Page 261 of Alpha Mates

One weekend. One night. One promise. A promise that he broke.

“Never ever?”

“Never ever. No matter what, even if you beg me to. I will always be with you.”

For as long as I have known myself, there has been Max. First as bitter companion in the Goddess’s Plains, then as foe here, and finally as my mate. But he had always been there in some form, and promised me that he always would be. Only, when it came down to it, when it really mattered, he wasn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Max starts, inching forward. His movements are careful, tentative. He’s afraid I’ll run, but I can’t move anymore. I’m trapped within our lifetime of memories, and I don’t know how to escape this with him still holding my aching heart. “I’m so sorry.”

“You said you would never leave!” I cry as my legs tremble beneath me. It’s all bubbling up now, and there’s no stopping it from boiling over my jagged edges, but I try. “You promised.”

He didn’t have to. I never asked him to. But he’d given me something I never craved until it was in my grasp—a promise of forever, a promise of companionship. But then he took it back.

“Never ever.”

My knees hit the dirt, and I let them. Max follows, dropping in front of me to pull me into his chest. I try pushing him away, but it’s a lost battle from the moment his skin touches mine.

My body heats, ignited by the connection I haven’t felt in so long, and suddenly crave with disappointing desperation. It makes my shoves weak and my fists slack.

My body gives up before I do, slouching into him as it all comes pouring out.

“You promised … youpromised,” I wail, sobbing into his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers again and again. “I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You left me.” Like I was nothing. Likewewere nothing.

“I didn’t want to. It was Aiden,” he says, but the excuse is like salt over my fresh wounds. I shake my head, straining against his rigid grasp. “We needed to go. Heneeded us to leave, Alex.”

“You left me!” I snap as something inside of me does the same and affords me the strength to shove him off. I scramble back until the space between us is what it should be—enough for me to breathe on my own. “You. Left. Me.You!You were mad, like Aiden was, and you pushed me out!”

I’m heaving now and I can’t make myself stop. “You could have reached out, come forward to talk to me, but you left me alone, and then youleft. You said you wouldn’t, b-but you did.”

“Alex …” Max pleads with a surge of tears. I force my own away as I glare down at him. He has had enough of mine. “Please, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

It hurts. It’s as if he sinks his claws into my heart in his efforts to keep it. Life isn’t supposed to hurt this much. I’m sure of that.

“Alex,” Max weeps. The sight of him—on his knees, breaking—only makes it worse.

I hate this feeling, hate how empty he could make me feel even when he’s so close. More than any of that, though, I hate myself—for trusting him, for loving him … forstillloving him.

Before, our love felt so innocent, even if we were aged beings. It was so new—its edges so undiscovered—that it’d felt impossible to imagine it ever being infected by any ofthis.We had barely spent time together since discovering we were mates, but it hadn’t mattered to us when we knew it was only a matter of time before we’d learn everything there was to know and then everything else.

Why make ourselves the focus when Julian and Aiden already had so many demons to contend with? We would find one another when the time was right, learn one another, love one another … but then …

“You didn’t even give us a chance,” I sob, feeling terribly small and alone.

“I know. I know, and I’m so sorry,” Max cries as he crawls forward. I try to escape him, but he reaches me first. In his grasp once again, he takes my face in his hands, imploring me to look at him.

“I’m so sorry, Alexander, I’m so, so sorry,” he says over and over again, but none fix it. “I should have fought harder for you. I should have stayed. Please forgive me. I’m dying without you—we’re all suffering without you.”

His voice breaks, dark eyes tormented. “You can’t—you can’t let yourself fade away. I love you. Baby,I love you.” He presses our foreheads together, letting his trembling breaths brush against my skin. “Come back. Pleasedon’t go again. I know I left, and I don’t deserve it, but please … stay.”

I clench my eyes in a hopeless attempt to reacquaint myself with some fraction of the cold, but even in this fabricated darkness, Max fills the void. His words do, his warmth does, his love does, but it’s not like it used to be.

For every good thing, some inked web is wrapped around us, every memory tainted, and I’m so tired because everything hurts.