Page 322 of Alpha Mates

Right. Nobody but Julian even knows who that is or where we’ve been. To everyone else, we slipped up here for a few minutes after a Council warrior arrived. They’re still waiting for us to come down and tell them everything’s fine. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

But it doesn’t matter. The pack needs its alphas. Needs us … but I can’t stop my fingers from shaking, and Julian’s tears won’t stop.

What happens when fear meets heartbreak? Our bond tries to make sense of it, short-circuits instead. I’m running on terror—the kind that feels like cold steel and memory—while Julian … Julian’s drowning. I’d just seen the man responsible for every fucked up thing about me. Julian just saw his dead brother.

“Aiden,” Katerina’s voice cuts through, more insistent this time, and I can hear her panic.

“You saw them too, right?” I ask.

She blinks, frowning before she shakes her head a little. My heart lurches, so stupidly hopeful, but then she speaks.

“Who? The rogues? Yeah, I saw them. We all saw them. Do you mean them, or that one guy who looked like—”

Her eyes flick to Julian, and I’m more grateful than she can ever know that she doesn’t say it aloud.

So it was real then. He was real. Not a nightmare. Reon was real, and he was behind all of this.

I nod. I keep nodding, and I’m not sure why, except that now that I’m moving, I’m too scared to stop. If I stop moving, I’ll crash, and I can’t crash. Not now. Not when he’s still out there.

“Do you know why we’re doing this to you?”

“The meeting,” I rasp, shaking my head to oust the version of the boy who heard those words, and replace him with the man he’s supposed to be. “We have the meeting to prepare for, and the warriors arriving.” And then the fight itself.

Ten minutes ago, I’d been worried about what that would look like with the news Katerina dumped at our feet. Now I’d trade anything to go back to being that ignorant version of myself, who still half-believed Reon was just something I made up.

Moving past Emitt, I take Kat’s place beside Julian. I crouch down, slide a hand under his shoulder, help him sit up straighter. He needed to lookpresentable, strong … composed. Like always. But he doesn’t even notice as I wipe his lips clean. Doesn’t react, almost as if I’m not even touching him. He just keeps crying.

I stare at him, and for a second, he’s the small boy walking behind his brother’s empty casket.

Julian looks just like he did then. Pale. Hollowed out by grief. His eyes glassed over. Afraid and small, and miserable, like he wished he could disappear.

Would I have to do this alone?

“Do you know why we’re doing this?”

I don’t care about the why. I just need to know when it ends.

“We need to prepare,” I say, turning my mate towards the elevators. Moving. We have to keep moving. “The pack needs us.”

“Wait. No,” Katerina cuts in, appearing right in our path. “Nobody needs to see the two of you like this.”

“Agreed,” Emitt says as he joins her side. “You guys are …”

“In shock,” Kat finishes before turning to him. “We went to scope out the rogues. They saw someone they seemed to know. Now they’re both in shock.”

They stare at me like they want me to confirm or deny that, but if this is what shock feels like, then it’s the first time Goddess has ever done me the favour. Usually, I dived straight into the blaze.

“By the Plains,” Emitt curses, shaking his head. “I’m calling Beckett for Julian, and we’re staying right here until you’re both better.”

Better? I almost laugh at that.

Life doesn’t get better. It just kept shovelling shit into your path.

The only time my life had ever gotten better was when it offered me Julian as my mate. I should’ve known even that came with strings.

The person he’d always loved the most colluded with the one I hated the most.

Reon.