Fatal Temptation: Between Two Alphas novel Chapter 56

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The flight back is somber.

With the time difference, it’s barely dinner time when we land.

Mia is a shell of herself.

She’s healed and I think Ashley awakening must have had some part of that. Whatever ties bound us are severed. To ensure it, I put my Alpha strength into breaking the bond with her while I was on the jet.

It caused pain, a sharp and swift slice through my body like a portion of my being was fracturing… and then it dissipated.

I connect with my father to make sure Merilee and the rest of the pack is okay. I’d hoped–gods, how I hoped–that Merilee would be healed.

But that is not the case.

I hate that Dr. Lee is right, that the affliction was caused in utero, when Ashley used witch-magic to trick me.

Whatever was done to make my wolf believe she was my mate, that had an irreversible impact on the daughter we conceived.

My dad assured me my daughter, though not improved, Merilee has not declined further, either. She’s safe. Jacelyn and Aaron too.

That’s good. That’s the most important thing, but how did my pack not notice their former Luna awakening and leaving packlands?

How the fuck did Ashley do what she did!?

I was told Ashley awoke some time in the night and slipped off site.

As for the attack on us here in the Crescent City, it echoes what had been done to Eric’s pack prior to Mia arriving with Jace.

Ashley and her brother Philipe are in league with vampires, and I marvel at what deal might grant dozens of wraiths at their disposal.

Maybe it’s just money–hundreds of millions of dollars might make for such a partnership. Or maybe it’s something more…

A common enemy. Common goal.

But to even suggest such things is an anathema.

It is treason to our species.

To make it to New Orleans so quickly, she must have been able to track us or maybe there was some tie to Adriana. Or me. Or Mia.

I don’t know.

I don’t give a shit.

She’s gone… and good riddance.

Ashley and her brother Philipe would need to be captured. Dealt with.

I really didn’t want to think about what the end game would be with her. Because she is the mother of my child, but I wouldn’t let that stop me from justice. I couldn’t. Not after New Orleans.

Her transgressions are too severe.

Mia stirs. She shivers again.

I try to cover her with a blanket but she shakes it off.

Physically, Mia is healed.

Emotionally, I’m not sure.

My mate looks …broken.

I have an urge to fill the silence but that isn’t what she wants. The few times I tried to get her to talk, she closed her eyes and turned away.

From her breathing, I know she isn’t sleeping now.

Her eyes are closed and she’s angled her body away from me.

That hurts.

But I can’t force it.

I didn’t expect her to take Corinne’s loss or the other women’s deaths so hard. But while she did actually sleep, she cried out for those women. She wept and whimpered and when I tried to touch her, to hold her and console her, she rioted.

She needs time and space.

Such violence and loss is not processed so easily. If ever.

I think back on the damage I did to her all those years ago when I cast her out and how she lost everyone and everything.

I’ve hurt this woman so much.

I rub my chest.

Her pain is mine.

She is my mate.

If she lets me, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.

Conn makes a grumbling sound. Like my idea is stupid.

My wolf isn’t wrong.

What tears me up is knowing that there is no ‘making up’ for anything. The hurts we inflict are always there. Perhaps the actual wounds heal.

But scars remain.

We prepare to land on the private airstrip that our pack owns. We don’t normally land this particular jet here because of its size and the length of the runway, but I’m not worrying about that right now. For all I give a shit, the plane can rot here.

We have bodies to transfer and who-the-fuck-knows in a giant crate to deal with.

I hesitate to even bring that box onto packlands, seeing as how everything that Seer woman touches turns to ash.

Maybe he told my old man, but such information–especially as how it has threatened pack–should’ve been relayed. To me.

I want to take care of her.

“Help them,” I tell him. Unload the bodies first. Then the trunk.

Sean?

My beta–Mia’s father–responds immediately. Is she alright?