Page 42 of The Careless Alpha

We don't want to take our pup from our mate,Ranger said with distress.We want our family together.

"I don't want to force anything," I said. "I just want to bring them home where they belong."

"Even if she doesn't want to come?" Jackson pressed.

"She will," I said with more confidence than I felt. "She has to. She's my mate, and that's my heir she's carrying. The pack needs its Luna and its future Alpha."

Pierce closed his portfolio, his expression unreadable. "I'll find her, Alpha Kane. But I strongly advise you to prepare for the possibility that she won't welcome your return to her life."

After Pierce left, I found myself back in my office, staring at the photographs he'd left behind. Annalise, at eighteen, alone and pregnant, stepping off a bus three thousand miles from home.

Today is her birthday,Ranger reminded me sadly.She should be here.

It was like a silver knife to the chest. Today was supposed to be the most important day of Annalise's life. Her eighteenth birthday, followed by our Luna ceremony, marked the completion of our mate bond. The pack had been planning the celebration for months.

A knock on my door pulled me from my brooding. "Come in."

My mother entered, her face etched with pain. "Today is her birthday," she said without preamble.

"I know."

"Right now, we should be celebrating," she continued as if I hadn't spoken. "The entire pack should be gathered for the biggest celebration we've had in years. Annalise's eighteenth birthday party, followed by the Luna ceremony. She should be wearing her ceremonial dress, accepting the pack's loyalty, taking her place as our Luna."

The image she painted was devastating. I could see it perfectly—Annalise radiant in a traditional Luna gown, the pack gathered to honor her, the ancient ceremony that would have made her my equal in all things.

"Instead," Mom continued relentlessly, "I hear she's somewhere in Maine, and you're sitting here talking about your rights and your heir like she's breeding stock instead of the woman you destroyed."

"That's not—"

"It is exactly what you're doing." Mom moved to the window, looking out over the pack territory that should have been Annalise's domain. "You keep talking about bringing her home, about what the pack needs, about your rights as an Alpha. But you haven't once mentioned what she needs, what she wants, what she deserves."

"I want to make it right," I said weakly.

"Do you? Jackson told me about your conversation with the investigator. You seem to think she'll be grateful to see you, that she'll just forgive and forget because you've decided you want her back."

We were arrogant,Ranger said with shame.We still don't understand the depth of what we did.

"She's my mate," I said, but the words sounded hollow even to me. "I always planned to be faithful to her after her eighteenth birthday. She had to know that. I was just... managing my needs while she grew up. I'm an Alpha—I have biological requirements that a child couldn't fulfill."

"She was your mate," Etta corrected sharply. "You rejected her, remember? You severed that bond yourself. Now she's just a girl you hurt, carrying the pup of the alpha who called her a whore."

"I was always going to choose her," I said desperately. "Once she was eighteen, I was going to be completely devoted. The other she-wolves were just... temporary. They meant nothing."

"They meant everything to her," Mom said with devastating clarity. "Every woman you brought home, every night you spent with someone else, every time you ignored her while entertaining your temporary distractions—it told her she was worthless. You thought you were being practical, managing your time until she was old enough. She thought you were showing her exactly how little she mattered."

The brutal truth of it hit me like a sledgehammer. I'd been thinking about this all wrong, assuming that Annalise would be the same devoted girl who'd waited for me for years. But my mother was right. That girl was gone. I'd destroyed her myself.

"What should I do?" I asked. I was no longer the strong, confident Alpha who led this pack. In that moment, I was just a son who had broken his most precious possession and had no idea how to fix it. I needed my mother's advice.

"You need to understand that you might have lost her forever, to prepare for the possibility that she's built a better life without you. I want you to accept that if she has, she deserves to keep it."

"I can't just give up on her. On them."

"I'm not asking you to give up. I'm asking you to go to her with humility instead of expectation. To apologize without demanding forgiveness. To put her needs above your wants for once in your life."

After my mother left, I sat alone with the weight of her words. Today should have been the happiest day of Annalise's life. Instead, she was spending it alone, probably not even celebrating, because the man who was supposed to love her had thrown her away.

I thought about the simple photo album she had made for my twentieth birthday, a gift I’d barely glanced at before moving on to Scarlett’s more adult offerings. The memory, once trivial, now felt like a shard of glass in my gut. She had been trying to show me her love in the only way she knew how, and I had been too blind and arrogant to see it, thinking only of my needs, not hers.