When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 106

Chapter 106

Alpha Emris.

Contd.

Her eyes move from Elena on the couch to the doctors to the blood to Regan and something shifts behind them that I’m watching very carefully. Whether it’s guilt or shock.

I also notice Amira just now. She’s near the curtains with her wide eyes fixed

on Elena.

I’m already moving toward Demetra when Regan starts coming from the other direction, and I close the distance faster than him because if anyone is going to be the one standing in front of her right now, it is going to be me.

“Get the children out of here. Now.”

“Why did you hurt my mommy?!”

Milo faces Demetra directly as he screams! He screams it again before the door closes behind him.

I feel my boy’s pain. I have never been able to watch my son cry without something in me fracturing at the edges. I have never found a way to be unmoved by it.

“I… she’s hurt? I-”

Demetra’s eyes are moving between Elena on the couch and the wounds and me, and she looks genuinely stricken in a way that almost makes me hesitate.

Almost.

“Is she alright?” she asks, and she actually tries to step past me toward Elena.

“No. Don’t….don’t let her touch me, please.” Elena recoils, pressing herself back against the cushions, and the doctors instinctively angle their bodies between the two of them.

Demetra turns back to me, and the look on her face is desperate in a way I have never seen on her before.

“This is not…..I swear to you, this is not what I wanted. I never meant for her to get-”

“Why did you think it was remotely okay to send her to that shack?” I ask. “I’N grant you that I didn’t tell you she was back in the pack house… that’s on me but you could have come to me first. You could have asked. Instead you-”

“Elena was being verbally abusive to the Luna. The Luna wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

Ruthlessly, I look up and It’s a maid who clearly thought this was the moment to speak. I stare at her with the kind of look that has historically ended conversations permanently, trying to identify exactly who invited her into this situation.

I don’t get the chance cause Regan has already crossed the distance. He grabs the housekeeper by the back of her neck, the way you’d grab something you intended to discard, and throws her. The woman hits the wall hard-

“Gammas, stop him. Now!”

The command in Demetra’s voice is immediate and absolute, and for one strange second I watch the Gammas in the room respond to it on instinct before they’ve even processed who gave the order.

However, the first gamma who reaches Regan, gets launched sideways into the decorative screen panel near the far wall.

1/3

10:11 am

Chapter 106

ppp.

That’s it. Now he’s destroying my pack house.

“Regan. That is enough. I am trying to speak.”

He’s breathing hard through his nose to calm down but his eyes still murderous.

Demetra uses the half–second of stillness to try and step around me toward the housekeeper on the floor

“Are we FUCKING done here?” My growl fills the room in a way that has nothing to do with volume as I position myself back in front of her.

She looks up at me.

“Elena is the mother of my child. I understand you hate her. But this- I gesture toward the couch,” this is too far. This is cruel, Demetra and I have never once taken you for a cruel person.”

“I wasn’t… trying to intentionally hurt her.”

“Oh, you were trying to kill her, then.”

“No

–

하

“Look at the bites on her body!”

I reach out and take her by the wrist, pulling her toward Elena before she can step back, and she makes a sharp sound…. surprise or protest, I don’t care which…twisting against my grip as I bring her close enough to see what I’ve been staring at since I walked into this room.

“Your first order as Luna did this.” I release her and face her fully. “Are you proud of that?”

“This wasn’t my intention, Emris!”

She backs up so I start walking towards her. The Gammas scatter out of our path without being told to

“You knew those woods were dangerous.”

“Based on rumors. No one has ever actually been hurt in those woods. I didn’t think…I swear on everything. I genuinely didn’t believe-”

“I told you personally never to go in there alone. I told you. Do you remember that conversation, or have you conveniently forgotten?”

I reach out and catch her wrist again to stop her from retreating further because there’s furniture behind her and she hasn’t noticed, and the grip is tighter than I intend it to be. I feel her tense against it, feel the bones of her wrist shift under my fingers-

“Ah

Emris, wait, you’re hurting me-

“Are you hurting more than Elena is right now!? She was out there all night and my son saw her injuries. Do you have any idea what that does to a child? Imagine… just for one second, imagine how Amira would feel if it were you on that couch.

Her face changes on Amira’s name. “Emris, you’re hurting me. Please let me explain-

“Emris. You are hurting your Luna in front of everyone!” I hear mom’s voice and the moment I do, the second layer of fury that’s been sitting just beneath this one rises up to meet it..because she is the other person in this pack house I am currently furious with, and the fact that she’s standing there defending Demetra, choosing Demetra’s side in this moment–

10:11 am

Chapter 106

ppp.

1 release Demetra’s wrist.

I release it too fast without meaning to be a shove-

Demetra stumbles backward and goes down so that I’m standing above her and the entire room goes absolutely still.

I look at her wrist where she’s shaking.

There are red marks where my grip was.

“Elena will remain in the pack house. I was going to keep her in the wing for a month. Because of this, she stays for as long as she requires. And you are going to accept that.”

I don’t look at Demetra’s wrist again.

I refuse to let the guilt of my wrist clamped on her hand make me feel bad.

This is the first time our argument is ever reaching something like this.

Are we done? Is our relationship ever going to be the same?

I doubt it.