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“So, I believe congratulations are in order?” Sylvan said as everyone started to serve themselves from the many platters of food.

Hawk had cooked like a man possessed, almost as if re-directing all the intensity he’d been lavishing on Jack onto the dishes.

“Yes,” Finn said, “to Jack and Hawk.”

“To Jack and Hawk,” everyone said, holding up their glasses.

Hawk looked faintly embarrassed, focussing on transferring only the most perfect roast vegetables to their shared plate, but Jack beamed under all the attention.

It was amazing to see the veil of frustration and anger lifted from his face.

It might not have gone the way he’d planned it, but being mated suited Jack. Though not everyone was so pleased.

I looked down the table and saw Brandon had sat with Aaron’s men, eating slowly, methodically, but without any pleasure.

He observed the mated couple with haunted eyes.

He had his mating mark, but had no such time to enjoy it, nor celebration.

After I’d stroked his hair as Ophelia told us what she knew, he’d disappeared, seeming to know he wasn’t entirely welcome in our wing.

Instead, what should have been the best day for him was a lonely one.

I sensed the weight of the book he’d given me in my pocket and vowed to take a look at it before the naked fun began tonight.

He must have felt my eyes on him, as he looked over at me briefly before dropping his gaze down to his plate.

I watched him take one more mouthful, apparently struggling to swallow it before putting his cutlery down.

The reason why he’d chosen to sit there became apparent when he pushed himself away from the table and slipped out of the room without anyone noticing.

Anyone but me. I got to my feet as the teasing of the happy couple began, nodding to them when they saw me.

As I walked out, following Brandon’s path, that glow faded, replaced by a confusing mix of emotions.

Love, frustration, anger, betrayal—they were all tied up in a messy knot, and tugging on one made the others tighten.

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go after Brandon, just some nagging instinct made me put one foot in front of the other.

What did I think about this? What did I want to do about our relationship?

We weren’t tied together for eternity, the bond could be broken in the absence of love, but that wasn’t the problem.

It wasn’t lack of emotion, it was too much.

I frowned as I walked out of the mess doors, pausing for a moment to look up at an alien sky.

Several moons hung there at various heights and levels of brightness with strange patterns of stars around them.

It was all so unreal, the trip through the portal, but the mining camp was startlingly prosaic.

It had buildings, cars, furniture just like Earth, so it was tempting to think it was home.

I shook my head, then sniffed the air, searching for a sign of my mate.

This way , my instincts told me, so I turned right and followed the path.

Trees looked different here, many having these weird kite-shaped leaves and twisty branches, though the lavender coloured foliage was the first thing that drew my eye when we got here.

All that was muted now into shades of black and grey as I walked farther.

I stopped when what I assumed was a lizard skittered across my path.

It was tiny, yet it paused mid scramble, then looked up at me with glowing yellow eyes before running away.

I glanced around, realising there could be all sorts of alien creatures out here and I’d have no idea. I shook my head and moved forward.

I found him crouched on a low hanging branch, the cherry red tip of his cigarette a beacon luring me closer. “Hey,” I said as I placed a hand on the eerily smooth bark, the light of one of the moon’s hitting us as I peered closer.

“What are you doing here, Jules?”

“Brandon, you’re obviously miserable.”

“Of course, I am. Only a complete psychopath wouldn’t be.”

“Well, no matter what’s happened, you’re my mate. I do care about you.”

Even in the low light, those pale grey eyes managed to glow when they were turned on me. He crushed the cigarette out on the bark, releasing a weird astringent smell, before he dropped down from the branch right next to me.

“But that’s not all, is it, Jules?” He was a dark figure now, the shadow of the tree engulfing him as he moved closer.

“I played you, didn’t I? All of you, moving you around, making sure the connections were made, making sure they flourished.

I advised and suggested, I pushed and manipulated, until you were right where I wanted. ”

His words sent icy fingers up my spine, not because they were foreign, but because they reflected exactly the doubts that had been plaguing me since the big reveal. Don’t hate me. That refrain of his, the last time we had sex… I blinked, my vision suddenly blurring. I’m trying so damn hard not to.

“How do you do that? How do you fucking know everything?” I said.

“Because I felt it all, that great streaming spiral of doubt, fear, and anger when you stroked my hair. It was my mating day, we’d just bonded.

” His voice began to crack, and I reached for him, but he shied away.

Of course, he did. He wasn’t about to subject himself to another round of my swirling emotions.

They were a net he would get caught in, dragging him further down.

“I asked you, begged you not to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you! I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care about you.”

“Care?” The mealy-mouthed word seemed to twist on his lips, becoming something foul and unworthy. “Have you read the book?”

“No, you just gave it to me. I was?—”

“Have you even opened it?”

“I planned to tonight when we went to bed. Brandon, I?—”

“Fuck it,” he said with a shake of his head, then his arms shot out. Strong fingers wrapped themselves around my bare biceps, his skin searing into mine. And then I was gone.

I was yanked from standing on an alien planet under the light of several moons, to another more familiar place.

We stood on the banks of the great black lake that seemed to always be present when our pack melded.

Brandon stood there, the one point of illumination in all the gloom, his expression a terrible one.

“See it,” he said. “See it, and read it.”

The light inside him flared as soon as he touched me, taking me from this subterranean landscape to someone’s home.

“What have you got there?” a woman said. Janice, it was Brandon’s mum, I realised. She bent down and inspected the childish drawing the little boy with Brandon’s eyes was working on. “Is this Mummy?” She pointed to the stick figure sporting a triangular-shaped dress.

“No, dat Jools,” he replied, his mouth struggling to form the words.

“Ohh, is she your friend?”

“No, she my mate.”

“Mate? You mean like Mummy and your daddies?” He nodded his head earnestly. “That won’t happen for a long time, love. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Adam.” Janice turned to call over her shoulder to someone we couldn’t see. “Have you heard of anyone having a daughter named Jewels?”

The light burned brightly, washing away the scene, only to replace it with a slightly older Brandon, playing with several dolls and action figures. Ophelia stood with Janice as they watched the boy play.

“It’s this, over and over. I’ve checked, and there’s no little girls called Jewels.

No nicknames, nothing. I even checked the boys’ names.

He just spends the whole day making up these incredibly convoluted stories about him, Jewels, and their pack.

There’re details in them that no kid should know.

He keeps talking about Grace’s boy and Cheryl’s, Slade, but they’re not even friends.

I’ve never had that much to do with either of their mums. I’m worried, alpha. ”

Ophelia didn’t get to reply, the scene quickly dissolving before another appeared.

“You can’t waste your life waiting around for some fantasy woman,” Brandy, Brandon’s sister, said. By the unfinished, coltish look of her body, they were teenagers now. “Have you ever had sex?”

“You expect me to answer that? You’re my fucking sister.”

“So that’s a no. Go out with Sharon. She likes you, thinks you’re hot for some bloody reason. No one’s saying bond her, but just take her out on a date or something.”

“I can’t.”

“For fuck’s sake, Brandon.”

“I can’t, so butt the fuck out of my life, OK?”

Brandy’s stung expression faded away, only to be replaced by the darkened doorway of one of the Sanctuary sheds. A big burly guy just wearing a tight pair of faded jeans stood by it, his brows jerking down when he saw Brandon.

“What are you doing here, kid?”

“I…” I could feel it now, the pulse of heat fever in Brandon’s veins.

He’d jerked his cock raw, but the need had not abated.

Revel, Helen’s daughter, was in the midst of her mating run, and half the single men in town were off after her.

He wasn’t. He was too young anyway, but he resisted the siren call of the other woman’s scent with everything he had.

He couldn’t run after her, though some of the boys his age would, damn the rules.

Never another woman. “I need to get off.”

The words were bald, unvarnished, and the man at the door smiled at them. “Kid, I understand completely, but this isn’t the place for you. It’s a fucking zoo in there, and impulse control is at an all-time low. Go and find a couple of your mates for a nice safe circle jerk.”

Brandon could hear the muffled groans, smell the scent of too many men crammed into one space. He wasn’t sure if that’s what he wanted, but he needed to find out. He shifted, the ache in his balls growing by the minute.

“No,” he said. “I need this.”