Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 497

Andrei’s POV

I woke to the feeling of someone shaking my shoulder. My neck was stiff from sleeping at an awkward angle, and my mouth tasted like old coffee and morning breath.

“Andrei. Wake up.”

I lifted my head from the desk. Damon was standing over me with his arms crossed. The look on his face told me immediately that this wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation.

“What time is it?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

“Almost noon. Natalia told me you didn’t come to bed last night.”

I pushed myself up from the chair and winced as my back cracked. “What do you want, Damon?”

“I want to know what the hell is going on with you.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Bullshit.” He moved around the desk to face me. “You look like death. You’re clearly not sleeping. You’re avoiding your family when they need you the most. Natalia is taking care of twins and a new baby all by herself.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“No, you’re not.” My brother’s voice was hard. “The visions got worse, didn’t they?”

I looked away. I didn’t want to have this conversation. Didn’t want to admit that he was right about all of it.

“They’re just stress dreams,” I muttered. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Stress dreams don’t make you look like you’re about to fall apart at the seams like Jane’s favorite stuffie.” Damon stepped closer. “When’s the last time you actually slept in a bed? Or ate a full meal? Or spent more than five minutes with your kids?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Busy avoiding the problem.” He grabbed my shoulder and forced me to look at him. “You need to tell Natalia what’s happening. She deserves to know the truth. The real truth.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Stop lying to me!” Damon’s grip tightened on my shoulder, fingers digging into my skin. “I know you, Andrei. And I know you’re scared out of your mind, even if you won’t admit it.”

Something snapped inside of me when he said that word. Scared. I shoved his hand off of my shoulder and stepped back. “I said I’m fine. Stay out of it, Damon.”

“I’m not going to stay out of it. You’re my brother, and you’re falling apart and leaving Natalia to clean pieces. She’s been through enough, Andrei-”

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“I’m not doing that to her! Mind your own damn business!” The words came out sharp. Far sharper than I

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meant them to.

Damon stared at me for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “Fine. Have it your way.‘

He turned and walked out of the study, slamming the door behind him. I immediately regretted what I had said, and sank into the chair behind me, burying my face in my hands.

“They don’t understand.”

The voice was back. That same sound that made my skin crawl. I jerked my head up, but I was alone. The voice remained, though.

“They can’t understand what you are. What you’re meant to become.”

“Shut up,” I whispered. I jammed my hands over my ears.

“You fight it. But you can’t fight destiny, Andrei.” The voice remained despite my attempts to block it out.

Then, the walls started to blur. The bookshelves melted away, replaced by darkness. I tried to move, tried to run, but my feet were rooted to the spot.

“Let me show you. Let me show you your true purpose.”

The darkness shifted. Shapes formed in the shadows. Bodies. Dozens of them. Hundreds. All dead. All killed by my hands. Piling on top of one another, forming into mountains peaked by macabre arrangements of limbs.

I saw Natalia on the ground, her throat cut so deep her head hung on by only a few sinews. Someone had sat her up, pinning her hand up on a stake so she looked like she was waving. I wanted to retch.

I saw the twins beside her, their small bodies cut apart and arranged into diagrams and shapes I didn’t recognize. I saw Hope laying at the center of it. Her lips were blue and there were bruises around her throat.

And I saw myself standing over them. Smiling with blood on my teeth.

“This is what you were made for,” the voice whispered. I swore I could feel cold lips brushing my ear, but there was no one there. “This is your legacy. Blood and death and beautiful, glorious destruction.”

“No!” I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. The images kept coming behind my eyelids. More bodies. More blood. The entire pack slaughtered by my hands. The entire world as one bloody masterpiece of guts and pain.

“You can’t escape it. You are a weapon, Andrei. A tool of death. And soon, you will fulfill your purpose.”

“I won’t. I won’t do it!”

“You already have.”

The vision shattered.

I was standing in front of the fireplace. The flames crackled and popped, consuming something I couldn’t see. Whatever it was, it had already burned up.

What the hell?

I looked down at my hands. They were covered in red ink. It stained my fingers, my palms, smeared across my

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wrists like blood, but it wasn’t blood. Just the ink from a pen that was sitting broken by my feet.

I rushed to the bathroom and scrubbed my hands in the sink. The ink came off slowly, turning the water pink as it swirled down the drain.

What had I done?

Whatever it was, I needed to get control of it before someone got hurt. Before I blacked out and did something more than… whatever I had just done.

I scrubbed my hands until the skin was raw and the last traces of ink were gone. Then I cleaned up the broken pen, hiding it where Natalia wouldn’t find it and start worrying. After that, I changed my shirt and tried to make myself look presentable.

The festival. Natalia would be expecting me at the festival. I had already let her down enough lately; I needed to be there for her now and try to forget about these strange visions, at least for tonight.

Damon was right, though. I couldn’t avoid her forever. I couldn’t keep hiding in this study and pretending everything was fine when my mind was clearly turning to mush. But I also couldn’t tell her the truth. How could I, when I didn’t even understand it myself?

I left the house and headed toward the town square. The sun was starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. Music drifted on the wind, along with laughter and the smell of roasted meat.

The festival was in full swing by the time I arrived. The town square was packed with people. Pack members from Moonshadow and Ashmoor, and the Bloodmoon refugees, all gathered around the massive bonfire in the center. Tables were set up along the edges, covered with food and drinks. Children ran between the adults, playing and shrieking with delight.

I scanned the crowd, looking for Natalia. It took me but a moment to find her. She was near the bonfire, dancing with Grace. The firelight caught on her dress, making it shimmer like liquid gold, and she was laughing with her head thrown back and her hair flying behind her.

She looked stunning. Happy.

Happier than she was when I was near her lately, dampening everything with the horrors that were constantly plaguing my mind.

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