Page 214 of Alpha Mates

Beckett lifts a hand in surrender. “I have two alphas, and only one told me to do something.”

“Get your car ready,” I instruct Beckett. “We’re leaving.”

“We are not,” Julian snaps, but they’re already on their feet and moving. “Guys! Get back here!”

On any other day, they’d side with him, but they can feel how volatile I am through the bond. Right now, they’re more afraid of pissing me off than they are of him.

Julian’s glare bores into their backs, then deepens into something venomous when he redirects it at me.

“What are you doing?” he hisses.

“Taking you home,” I reply with as much composure as I can. “You shouldn’t be out here. None of you should be out here.”

“So it’s okay when you take us out, but we can’t come out on our own?” he assesses with a feigned nod.

“That’s not what I said,” I start, but Julian carries on.

“And now you want me home after telling me all month to ‘have fun’,” he quotes with his fingers. “Which do you want me to do, Aiden? It’s getting confusing.”

He stares at me, waiting for a response, but it’s hard to muster one when he looks at me like that. There’s so much anger in his eyes, and under it, the hurt I put there.

“You’re right, okay?” I say, my voice soft because my heart bleeds for him. “But you can be right and angry at home. Let’s go home.”

I reach for his hand, but Julian tears it away before I can touch him.

“I don’t want to go home,” he sneers. “I’m good right here.”

He isn’t drunk, not nearly—a little tipsy, sure, but not enough to slur his words or blur his thoughts. But he’s tipsy and mad and that’s not a good mix.

“Julian—”

“No,” he snaps, his voice dropping a note. “I’m. Good. Right. Here.”

The tension builds between us, fuelled by his hurt and the restlessness coiling under my skin. This isn’t the time or place to fight, but I can tell that’s exactly what Julian intends to do if it gets him what he wants.

“Hey, is everything good here?” someone asks, stepping into our space.

My eyes stay on Julian, trying to will him to get up since he blocked my path to his mind, but he still ignores me.

Instead, he turns to bestow the man with a bright smile.

“We’re all good. Don’t worry,” he replies casually—friendly—and it has my hackles rising in a heartbeat.

I look at the guy for the first time, finding him watching me as ifIam the intruder, and he isn’t the random man my mate is smiling at.

“All’s well,” I grind out.

The fucker doesn’t take the hint to beat it. Instead, he fixes his stance and frowns at me. “It doesn’t look it.”

My fingers spasm, desperate to wrap around flesh, but I clench them instead as I breathe through my rising annoyance.

“We’re good,” Julian says more seriously now, nodding to the man. “Thanks, CJ.”

CJstays where he is, like some protective guardian, and I can tell why. I can fucking smell it.

The twinge of lust in the air coming from him, the look in his eyes when he glances atmymate.

He wants to fuck my mate.