Page 270 of Alpha Mates

“It’s not fair. That’s why I started trying to bring back my sanity,” he says, continuing as if he’d never stopped at all. “It wasn’t easy, but all you have is time when you’re lost in your own head, after some work, I found a way. I got the voices out, the confusion faded, and finally, I found a way to think clearly all the time and not just on the lucky days.”

“I’ve helped others, you know,” he shares while he circles me like he’s trying to figure out where to hurt me next. I whimper as I squirm away from him. “I’ve helped so many, and in doing so, I’ve made us better than we ever were. We’re free—strong—without the burden of insanity.”

“So why are you hurting me?” I spit angrily, already tired of listening to the stupid man talk without understanding any of it.

“We need you, Aiden,” he says as he stops over my head to gently trace his bloodied finger over my shaking face. “You’re helping us. With you, we can find the next step, and help everyone like us settle into a real pack. Not just scattered numbers running aroundlooking for safety until we’re hunted and killed,” he says with a weird sort of excitement. “A pack. A pack that can help each other be free.”

“That’s stupid,” I say, making him freeze. “Why would you leave a pack to go make a pack as a rogue?”

“We’re better werewolves as the rogues we become,” he replies as he leans over me, forcing me to look into his eyes as they bleed red again, only this time it’s even darker than before. “And if we’re stronger alone, we’ll be stronger together.” With a huff, he straightened and returned to the door. “You’re too young to understand.”

“Wait!” I shout as the door opens, but he doesn’t even look back. He just leaves, allowing the other rogues to return. “Please! No! Wait! It’s not stupid! I’m sorry!”

“The lights cut out, and they continued as if nothing ever happened,” I whisper as the memory slips away, freeing me from its clutches as the darkness returns. “He was fucking crazy and he didn’t even realise it. Sane? Noone sane does what they did to me.

“After that, I never saw Reon again. I started to think we’d never spoken and he was just another person I made up to cope. I still kind of do. It just all went back to normal, and I preferred that. Time passed, and one night, I heard screaming—screaming that wasn’t my own. I knew for sure it wasn’t because it was coming from so many people. The lights turned on, and everyone in the room with me wasn’t quiet anymore.”

“They were scared,” Julian whispers hopefully, and I nod.

“They were fucking terrified,” I confirm, smiling as I remember their shaken faces, but it doesn’t last long with what came next. “A woman came in with something under her arms, and whatever she said made them panic. They all ran but she stayed. She stayed and pulled out these needles. They were different—they weren’t for my blood.”

A finger flicking a syringe. A black, thick substance gathering at the top.

“I knew even then that something was wrong about that, that it was somehow worse, which is crazy because how could it get worse? There’s always worse though,” I whisper tiredly. “There’s always something worse.”

Julian slides his arm around my waist, holding tight as I lean against him.

“She stuck the needle in my eye,” I whisper as the phantom ache behind my eyes returns. “She managed to put another in my chest before my dad came in. Then it was … over.”

The word sounds like a bitter lie even to my ears.

Sighing, I pull myself free from Julian’s arms and stand. Julian follows but keeps his fingers to himself while he remains close. I need space and room to think ofanythingelse, but there’s nothing else now that I’ve pulled my worst memories back to the surface.

“There’s this book,” I whisper, while my fingers claw at the skin at the back of my neck. “I found it the first time I went back there. It’s filled with numbers, rows and rows of them. I didn’t know what it was at first. It took me a while to figure it out, but the numbers were times,” I say with another dry chuckle. “The first set is for my fingers, the next for my toes, the third for my arm, and so on, and so on.”

“They were timing how long it’d take for you to heal,” he whispers, his disbelief palpable. When I nod, his frown deepens as he shakes his head. “None of this makes sense. What did they want from you?”

“Reon said they wanted to make a pack, and what’s the one thing you need for a pack to be a pack?”

A second barely passes before Julian whispers, “… An alpha.”

“An alpha,” I confirm without shying away from his gaze when it shifts into something fearful as he starts putting two and two together. “They were trying to find a way to make one of them into an alpha. I had the blood for it, which I’m guessing was the first thing they thought of. I don’t know why they kept hurting me, though.”

“They must’ve had a reason for it,” Julian says, telling me the same thing I told myself for years. I was sure it was true, but any possible reason would be hysterical to any sound mind. “What about the injections? What …What were those for?”

“I think it was some kind of fallback plan—a last resort to force me into being like them, while still keeping me as a potential alpha.” Julian’s eyes widen, stretching the blue within his irises until they’re misty. “After that, my eyes changed from brown to black, just like Reon’s, and everything I felt after that day went haywire. Every thought I had turned negative. I got angry so easily, and I couldn’t control anything I felt until it all settled into one thing.”

“The rage,” he concludes as his hand rises to cover his mouth.

I nod, breathing low as I slump in my place.

That was it. My story, my dirty secret. I’d shared it, and now, I’m done.

I could put it all away again, pretend it didn’t happen, pretend it wasn’tstillhappening sometimes. But it doesn’t go away. The memories stay right where they are—at the forefront of my splintering mind.

They bring with them things I tried to pretend weren’t true—like the differences between who I was before and who I’d become after. How my happiness had been stripped away from me, along with the safety I thought I had in my family—in my parents. They’d destroyed that too because I didn’t trust anything again after, nothing and no one except…

I look up, meeting Julian’s waiting gaze, and my heart threatens to split inside my chest. His eyes are too kind, too sweet and accepting like I knew they would be.