Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron) novel Chapter 236

Chapter 236
We drive through the gate and all the way up to Tobin’s grand mansion without seeing another single wolf. There doesn’t seem to be any guards or wolves patrolling, but looks can be deceiving
Many of the men who were at the factory with Tobin last night seemed to be rogue wolves he’d somehow managed to convince to fight for him, so it leaves me wondering where the majority of his fighting force are at the moment.
James and I get out of the car and then head up toward the huge, black double-door entrance. One of the doors swings inward to reveal a housekeeper in a uniform.
“Sorry, but we are not taking visitors right now,” she says with a pinched look of disapproval on her face,
However, just at that moment, the wail of a baby echoes through the house and I catch the faintest hint of scent.
I’ve never heard Ethan cry before, but I feel it in my bones.
That cry.
That’s my son.
“Oh my go d,” I utter and I’m moving forward before I even know what I’m doing. “It’s him! James, he’s here! Call Aaron.”
I don’t wait for him to reply as I rush the door.
The housekeeper tries to block me, shouting something about being an intruder, but I snarl and shove her out of the way.
Nothing and no one is going to keep me from Ethan when he’s so close.
I follow the sound of the cries, the scent growing stronger, until I burst into a study
I skid to a stop at the sight of Adam holding my son.
“Leah!” Adam says, as if he’s happy-and not surprised-to see me. “I was going to call you, but here you are.”
“Adam, what the hell is going on?” I demand, walking forward.
I’m trying to figure out how I can sna tch my baby from Adam without hurting Ethan
However, when I get closer, Adam steps forward to meet me, and hands him over with a smile.
Shocked, I automatically take the warm weight of him and hold my son close to my chest for the first time.
All I want to do is look down and enjoy this moment that should be joyous and wondrous.
Instead I keep my eye on Adam, not knowing what to expect next.
“Leah, I know we’ve had our differences-some misunderstandings-but surely you can see the truth now,” Adam says in a gentle voice, like we’re still best friends and nothing has changed.
“What truth?” I ask in confusion and anger, not sure what to make of this whole thing.
“I saved your son, Leah,” Adam says, as if this should be obvious. “Aaron was holding him captive, keeping him from you, lying to you. He doesn’t love you. He just used you for his own gain, and he was going to keep hiding your son from you, probably for the rest of your life.”
“No,” I reply automatically, but some small, insecure part of me wonders if some of what Adam says is the truth.
Adam clearly doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
He thinks he saved Ethan.
Adam steps closer and takes my hand. “Leah, I didn’t mean for you to find out I’d been monitoring you the past few years the way you did. I was going to tell you eventually, when the time was right. And I know you think I betrayed you, but it was everyone else who I
double crossed I was playing all sides, its true. But there was one single reason I was doing it.”
“Which is what?” I ask in confusion.
I came here so angry, thinking Adam was the bad guy and he planned to threaten my son’s life to get back at me or hurt Aaron, but that’s not what’s happening at all.
“You,” Adam answers in a low voice, and I can see the truth of it in his gaze. The way he looks at me.
I’ve seen hints of it before, and there have been times when he’s crossed my personal boundaries like the night of the party at the Roberts pack mansion to celebrate me becoming Alpha, when he kissed me on the check in front of everyone, and before that, when I was first diagnosed with cancer and he begged me to come home.
But I’ve brushed it aside, told myself he was my oldest friend, so I could cut him some slack. And maybe there’s been times when I’ve been kind of flattered, and enjoyed the attention when Aaron was treating me so terribly.
But now I know I was never seeing the true depths of Adam’s feelings for me.
And how twisted they are.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him, which is the total truth.
Adam smiles at me.
“I was so sad and angry when your father sent you to live with the Rathborn pack,” Adam begins to explain. “Like some kind of virgin sacrifice. Even though we were so young back then, I’d already started thinking that one day you would be my mate. But then you were stolen away from me and sent to live with our enemy. When they finally started letting you come back and visit, I was so excited to see you. Despite everything that had happened, you were still good and pure. So beautiful and vibrant. I knew you were meant to be mine. That somehow, I had to rescue you from Aaron and the Rathborn pack-our worst enemies, the ones who killed your mother in the pack wars-no matter what it took So I figured out ways to monitor you from afar to make sure you weren’t being unduly hurt or treated badly until I could work out how to get you out of there. In the meantime, I became friends with Tobin, while your father and Liam trusted me as a confidante because of my position as pack doctor and your father’s beta. Everything that happened, I tried to work in the background to save you from it. But it all went wrong”
Adam looks crestfallen, as if he’s somehow failed me
“Then you almost died, and you were pregnant with his son,” Adam continues bitterly. “But none of that matters any longer. We’re here now. And with Aaron’s son, this can all work out even better than I’d hoped.”
“And what exactly were you hoping for, Adam?” I ask, backing up a little, but slowly and carefully so he doesn’t notice.
Adam has been living in a fantasy all these years, pining and striving for something that was never going to happen.
I have no idea what he’ll do when that fantasy shatters and reality comes rushing in
“Our destiny, of course,” Adam answers. “You and I can be the ones to rule the Roberts pack, just like we were meant to be. And we can have the Rathborn pack as well. There’s just one last thing standing in our way… All we have to do is kill Aaron.”