The Alpha Who Was Never Meant to Love Me

High

oked down at myself and then at the old man kneeling in front of half the pack, waiting for someone

e lau

mistaken me fo

pressed into the scorched dirt like he intended t

that felt deliberate, the same careful blankness he'd worn on the ceremo

about this

uspe

t bloodline, and you still stood on that s

order

sn't an

ed sets of ears around us, warriors and elders and children pulled from their be

ion, soft and amused, from somewhere n

the hall,"

n my stomach, hers, the courtyard quietly dividing itself into two camps that hadn't existed an hour before. Se

nough that I could hear the fires stil

hough I could see, in the way his jaw worked afterward, that it cost him everything. "I don't know the whole story. But I know

protecting me. All you

many people. "But there's something you need to understand. I never hated you. When I saw you tonight, I wanted to claim the bond the second our ey

e no sense yet. It would, soon en

n front of me, all command, sealing roads and ordering shelters open with a voice that moved a hundred warriors at once, the fear from a moment ago folded

warm enough that I pressed a hand flat aga

words, more like a memory of a voice

hear that

r wh

gain, clearer this time, threading itself through my thoughts like it had alway

go somewher

he

d Moon

oice replaced by something closer to alarm. "No.

is it ca

lor left his face. "Elena, yo

come w

- the eas

n I

d rebuilding behind his eyes, and finally nodded, slow a

told me to

ed smile, gone almost as soon as it appeared. Another explosion rocked the villag

anned to say anything else, but it came ou

rn Territories looked like a boy who badly wanted

-

t drifted through broken moonlight as I stepped inside, my footsteps echoing off stone that hadn't heard a voice in eighteen years, following the heat of the pendan

to it. Nothi

said, and the floor answered

ng with it a smell I couldn't name - old parchment, maybe, or something older than that. Something down there was calling, not with words thi

nges rusted nearly shut, and inside it, a single letter in m

g this, they fail

n afterthought she hadn't been able to leave out:

It couldn't be about

ice, closer than I expected, urgent in a way that almost pulled me straight up

isn't

aph

d listened, my heart loud enough in my own

have followed h

t have lied t

had

ing everythi

"You know what happe

ter until the old paper creased

er until she's re

remembers

silence,

ay lose he

g nothing but bare stone - until the wall behind me began to glow, warm gold light seeping t

ix years old, standing beside a woman who looked exactly like my mother - and beside them, a much you

a child. At least, I ha

the boy's shoulder in the vi

kind of solemnity only children m

ne crest, his hand not gentle on her shoulder - and then the mirror went dar

he mirror split down the middle with a sound lik