

He had spent the entire reception toasting Vance, bitterly jealous that his cousin actually got to marry the woman he wanted. Listening to him had made my chest ache.

What mutual love? The whole thing was completely onesided.

If it weren't for that reckless onenight stand and the resulting pregnancy, Vance never would have looked twice at me. "Yeah. Coincidence." I kept a sharp eye on his expression.

Finding nothing but polite charm, I let out a microscopic breath. He had been staring at his phone. He probably didn't see anything.

I was furiously racking my brain for an excuse to run when the salon director walked up with a clipboard, oblivious to the tension. "So, we're dyeing the little girl's spotted leopard tail completely black today?" Chapter 4 The air flatlined in the room.

I whipped my head to gauge Jaxon's reaction. But he just leaned down with a lazy smile and ruffled Eden's hair.

His gaze felt physical, like it could strip away her jacket and see the spotted leopard tail hiding underneath.

Just as my nerves were about to snap and I was ready to confess everything, he chuckled. "Kids will be kids." He shook his head fondly. "When I was little, I idolized my cousin so much that I stole my mom's hair dye to color myself like a black panther." He winked at Eden. "We look so much alike, even the adults couldn't tell us apart once.

Did Eden decide to give her tail a little makeover too?" Relief crashed over me. I nodded frantically. "Yes!

Exactly!" I babbled. "She was just messing around with the other shifter kids at preschool… I brought her straight here to dye it back." "Having colored fur in preschool?

Out of the question." Right on cue, a staff member walked over to let him know the lead stylist was ready. Jaxon waved them off. "I'm in no rush.

Let Eden go first." He glanced up, flashing me a warm, blinding smile. My impression of him instantly skyrocketed.

A stylist whisked Eden into the back room, leaving just the two of us in the VIP lounge. I sank back into the sofa, staring blankly at a glossy magazine. The words blurred together.

The air grew thick with awkward tension. I stole a covert glance at Jaxon. He was looking down at his phone again.

The overhead lights cast sharp shadows across the harsh angles of his jaw. He really did look exactly like Vance. Especially the eyes. And that mouth.

Then it hit me like a freight train. He was a spotted leopard shifter. A terrifying, insane theory flashed through my brain. But… no. That was impossible.

We met for the very first time at my wedding. Even if things went south on my wedding night, the timeline for the pregnancy didn't add up at all. Screw it.

I was just going to ask him pointblank. I chewed on my lower lip. "Hey, did you…" The heavy glass doors swung open. Vance walked in. A woman was right beside him.

Her long hair was tangled tightly around the buttons of his tailored coat, forcing them to stand pressed together in an intimately awkward position.

The sight felt like acid splashed directly into my eyes.

All the vicious comments from those haters couldn't compare to the physical gutpunch of seeing them tangled up together in real life. Our eyes locked.

Vance stared at me, his expression a wall of absolute ice.

The floating text wasn't going to miss this prime opportunity to kick me while I was down: [Ooh, I wonder how her hair got tangled on his coat.

So hard to guess~] [This evil bitch is so insanely jealous. She's definitely going to bully our sweet female lead now.] [This is the exact showdown!

The sidecharacter throws a tantrum and slaps the female lead in public, and the alpha immediately orders his men to break her hand!] The comments were waiting for me to lose my mind, popping popcorn for my tragic downfall.

I twitched the corner of my mouth. Then, I forced a wide, chillingly calm smile. I snatched a pair of sharp styling scissors from a nearby counter and stalked slowly toward them.

Snip. I sliced cleanly through the tangled strands of hair with one brutal chop. Ignoring the woman's instantly frozen face, I slapped the severed lock directly into Vance's palm.

I curled my red lips into a razorsharp smirk. "Keep your little stray on a tighter leash," I sneered. "Snapping off a few split ends is no big deal, but pissing me off?

That's a real problem." Chapter 5 Maybe my arrogant reputation was too deeply rooted. He probably thought I was just being a bitch again. Vance's face darkened into a thunderstorm.

His hand snapped out, gripping my wrist tight enough to grind the bones. "Work is done for the day. Let's go home together," he commanded. "The kids are stuck with the nanny.

They're probably crying for us by now." My stomach tightened at the mention of the girls.

Eden's dye job wasn't finished yet… Behind me, Jaxon took a step forward. "Getting styled alone is a total drag.

Sloane already promised to stay here and keep me company." Vance's expression turned murderous.

He stared at me, his voice dropping an octave. "You're staying here with him?" The floating malicious comments materialized in the air: [At least this evil bitch knows her place.

She's staying behind to give the male and female leads some alone time.] [What else can she do?

Vance is going to dump her sooner or later and throw her to a pack of wild beasts to be ripped to shreds anyway.] Something suffocating settled in my chest.

I wrenched my wrist out of Vance's grip and took a calculated step back, physically aligning myself with Jaxon. "Yes," I said flatly. "I promised him." "Fine.

Sloane, you're just perfect." Vance's eyes darkened as he darted a lethal look between the two of us. A muscle jumped in his jaw before he turned on his heel and stormed out.

The woman threw me a calculating glance before jogging to catch up with him. They arrived together, and they left together. Jaxon tilted his head.

His expression was a weird mix of regret and smugness, impossible to read. "Sloane, I think Vance is mad at you because of me. Sorry about that.

I just figured you needed an excuse to stay and wait for Eden." I didn't overthink it. I gave him a casual nod and a grateful smile before turning toward the restroom.

I couldn't tell if it was guilt or some other heavy emotion clogging my throat, leaving me no way to vent.

I splashed freezing water on my face, taking a full minute to compose myself before stepping back into the hallway. The corridor stretched out, empty and hollow.

I pulled out my phone, and my eyes immediately dulled. The last text was still from yesterday when Vance went out with his friends. He had messaged me that he'd be back by seven.

I told him not to rush, to have fun. He never replied. And he never came home last night. In the past, he never left me on read. He always had to have the last word.

But the second this socalled fated female lead showed up, everything shifted. I trudged back down the hall, lost in my own head.

As I passed a supply closet, the door suddenly ripped open from the inside. A massive hand clamped around my arm, hauling me into the pitchblack space.

My spine slammed hard against the wall, rattling my teeth. Before a scream could even tear from my throat, a heavy palm crushed over my mouth, pinning my head back.

In the suffocating gloom, Jaxon's face hovered mere inches from mine.

A crisp, chillingly familiar scent invaded my lungs, teasing my memory, though I couldn't pin down exactly where I'd smelled it before.

Those eyes—so terrifyingly identical to Vance's—had lost all their polite, harmless charm.

What replaced it was a dark, obsessive hunger. "Sloane," he breathed against my skin. "Eden and Rosie are my daughters. Aren't they