Page 44 of Betrayed Alpha Mate

The path is empty on both sides. The woods are still. But it’s too still, too eerie, too uncomfortable.

“It’s stress,” I mutter under my breath, forcing myself to keep moving. “You’re exhausted. That’s all.”

But my magic doesn’t agree.

It stirs, alert and uneasy, prickling the fine hairs on the back of my neck like an animal sensing a predator just beyond the tree line. I push it down, refuse to let fear take root, and continue home.

That’s when I see the garden in front of my cottage.

Or, what’s left of it.

The flowers lining the front of the cottage—the ones I planted years ago—are withered. Not wilted, not neglected, but torn. Some are ripped clean from the earth, roots exposed and twisted as if wrenched out in anger. Others are blackened, petals curled inward as if they burned from the inside out.

My stomach drops.

I step closer, crouching to touch one of the stems. It crumbles at my fingertips, brittle and lifeless. My magic prickles sharply under my skin, flaring in warning.

This isn’t natural.

Someone has been here.

Or something…

I straighten slowly, scanning the perimeter around my cottage. The air hums faintly, as if whispering a secret of what it has seen, what it’s witnessed. Horror. Foulness.

Fingers probing for weaknesses, pressing just hard enough to see where they might give. That’s what happened to my garden.

A chill settles deep in my bones.

I don’t go inside right away. Instead, I stand there in the fading light, forcing myself to breathe evenly, to assess instead of panic. Whatever or whoever did this didn’t break through. Not yet.

But it wanted me to notice. It was sending me a warning.

The realization sinks in with sickening clarity.

This isn’t about the bond. Not directly. This is something else. Something watching. Waiting. And suddenly, my avoidance feels fragile. Useless.

Because no matter how carefully I plan my movements, no matter how tightly I lock my emotions away, there are forces at work that don’t care about my control. My magic hums louder now, restless and defensive, brushing against the edges of the bond despite my efforts to keep it contained.

Merlin Grimes. He’s out there, somewhere, waiting for me to fall.

I don’t reach for Sean. I tell myself I won’t.

But as I step inside the cottage and bolt the door behind me, one truth settles heavily in my chest, undeniable and terrifying…

Whatever is coming doesn’t care that I’m not ready. And pretending I’m alone won’t protect me forever. I just don’t know how to face Sean yet. Not with what I just saw.

So, I call upon the only person who doesn’t know what’s going on in my personal life.

Chapter 15 - Sean

I wake up with a start during an unholy hour of the night, my heart already racing, the bond clawing at my chest like something trapped and desperate to get out. I can tell it’s an unholy hour because there’s an unsettling feeling in the air, and it's what pulls my chest tight as goosebumps pebble across the flesh of my forearms.

It’s not the dull ache I’ve learned to live with over the years. Not the low hum that settles into the background when I force myself not to think about her. This is sharp. Urgent. Loud enough that it drags me out of sleep with a snarl tearing from my throat.

Before I can even sit upright, Dustin’s voice cuts through my mind via the pack mind link.

“Alpha Sean,” he says in an urgent tone I haven’t heard for months. The last time I heard that tone was when Delilah and Hunter raced from Scarborough to Stowe with news that a rogue werewolf was infiltrating a pack in Montreal. We intercepted that werewolf’s influence, discovering that he was working for Merlin Grimes—our greatest enemy to date—and then defeating one of Grimes’s evil witches, Morganna.