Page 83 of Alpha Mates

“Julian,” I start and he hums. “Why don’t you eat meat?”

“It makes me feel sick,” he says simply. “It didn’t use to, but I saw animals being torn apart on hunts as a kid, and I just can’t do it. It’s psychological, I guess.”

“You watched me hunt today,” I point out, praying I haven’t inadvertently added to that trauma.

“That was different,” he says, turning the chicken cutlets over. “You don’t do it for sport, and you didn’t extend their suffering, or make it brutal. We’re wolves, we hunt. It’s normal. I just don’t like it when it’s excessive.”

Keep my bloodiest habits away from my mate—got it.

“Sorry about putting a dead deer in your bedroom,” I mutter. I don’t mean to laugh, but when Julian glares at me, I can’t help it. “Wait, I’m being serious.”

“Oh, you are?” he mocks, voice like ice. “I couldn’t get the smell out for weeks.”

“We did horrible shit to each other,” I protest, but that doesn’t soften him an inch. I scratch the back of my head, mumbling, “I said sorry.”

His molten rage simmers until he takes a deep breath. “Well then, I guess I’m sorry for poisoning your hamsters.”

My smile drops. “That was sick,” I declare, but sick doesn’t begin to cover it.

I will never forget how Mr. Puff and his wife died frothing in my hands, their little eyes begging me to end their suffering, but I couldn’t. I cried for months, believing that it had been my fault before Julian admitted to killing them almost an entire year later.

“We were both sick kids,” he defends, and I don’t bother arguing that he was way worse—we both know he was. “The point is, I don’t eat meat ’cause it grosses me out.”

“Hm.” I watch Julian plate my food, but my mind still itches with another question.

“If that’s the reason you don’t eat meat, why don’t you eat fish?”

“What?”

“You know, become a pesco-vegetarian person,” I say in a babble. The chicken has my mouth watering. “You never saw a fish get brutally murdered, right?”

I pick at the food, waiting for a response, but when it doesn’t come, I look up. He’s staring at me as if I just uncovered a new law from Newton. “Don’t tell me you never thought of that.”

He shifts. “I just didn’t.”

“And you’re supposed to be the smart one,” I chuckle as I bypass him forthe fridge. There’s a slab of salmon that I’ve been saving for tomorrow, but I could make sacrifices in the name of the greater good and all of that. I lift it for Julian’s eyes as I shut the fridge behind me. “I can have it done in about ten minutes.”

“Okay,” he says, awkwardly stepping away from the stove.

“Here’s where you say, ‘thank you, Aiden’,” I tell him as I grab some salt.

Julian, of course, stays quiet, and I chuckle to myself while I focus on seasoning the fish. He stands idly beside me as I rummage through the cupboards for a fresh pan, watching to learn—or so I think—until he suddenly steps forward and presses his lips to my cheek.

“Thank you, Aiden,” he whispers before backing away, leaving me staring dumbly into the cupboard. I can’t even remember why I’d opened it.

Chapter 16

Julian

“Alright, get up,” Aiden mumbles into my hair.

Eyes closed, I groan.

“No, not that again.” He shakes me, and I grunt again. “It’s way past midday, Julian. The sun’s probably about to set.”

Midday? I can’t remember the last time I slept so late.

I hadn’t even really. I’d been out patrolling before sunrise, then in the market—it was a Saturday, which meant the morning belonged not to me, or to Aiden’s weekend of fun, but to my pack and their concerns. Would there be just one market space when the packs merged, and if so, where? Or would they remain separate? And what if everyone grew to prefer one over the other?