Page 271 of Alpha Mates

“My eyes used to glow gold, you know. Not yellow or anything else, but gold,” I whisper, the longing filling my words as tears fill my eyes again. “I tried for months to get them back—to see if they’d come back, but all that came was the red. They gave me red eyes likethem. They made me into one of them.”

Julian shakes his head, but I knew the truth—I’d lived in it for long enough.

“You always say that my eyes are not just black, but that there’s brown,” I rasp as I try to speak around the pain in my chest. “You say you see these golden streaks, and I … I keep looking in the mirror, but I can’t see it.” My tears fall, blurring the image of him. “All I see is the darkness.”

“Aiden,” Julian croaks as he stops trying to give me space and comes closer.

“They broke me,” I mumble as he pulls me into his chest. I fall into him, sobbing into the guarded space he makes for me. “They broke me, and I don’t even know why.”

“They didn’t break you,” Julian dismisses, but he doesn’t get it. He’s too fucking nice to see the truth. I shake my head against him. “They didn’t,” he insists. “You’re still you, Aiden.”

“I’m not!” I shout as I shove him away. His blue eyes grow wide with concern as he reaches for me, but I step back. “I’m not—they fucking broke me.”

“They didn’t—”

I lift my hand and tug my thumb back until it snaps. Julian jolts, his eyes flooding with the horror before raw pain crashes into our bond. But it’s not mine, none of it’s mine.

“I don’t even feel it.” I break another. “I don’t feel any of this!”

“Aiden, s-stop!” Julian shouts as he takes my hands in his before I can break another. His fingers tremble around my palm as he carefully hugs my hand to his chest. He holds it like it’s something precious, staring at my broken fingers with so much misery. “Don’t—don’t ever—” Julian’s breaths stutter out of him, panicked and terrified, as he holds me close. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Guilt makes me look away. “I don’t feel it,” I try to explain. “I don’t feel anything like I used to. If I don’t concentrate, anything can send me off the handle. All there is, is the rage. All day. Every day. There’s so much anger and it doesn’t go away—it never goes away unless…” I glance at him and almost break ina whole new way as my chest eases. “…Unless I’m with you.”

Julian’s eyes deepen as if Goddess poured a darker shade of blue into them to make him shine even brighter.

“If you’re not there, all I feel is anger and pain, every. Single. Day. I try to ignore it, but it’s always there, in the back of my skull, in my chest—I feel it. And when it comes out, it’s like… it’s like I’m living through it all over again.”

“Aiden,” he says my name like he’s lost, but he doesn’t realise that just being here makes it better.

Jaw clenching, Julian hugs me to him, and I don’t shove away this time. I hold on to him while I bury my face into the crook of his neck so that I have somewhere to hide.

“My eyes,” I whisper, mourning them for what feels like the first time. “I don’t see like I used to. It’s all covered in red—everything is red and it reminds me every day of what I am… what they made me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Julian cries shakily, trying to keep himself together, but I can feel him falling apart. “I don’t know what to do, Aiden. I don’t know how I’m supposed to fix this.”

“There’s no fixing this,” I sob as I admit the truth. “I’ve tried.” And I did, in every imaginable way, but one truth always waits at the end. “They broke me, Julian.”

“Then, I-I don’t care if you’re broken, Aiden,” he says, pulling me up so that I’m forced to meet his eyes. A world of love and care waits within them, flowing over the edges, and all for me. “I don’t care if you’re broken because the broken you is the one I fell in love with. I loved you before I knew about this, and I will continue to love you,” he says, pressing his head against mine. “You’re broken and I will never stop loving the pieces of you that remain.”

I stare at Julian, seeing only him while the past quiets, finally fading in full so that there’s only him.

Him and his words, his love, his devotion and promises that I know he means. There’s only Julian and me, and I… I didn’t think it was possible to break again, but he pulls apart what’s left of me to put me back into something a little brighter—something he intends to guard forever.

A terrible sound tears from my lips, making his eyes widen with renewed panic. He apologises, desperately trying to find out where he went wrong, but I can’t even tell him how much those words mean to me because I can’t stop crying.

The tears refuse to stop for the only person who still loves what is left of me.

Chapter 55

Julian

“Julian!”

Aiden and I still mid-stride and turn warily to watch my father’s hurried approach. He’d been waiting outside the pack’s Hall long before we even got there, but I’d hoped that he’d left after we closed the doors without inviting him inside. Evidently, he did not.

I glance at Aiden from the corner of my eye, and the sight of his tired face is enough to set me in motion.

“You should go on ahead,” I whisper before planting a gentle kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be home soon.”