Page 127 of His Forsaken Alpha

“Growing up, you told us your family was deceased,” Wilder mentioned. “I’m a bit surprised to learn they weren’t.”

“I feared you all finding out too much about our family tree. It was simpler to say they were gone.”

“Are they still alive?” Wilder asked Wynter. “Your family?”

“I don’t know. I was exiled, remember?”

Wilder leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Was it only your parents?”

“I had five siblings, but I’ve not seen nor spoken to them since being exiled.”

“Fivesiblings? I have five uncles?” Wilder asked. “We have uncles and likely cousins out there we had no idea we had.” He scoffed. “No more surprises, hmm?”

“If I’d told you about them, the secrets would’ve unraveled. I didn’t want Jamie and Vaughn to know they were a product of…incest.”Wynter shuddered. “I didn’t want another scandal here and I didn’t want them to be hurt by the truth—yet I suppose I just hurt Vaughn with it, didn’t I? I should’ve been more considerate.”

“He was being a jerk,” Gray murmured.

“He and I have been working together well the last year. We’d become a lot closer,” Wilder said. “I hope that’s not completely destroyed now.”

“Don’tletit be destroyed,” Avery said to Wilder. “He’s going to lash out. Expect it and don’t take it personally. You need him and he needs you, maybe more so now than ever. I’ve seen that better side of him. Don’t let him lose it.”

“I’m sorry if I ruined all your good work,” Wynter said. “But your omega is right. Don’t let this ruin things. I’ll help mend fences where I can. If he’ll listen.”

“I suppose the truth was going to get out eventually, anyway. If he pushed the board for my seat, it might’ve ended up being exposed in a much more public way,” Wilder murmured. “Though, in all honesty—I don’t know if I want to be the CEO after hearing all Warden did. Using my promotion as blackmail to force you to abandon Jamie? Ihatethat he made you choose between us. I still say you should’ve chosen Jamie, Papa. Iwould’vefound a way through.” Wilder sighed. “Maybe itshouldgo to Vaughn now—and if crashes and burns, it crashes and burns. I almost wish it would. Let Warden’s legacy die.”

“You’re a talented man, and you can do anything you set your mind to,” Avery said. “I’ll support you either way… but I also want you to remember that in your brief time as CEO, you’ve already done amazing things. You used your position and power to stand up for thousands of omegas and help free me,”Avery said, leaning into Wilder. “Had it not been for you, I might still be in prison. Now we’re helping to free more like me.”

Wilder murmured something under his breath, leaned in close, and briefly pressed his lips to Avery’s.

“Plus you’ve just received the Green Trust contract—and Sadler is counting on you,” Rohan said. “He went to bat for you when Warden tried to oust you.You’rethe one who’s turned Jaymes & Associates into a multi-provincial company, reaching outside the walls of Alexandria and beyond. Not many companies work outside their home province.”

“What do you mean?” Wynter asked, frowning. “J&A has done business outside the walls of this province before.”

“No,” Wilder replied, appearing confused. “We’ve never had any contracts outside Alexandria before I stepped behind the desk.”

Wynter narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “Warden wasalwaystraveling. He spent years going back and forth to Erieberg because J&A was building an extension to their exterior wall. First, he went multiple times, vying for the contract. Then he had to go for the planning phase, to get their approval, and then the execution of it. Hell, he even went back on occasion to do inspections himself.”

“The contracts with the Green Trust are the firsteverwritten for a project outside the province,” Rohan said. “I researched the logs before I wrote it—to check if there were precedents—and I found nothing. Warden himself confirmed it. There was nothingeverbuilt outside Alexandria. Not by J&A, anyway. I can do some digging, but I’m fairly sure a build like that would’ve already come to my attention—especially given the similarity to what we’ll be doing for the Green Trust.”

Wynter blinked a few times, confused. He knew that wasn’t true. “Then what was Warden doin—” He paused, smiling andchuckling to himself. “Warden left over and over—and it was almostalwaysduring a heat. How stupid am I? He was using it as an excuse to get away from me.” Wynter grinned. “I suppose I should be thankful for the lie—although bad weather made it impossible to fly out one cycle and that’s how we ended up with Vaughn, so it didn’talwayswork, but that saved me countless heats I didn’t have to share with him.”

“Always during a heat?” Gray asked. “Was Warden keeping an omega up there?”

“Oh, that’sa definiteno,” Wynter said.

“How can you be so sure?” Gray asked.

Wynter hedged a moment. He knew Warden didn’t have an omega, but he didn’t want to explainhowhe knew that. “He’d never have agreed to that world tour of ours if he had someone waiting for him in the shadows. We were gonefor months.We’d only returned briefly for Wilder’s mating ceremony to Avery—and good thing we did. What would I have done out in Europa or Panasia alone, an omega without an alpha and a body to bring home?”

Silence filled the room a moment. Wynter suddenly realized they’d been lucky Warden had passed when he had. A silver lining? Wynter would take any he could get.

“Why did you want to do that—the tour? Now knowing how bad your relationship with Dad really was,” Wilder said. “Why would you want to spend all that time alone with him traveling?”

“Oh, Ididn’twant to spend time with him, but as an omega, I can’t travel alone. I wanted to see the world. I’d read Cavanaugh’s books and had lived vicariously through them all those years ago,” Wynter said, turning to look up at his mate.Cav smiled down at him. He held his mate’s gaze, seeing hope blossom there, yet feared allowing it to spread. He’d already assumed too much once, and while Cavanaugh had been supportive while he faced his family, that might be the extent of it.

Yet… he needed his alpha to know how much he still longed for the day they might be together. “I wanted to see the world through his eyes—and I think a tiny piece of me hoped fate might step in and I might run into him again. It was ten-billion to one odds, of course, but, who knew? Maybe I’d finally be able to run away and live the life I’d dreamed of now that my sons were adults.”

“I can’t believe you convinced him to go,” Wilder said, dragging Wynter’s attention.

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