Page 351 of Alpha Mates

“Your encounter with the rogues was more than you were prepared for,” she continues. “You’re emotional. It’s impairing your judgement.”

“You’d like it to be, wouldn’t you?” I chide, lips curling into a nasty smile that makes her back away. “Because how dare I speak to you in this way after everything you’ve done for me?”

They think they’ve done so much, sacrificed so much for me, and I’m just some ungrateful brat who wasn’t even born to be alpha. I know it, because it’s written all over their faces, just as it had been after Oliver left and they finally looked at me for the first time, and realised I, the spare, was all they were left with.

“I don’t want to see you anymore,” I mumble as I step back. Lifting a hand, I wipe the remaining tears from my face, barely feeling my own touch. “I don’t want to speak to you. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t even want you in these lands, but I’m not cruel enough to kick you out of the pack. So, you can stay and live your lives in silence.”

“Julian—”

“I am speaking,” I grind out as I let my pheromones rise enough to tighten their throats. Quiet settles, and I bask in it. “You have no status in this packand no relevance in my life. So, be quiet and live noiselessly, or leave. Either will be fine with me because, as far as I am concerned, from today forth, the only family I have is on the other side of this door.”

As always, my father’s sneer of disapproval mounts at the mere mention of Aiden and again, I laugh. I have to, because I’m already crying.

Chest heaving, I stare at the pair in front of me while what’s left of my heart breaks all over again. Yet another loss today, and it hurts.

They’re cruel weights that only drag me down, but I’m still cutting myself off from them, tearing myself from our family link, and that has terror racing through me, but it’s not enough to stop me. I’d rather be alone and happy than stuck in their unloving grasp.

“Never speak to me again,” I mutter as I turn and step back into my home.

The door shuts behind me with a familiar click, but it sounds like the sentencing boom of a gavel.

I rest my back against the cool wood and stare at the man waiting on the other side.

Aiden stares at me, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I can barely pick apart my own thoughts as my heart races within my chest, and I struggle to work air back into my lungs.

Aiden takes a careful step towards me, and then another. He moves slowly, just as we had with Levi, until he’s standing right in front of me and pulling me into his arms.

I fall into him, limp, until my arms wrap around his body. He squeezes me to him, and I hold on tight while my chest contracts painfully. I realise I’m shaking as what’s left of my family’s bond disintegrates inside of me.

Whatever my family had been, there’s nothing left of it now. It’s like they’ve all died, leaving a cold emptiness inside of me that turns my silent cries into sobs.

“Come on,” he whispers, gently guiding me away from the door.

Aiden strips me down with careful hands and guides me into the shower, and under the shower’s spray, he holds me while I cry. The water drowns out the wretched wails to all but him and me, and they refuse to stop.

My mind torments me with images of Oliver, dead and alive, of my family at the table when I was young, and then the empty one I sat at for so long. The memories come, the good and the bad, because there had been good, as few as they were.

Regret, anger, grief, relief—it all teems inside of me, and I cry. I cry and cry, and Icry.

Aiden holds me through it, not uttering a single word. He just holds me, wrapping me in the warmth of our bond; that’s the only thing that keeps me standing.

He cleans us both as I cling to him, working around me, and with me. He never leaves my side because he knows he’s all I’ve got now. It’s just us now. Him and me—me and him. The realisation is terrifyingly comforting.

When the water runs cold, and our skin prunes, Aiden leads us out of the shower. He dries us, turns off all the lights, and guides us to our bed while a new dawn rises outside.

We crawl beneath the sheets, into the same positions we were in just hours ago, when we’d feared what this day would bring.

Only this time, we actually sleep.

Chapter 70

Aiden

Ever since that day we’d first laid eyes on Oliver and Reon, I’d been afraid of what would happen once we came face to face with them. We had, one is dead and the other in chains, and it’d all happened so quickly that I never thought about who we’d be once it was all said and done.

“Julian,” I whisper as I slide a hand over his shoulder. “Come on. You have to eat something.”

Julian shifts, but only to tug the blanket further up his shoulder. “I’m not hungry.”