Page 52 of Knocked Up By My Fated Alpha
“She’s really dead, like the rumors say?” The next words were harder to push out. “Did…did he kill her?”
Elias didn’t answer for a beat, his gaze still distant.
“I grew up watching them, you know…Uncle Damien and his mate,” A rough, fractured laugh left him. “Who didn’t?”
Then Elias was speaking freely without any inhibition, as though he needed to exorcise the words from his mind.
“He was hard and ruthless even then, but around her, he was as harmless as a teddy bear. They were the Romeo and Juliet of the werewolf community then.”
I tried to imagine Alpha Damien as a lovesick Romeo. I failed.
“The Shadow Thorn Pack and the Sky Pack had been at war for over a hundred and fifty years, so we didn’t really like each other much, but it didn’t stop them,” Elias explained. “Mom always said she knew they were fated mates even before the mate bond clicked in at eighteen, they just ‘gravitated towards each other,’ if you can believe it.”
It was unbelievable.
The mate bond that had once been a staple in werewolf packs, or so the stories said, had long since faded into oblivion.
Finding one’s true mate now was an improbable feat that was on par with finding a unicorn. It was something spoken of with varying degrees of disbelief and scorn because it simply didn’t happen.
I’d never met a fated couple before. My parents hadn’t been fated mates but chosen mates. Yet they’d died for each other.
I could only imagine what a real fated soul tie looked like. Felt like. Elias was still speaking.
“Their families didn’t approve, but for the sake of their happiness, the two warring packs finally signed a peace treaty. Uncle Damien and Rielle were mated at twenty and so sweet on each other that it was beyond sickening to watch.”
Elias’s words were one thing, but the wistfulness his tone held meant another. He still remembered that time fondly. I felt a frisson of inexplicable jealousy. The Alpha Damien Elias was describing sounded like an Alpha Damien I’d never met.
“What happened?” I asked when Elias stayed silent.
And I knew something had happened. Or I wouldn’t be here pregnant with Alpha Damien’s baby while Rielle was gone.
“Rielle happened.” The wistfulness in Elias’s tone disappeared, replaced by unbending steel.
“I was fifteen when it happened. For five years, Rielle stayed mated to Uncle Damien, inserted herself into the very fabric of our pack, then at the moment we least expected it, she betrayed our pack to her former pack, the Sky Pack, and blinded by love, he let it happen.”
Elias’s voice broke.
“We lost so many people. I lost my mom.”
I went still, my mind piecing together the information I already knew with what Elias had just told me. The last war between the Sky Pack and the Shadow Thorn Pack occurred over a decade ago. It had been one for the books and had even been dubbed the blood war because of the sheer number of wolves that died in a single day.
I’d had no idea it had been triggered by a single female wolf, AlphaDamien’s fated mate. Nor had I known that Elias had lost his mother that way. Sympathetic, I reached out to comfort Elias.
“I’m so sorry.”
He moved before my hand could reach his shoulder.
“I don’t want your sympathy, Raven,” Elias spat out venomously, a sardonic smirk twisting up his face. “You betrayed me for him, but there’s only one woman he’ll ever love, and it’s that snake.”
I stiffened at Elias’s words, but it wasn’t enough. He had to dig the knife deeper.
“To him, they are still mated. Do you know he never touched another woman after she died?” Elias chuckled darkly, his gaze focusing on me with a pitiful glint. “So you can go ahead and be the mother of his heir. Take whatever scraps of affection he gives you because you’ll always be second fiddle to her.”
Like an echo, I heard Alpha Damien’s words from that night when he pushed me away callously.
Don’t you dare try to insert yourself into my personal affairs!
Rielle is and will always remain none of your business.
