Page 227 of Alpha Mates

The first time I “lost it,” I didn’t know what the hell to do. I was on edge, I was scared of everything, and every bit of terror twisted itself into violence. My parents didn’t know what was wrong with me, let alone how to dealwith me. They wanted to be there for me, kind of, but when I attacked every person who inched near me for an entire month, they started backing away too.

When it only got worse, I’d done the only thing I thought I could at the time. I ran.

I didn’t want to burden my parents because, back then, I was still naïve enough to think their love for me hadn’t changed, but it had. They got their son back, but he came with red eyes and uncontrollable rage.

I somehow found my way straight back to the place where my dad first rescued me and put my torment to an end. He’d killed them all, left behind a bloody mess, and that was exactly what I’d stumbled back on to. Ruins of an old mill with dried blood pooled in the corners and splattered across the walls.

It’d been like a match to fuel. The memories came crashing back, suffocating me with all the anger and fear that had been waiting to be released since the day they first took me. And for once, I let it out. I’d thrown the first punch, broke something, and that was all it took.

I started breaking everything—anything I could reach—and by the end, nothing was left but debris and cracked foundations. Destroying the place that had destroyed me was a cure of sorts. It didn’t erase the rage, but it dulled it. So I went home, locked the rest of it away behind my stone walls, and for the first time in months, I felt peace.

That’s how it started. Whenever something would push me back to my past, I would come back and take my anger out on what remained. Itworked—until there was nothing left to break. That’s when I started building, and somehow, that worked too. It became routine—I’d stay secluded, work through my issues, then go back home.

But this time was different. Worse—because there was Julian.

I thought I could outwork it. Keep busy and it would simmer down, but no matter what I did, nothing faded. The pain just dug deeper and promised to keep going until I found him again.

The moment I saw him, it finally stopped.

After so long apart, seeing him had cleared that darkness in an instant. I knew then that he was the only way I’d get better this time.

It was just my luck that my cure was the reason I was here in the first place.

Grabbing my axe from the floor, I breathe deep before I let it fall.

The moment I open the door, Julian lifts his head from between his bent knees. His reddened eyes meet mine and I catch his mournful expression before I look away.

At least he isn’t crying anymore. Seeing Julian in tears had a way of weakening my defences until it was like they’d never been there at all.

Shutting the door, I lock the darkness of the night outside and cage us in together. His gaze follows every move I make, sharp and unrelenting, while silence hangs between us.

I need a break from it already. I quickly grab some clothes and shut the bathroom door behind me.

The door’s latch barely clicks into place before agony screeches through my body. My chest seizes, my heart clamped in a vice that makes Max howl miserably. The world sways as I try to think past the pain that is horribly familiar—too familiar.

I wrench the door open with trembling hands and sag as relief floods me, just like the very first day we found out we were mates and realised we couldn’t stand even a wall between us.

Julian clings to the bed frame, panting. He shakes, slowly sinking back down with a sigh of relief. I take a single step forward. I want to touch him, to comfort him, but there’s an ocean between us and I don’t know how to cross it.

“Aiden,” he whispers. I’m already turning away.

I slip back into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar like we used to, and somehow that hurts more than anything else.

I fight the urge to go to him, undressing instead before stepping under the shower’s spray. I let out an exhausted breath as the steaming hot water slides down my back, relaxing my shoulders in whatever small way it can.

We can’t be apart, again. How far we’d come just to fall …

With our bond in the state it is, it only makes sense that we’re slipping back to square one, but that doesn’t make it any less devastating.

I scrub myself clean, using more force than usual as if that might help, but it doesn’t. It just leaves me with too-raw skin that chafes as I pull my clothes on. Julian’s in the same place I left him when I step out. His eyes find me immediately. I glance over him, linger on his jutting bones, before I head towards the small kitchen.

Seeing him so weak is its own form of torture. Worse when I know it’s my fault.

Things went to shit and I ran. I left him alone, and look what he’d become.

I shouldn’t have gone—shouldn’t have stayed away for so long. I wouldn’t have if I’d known it would pull him apart like this, but I was only thinking of myself, and now Julian is…

I make him another sandwich. Two, actually. It’s all I can make with what’s here, but it’ll do.