Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron) novel Chapter 217

Chapter 217
I use my heightened sense of hearing as I step through the front door of the mansion, picking up the low tones of James and Leah speaking in one of the sitting rooms.
Leah sounds upset and my steps quicken as I rush through the house to find her.
As soon as I walk into the doorway, Leah looks up.
Her hair is a mess, her eyes are red-rimmed and she’s pale.
She looks terrible, but at the same time, so achingly beautiful.
But, she’ll always be beautiful to me and my wolf, no matter the state that she’s in.
The relief and longing that crosses her face when she sees me makes my chest ache.
She jumps up from the couch and rushes across the room, throwing herself into my arms.
I catch her up against me, my worry for her climbing even higher.
James also gets up from where he was sitting in an adjacent armchair and crosses the room as well, but clearly because he’s leaving to give us some privacy.
I catch his eye with a questioning look as he draws even with
me.
“She found out about the attack at the hospital,” James says) which mostly explains everything and I feel my heart take on a new dimension of pain that Leah knows some of the terrible truth now.
“There’s more,” James adds, his expression becoming stormy. “But I’ll let Leah tell you.”
“Thank you, Beta,” I say in a low voice
“Thank you for taking
T
such good care of my mate.”
James se nds me one last nod of respect, before leaving the
room.
For a moment, I simply stand there and hold my mate.
I can feel her silent tears soaking the front of my shirt.
I’m angry that she found out about the attack.
Was Adam the one who told her?
But what did he even hope to achieve from that?
I’d expressly forbid anyone from talking about it.
Maybe it’d been fo olish to think Leah would never learn the truth, but I’d wanted to spare her the pain of knowing this.
The pain that I could now see was tearing her up.
For a split second, I almost want to tell her the truth-that Ethan is alive and well-except if that ends in the next attempt on Ethan’s life being successful, then I won’t be sparing Leah anything.
She will feel this pain and more-we both would.
I have to believe that once Leah knows the full truth-and I would tell her soon, I vowed it on all of my ancestors-she will forgive me once she understands I’m doing it to save Ethan.
After a while, I take Leah over to the couch where she was sitting earlier, and we both sit down, with Leah tucked securely info my side.
“I get it now,” Leah says sadly, her voice scratchy from crying so much. “Why you didn’t want to be around me, why you’ve been doing everything remotely, keeping yourself apart from everyone. This pain… How are we supposed to live with it? Who would even do something so terrible?”
A fresh well of tears stream down her face and I hold her even
tighter.
“I don’t know,” I tell her, because I honestly don’t. “But I’m
going to find them, and then they’ll regret every choice they ever made.”
Leah sits away from me a little to look at me.
She doesn’t just look sad any longer.
No, she’s burning with the kind of wrath I’ve never witnessed in her before.
“We are going to find them, together,” she replies fiercely, and her wolf glows in her eyes for a moment. “If I can stand strong and hold my oldest friend accountable for betraying me, then you can be sure I can make our enemies wish they’d never had the misfortune to move against us.”
She’s right.
When she became Alpha, I didn’t fight her battles for her.
I didn’t have to.
Leah is one of the strongest, bravest wolves I know.
Everything that happened the night Liam betrayed her was a
travesty.
I shouldn’t have ended up in possession of her Alpha powers. She is the Alpha that Roberts pack deserves.
I have no doubt that she can and will effectively take down
our enemies.
Better yet, we can do it together, so this world will finally be safe for our son.
As for the other things she mentioned-
“What did Adam do?” I ask quietly.
Her expression darkens, and for a second I think if Adam was standing here in front of us, she’d probably maul him all over again.
“He was monitoring me for years,” she spits out angrily.
“What?!” I demand.
H ell, I shouldn’t have let him leave!
I don’t just want to maul him, I want to turn his insides to his outside and make sure he feels every second of it before drowning in his own blood.
“I know,” Leah says, shaking her head. “I just can’t figure out why, and he obviously wasn’t going to tell me. It was like he was playing all sides. My father, Liam, me… He even said something about Tobin.”
“Tobin?” I repeat in confusion. “I didn’t even know that they
knew each other.”
“Me either,” Leah replies. “I didn’t have the power to banish him outright, obviously,” Leah says, and I wince at the hint of bitterness in her tone. “But I told him if I ever see him again, then I won’t show any mercy. Oh, I also told him he probably wants to watch out for you.”
I give a quick laugh. “That’s an understatement.”
Leah leans into my side once again, and I love how open and affectionate she’s being with me.
To think we could have had this all along if I’d gotten out of my
own way sooner.
But it’d taken my son coming into the world to make me see the truth of this life.
I am a little ashamed to admit it, but I vow over and over that I will do better by both of them.