Page 319 of Alpha Mates

The world shrinks in on itself, becoming a fine line that slips through a needle’s eye, then expands and spits us out somewhere new. My mind and soul whirl, struggling to reconnect in this unnatural setting we’ve travelled to by no natural means.

My stomach strains, contracting in an attempt to empty itself, but there’s nothing there—so I just end up gagging. So does Aiden. Katerina winces but focuses on surveying our surroundings.

We’re not in the woods—not even close.

We’re on a slope, one of many across this open, honest land. She’s brought us to one of the few groves of trees I can see. The rest is rolling meadow and cresting blades of grass.

It’d be almost peaceful, if not for the putrid scent of unknown creatures bursting from each corner of this unclaimed land.

But one scent stands out above the rest—rogues.

I can already hear them somewhere to the left—chattering, moving,living,with no attempt to be quiet.

I crouch and scan the valley below. The rogues are down there—at least a hundred of them.

They’ve built huts out of wood, small but numerous, which explains the sparse scattering of trees around their makeshift pack. This isn’t a group. It’s a settlement.

“Goddess be good,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

I stiffen. We’re too far for them to have heard me, but if there are scouts … I glance back in search of one, but stop when I see Aiden.

He’s frozen behind a tree, dark eyes glued to the sight below us. Not with rage, but some kinfolk of shock and fear. It makes him look small, and so much younger.

What is it?I ask through our link.

He flinches, almost losing his step as he looks at me. It’s like he’s forgot I was even here.

“Everything okay?” Katerina asks from behind, her voice barely carrying on the wind.

I look to Aiden for an answer, but he’s back to peering at the scene below, his gaze empty. It’s not fury. It can’t be, because when Aiden’s angry, he doesn’t get quiet.

Looking back to the valley, I mark every exit I spot, gauging their numbers and patterns before I dart over to Aiden’s side. I wrap an arm around him and mumble a curse when I feel him shaking.

“Kat—” I start, only to stop when I don’t immediately spot her, but then there she is, camouflaged in a nook where a sturdy branch meets its trunk. “We need to—”

“Reon!”

The world stops turning.

It just—stops.

The same way it did when I found him—broken and torn apart above a pool of his blood. It slows to a complete halt, bringing with it the kind of silence nothing natural—or good—should ever know.

My head turns, slowly, nervously, fighting every instinct that demands I run before it’s too late. But it already is.

I spot him easily. How could I not?

I’ve stared at that face all my life—first when he was alive, and then through the pictures our parents hung to cope with the loss.

I know that face. The strong jaw that’s our father’s. The cropped blonde hair that’s our mother’s. Always cropped because it got in the way otherwise.

The amber eyes that flare with anger now as he approaches another I recognise too, but the last time I saw those eyes, what was left of them had been hanging out of their sockets.

They’re in place now. Bright, alive, whole and—

“Oliver.”

“What’s that face for, Juli?”