Page 115 of Alpha Mates

My heart thunders, beating too fast, filling too quickly, as if it can’t decide between hope and fury.

“You’re alpha now. You’ve done it,” my mother adds with a hopeful smile. “You’ve secured your place. We don’t need to worry any longer.”

I stare at the pair of them. I feel numb almost, but only on the surface. Inside, my soul is dragged into so much anger and sadness that it envelopes me without warning or mercy. Because this is all I wanted for so terribly long and yet, even placed before me, it doesn’t fix everything else.

I’d never wanted to be alpha. I’d never wanted to secure my place. I’d told them as much during the endless nights of training, of being tested on my pack’s history over and over again in a quarter of the time Oliver had. I’d begged them not to make me, and all I’d gotten was their anger as they told me to stop running from my responsibilities.

The pack came first. The pack came before our wants, and it came before our family.

They taught me that, hounded it in until nothing else was left between us, and now they wanted to create something new? To pave a new road as if the cracked foundations wouldn’t remain beneath it?

“I have to go,” I say, moving towards the door. “I have to visit the armouries today, and Beckett is waiting.”

“Okay,” my mother says as she follows after me. “Maybe you can come to dinner?”

“Maybe,” I say. But I won’t, and they know it.

I stare aimlessly at the blueprints in front of me while my pen taps my untouched notepad.

Baxton and Felix were updating us on the construction of the new pack house, but I hadn’t heard a word of it.

Aiden’s luna. My parents said no one thought that was the case, but if they could put it together, then others would too. If they hadn’t yet, there would come a time when they would. It would make things difficult, but I could get ahead of it and deal with it before it spread.

But that isn’t what plagues my thoughts. It’s imagining what would happen if Aiden heard of it.

What if someone, or time on its own, niggled the thought into his head? What if he stopped seeing me as an equal?

“Julian?”

I blink past my flaring thoughts to meet the questioning stares of everyone around me. When I look at my mate, his brows are drawn together above his shades.

“Sorry, what?” I ask, straightening in my seat.

“They’re proposing an extra floor for more rooms, mainly for orphaned kids who might need it,” Aiden explains smoothly, but I can feel the worry seeping into our bond.

I nod. “That’s a good idea, just be sure to include enough bathrooms for those extra numbers.”

“Already included in the blueprint,” Baxton says, smiling kindly as he taps the page.

“Right.” I pull the paper towards me so I can scan it. “Is there anything else?”

“No, I believe we covered it all,” Felix says. He looks between Aiden and me. “Unless you had any more notes.”

“I’m all good,” Aiden replies, his eyes still fixated on me. “Julian?”

“I’m fine, but these are some concerns and queries from the pack,” I say, tearing the page free I had forgotten about for the duration of the meeting. “If you’ve addressed some already, ignore them. For the rest, I’ll pass by the site tomorrow morning, and we can have a quick talk.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Baxton and Felix reply in unison before heading off.

The moment the door closes behind them, Aiden’s on his feet and coming towards me.

“You okay?” he asks. “You’ve been zoning out all day.”

“I’m fine,” I say, gathering the papers in front of me. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Aiden. I’m sure.” I reach to stack his papers, but he slides his fingers over mine. I look up and see the worry etched into him. He’s tense in the shoulders, and that’s for me, but there’s an anxiousness too that’s been there for days now. Ever since his dad called him out, Aiden’s been on edge, as if he’s waiting for something to go wrong and wants to be right there to stop it.