Page 37 of Betrayed Alpha Mate

My magic wants him. I felt it when we kissed. I feel it every time he's anywhere near me, and especially when he touches me.

And maybe my heart always did.

But I will never trust him with it again. Not after what he took from me. Not after what he left behind.

Chapter 11 - Sean

I haven’t slept properly in days. Not real sleep, anyway. Not the kind that pulls you under and allows your body to forget itself for a few hours. Forget its shape, forget its strength, forget its exhaustion. What I get instead are fractured stretches of half-consciousness, jerking awake with my heart racing, my wolf snarling under my skin, the bond humming so loud it feels like static in my skull.

I’m restless, and it’s all because of Emily. It’s always only Emily.

I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling as the wind starts to howl outside, rattling the windows hard enough to make the glass shudder. The storm has been building all evening, thick clouds rolling over Stowe like a warning. I should be used to storms by now. They usually calm me. Tonight, they only make everything worse, and I’ve never been more restless than I am now.

Because I can feel her.

It’s not constant or clear. It comes in waves, and sometimes flashes of sharp spikes of emotion that aren’t mine but settle in my chest like they are. It’s frustration so tight it burns in my core. Fear that curls in the pit of my belly, brittle and panicked with every thunderous roar ripping through the skies. Then there’s the longing she keeps trying to bury, pushing it down with anger and denial until it bleeds into her magic.

And her magic…Goddess…it flares without warning, wild and uncontrolled, like it’s searching for an anchor it’s not allowed to reach for.

Me.

It’s searching for me. I’m supposed to be the steady anchor. I’m far from it. I hardly even know who I am anymore. It’s pointless wearing a mask of indifference, of confidence, of charm amongst my friends when the truth has been exposed. None of them has pried into the details of the history I share with her, but I can’t reclaim my mask of coolness as if I weren’t outed.

Rolling onto my side, I press my forearm over my tired eyes, teeth clenched. She told me she needed space. Boundaries. I heard her. I respected it. I stayed away.

But out of everything she told me, there’s one thing that stuck, pierced me like a dagger through my heart.

“We can never be together.”

I take a deep breath, trying and failing to come to terms with what that means. That’s why she moved back to her cottage. But it only made things worse the moment she did, and the bond shifted. Tightened. Like a wire pulled too taut.

The revelation from the meeting keeps replaying in my head, relentless and haunting. It wasn’t the ritual. Not really. The lunar binding spell didn’t create anything that wasn’t already there; it just ripped the scab off something that never healed. Something I denied, ran from, pretended didn’t exist.

The fated mate bond. The one I felt years ago and was too much of a coward to face.

I sit up abruptly when the power flickers, the lights dimming for half a second before stabilizing. My wolf surges, hackles raised, instincts screaming inside my skull.

Something’s wrong. Something’s terribly wrong, and it’s strong enough to raise awareness, stir my wolf instincts from deep within.

I’m on my feet before I think about it, grabbing a jacket and yanking it on as thunder cracks overhead, loud enough to shake the house. Rain starts hammering down in thick sheets outside the window, the wind vicious and unforgiving.

The bond pulls hard on my being, almost paralyzing and alarming at the same time. I don’t even try to fight it because I know the resistance is futile, and that’s why I give in to what my inner wolf demands.

Find Emily….

By the time I reach Emily’s cottage, I’m soaked through, rain plastering my hair to my forehead, my boots sinking into the mud with every step. Lightning splits the sky, illuminating the cottage, and my stomach drops.

There’s a hole in the roof.

Not a small one, but a gaping hole through which rain pours straight into the house like the storm has claimed it for itself.

“Emily!” I shout over the wind, but there’s no answer, so I knock again, sharper this time, and suddenly, the door yanks open violently, slamming against the wall as a burst of gold light flares from inside.

Emily stands there, trembling, fingers spread open as if she’d been using her magic. But she’s soaked and furious, as if she’s the one who caused the hole in the roof. Her magic was what opened the door for me, but she doesn’t appear to want me there.

My eyes flicker to the ceiling, where rain pours into the house, soaking not just Emily, but her kitchen, too.

“Get out!” she snaps, voice shaking. “I didn’t call you here!”