When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 121

Alpha Emris.

Asked where I could find Slade, and I got this location.

Briscot Hills.

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It’s a place most Alphas come to settle beef. Also, a spot where most come to settle deals. It’s got the tallest hills, deepest woods in the whole of Georgia, lakesides….best for camping if you want to be eaten by bears or the forest jaguars. It’s banned for young adults, but I remember sneaking in here when I was eighteen.

Shit, I think lost my virginity here. Someone with her back up against a tree, bark

into her skin and my hands shaking because I didn’t know what I was doing.

“Damn, didn’t we lose our big ones here?” Silver asks and I glance at him.

We look at each other-

And burst out laughing at the same time!

“Shit.” My smile drops immediately. “Don’t tell Demetra that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Silver kicks a stone off the path. “You look like the kind of wolf who’d kill me.”

“Accurate.”

We’ve been picking our way through the terrain for the last ten minutes, and I’ve already clocked the positioning of Slade’s Gammas at the axis point between the lake’s edge and where the woods begin to thicken. Smart placement.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?”

“Can you tell?”

“Everyone can tell you’re happy. You’re not dragging the Deltas and Zetas out of bed for five AM training runs anymore. You’re not keeping the elders waiting before meetings. The entire pack is quietly grateful for Demetra-”

“Good. So you know I don’t need you anymore. You can go find your mate too.”

“I am your Beta. I am constitutionally bound to you. Unfortunately.”

I see Slade’s Beta alert him as our numbers become visible. The quiet signal passing between them that tells me Slade has had eyes on us since before we crested the last hill. He’s thorough. I’ll give him that.

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Then Slade himself appears, coming down through the valley between two ridges, and I take stock of him properly.

He looks nothing like Demetra, which I’m genuinely grateful for because this conversation is already going to be difficult enough. He’s cut his hair since the last time I saw him, close to the scalp now, somewhere between a low cut and nearly bare, and it does what that particular haircut does to a face with strong structure: makes him look harder. He’s wearing a leather jacket, and around him his Gammas number somewhere around twenty, all of them carrying those silver, magical shock sticks that have always irritated me on a fundamental level.

Real wolves use claws. Canines. The biological equipment we are born with.

But I am not here to have opinions about Slade’s Gamma weaponry.

“How’s my niece?” Slade’s voice carries across the remaining distance, and he clears his throat after it like the question cost him something.

I

Silver and I stop at a distance that communicates we’re here to talk, not escalate

“You’re

welcome to come to the pack any time you want to see her. Demetra is alright too – ”

“I didn’t ask about her.”

The flatness of his voice. Wow, Demetra is damn right…he’s pissed at her.

“You’re pissed at her. I get it. I have a sister too and-”

“And if a fucking wolf made a video about your sister, I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation. So let’s not play the sibling card.”

I see his canines elongate. His jaw shifts. Which means this bastard wants me dead that badly.

“I understand how you feel about that shit I pulled, okay.” I hold up my hands. “I also wanted to kill Eden when I found out he was messing with my sister but I let them be. You see, mates fight all the time. And what you saw was me… well, fighting with Demetra and knowing it would get you upset.”

“Congratulations. Clap with your cock, ‘cause you succeeded, Emris.

The way Slade looks at me and curses is mad unusual. He is great at acting Alpha charming but today, his eyes are dead which tells me there’s no hope for reconciliation.

“Emris didn’t come here to rub it in your face. He actually came to apologize.”

“Apologize?” Slade looks around at his wolves…twenty of them who look hungry. “Look around, my wolves want to claw you. If I were you, I’d get out before they do.”

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“I’m not afraid of your Gammas,” I say.

“Don’t ruin this,” Silver hisses at me directly. Then turns back to Slade with a fresh smile. “Are you coming to the bonding gala? We’d love to have the Lion Pride Pack represented-”

“Of course I am. I’ve got gifts to give the new Luna.”

“We heard you probably have a trick up your sleeve for Emris? That’s why we’re here. To talk about this between us men.”

“Since when does Emris need his brother to speak for him?” Slade glares.

Silver puts his hand on his chest. “No, I’m actually here as his Beta.”

“Shut up, then.” Slade’s Beta says.

I think his name is Robot or Robocop, whichever one that is-

“Let the Alphas speak.”

“Fair enough.” Silver takes a full step back and puts his hands up.

I put my hands in my pockets.

“It’s true. I came to apologize. I’ve turned a new leaf. As you know by now, I returned your territory. And I want to settle this beef or whatever’s left between us.”

“You wanna settle beef because you and Demetra are playing house-”

“No. We’re genuinely together.”

Slade’s brows move. “Yeah? Just last week with the girls, Demetra made it clear to them that this was a marriage of convenience.”

“And that evening, she changed her mind.” I lick my lips. “It’s my fault, though how she became my luna. I gave her no real choice when I brought her from the hospital. I told her I was going to fight for Amira’s custody and it was going to get ugly. I made her feel like staying was the only option.”

“And she’s choosing to be with you after you did that!?”

Now Slade’s voice is getting higher, more hysterical-

“It’s a mate bond. She forgave me. The same way I forgave her for hiding Amira from plus trying to give my daughter a stepfather while her biological father was alive and breathing.”

“Yeah, no shit! You abandoned her five years ago. You think you have a claim on her or her daughter!?”

D

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“I get you. However, Demetra and I have decided to put it behind us”

“Oh, wonderful. Will you also put behind the fact that you slept with my fated mate? Does Demetra know that part? Did she know that when she decided to give you her forgiveness?”

That.

I take my hand out of my pocket and look at Silver, who gives me the expression of a man who warned me this was coming and is experiencing no satisfaction from being right.

“You slept with my fated mate.” Slade says again like he needs to hear himself say it in its entirety. “You took my territory. You have spent years making the Lion Pride Pack feel small, bullied us from the moment you took the Alpha seat. Bullied my sister into becoming your Luna, pulled my niece out of our lives-” He stops. Breathes. “How do you look at yourself in the mirror, Emris? Demetra is wise. She is. But she is still innocent in ways that make her vulnerable to you. How many times is she going to have to forgive you for what you do? How many times before she understands what she’s actually looking at? How many times is she going to have to forgive you for what you do with your cock!?”

That one stings. But I swear for Demetra’s sake, I’m standing here and taking it.

For the version of myself I am trying to build into something she deserves to come home to. “If it makes any difference, I don’t remember what your mate looks like, okay?” I exhale sharply. “That’s to show you that I wasn’t really interested in her. Plus, it was before Demetra was my mate, so… who I was or what I was back then is different from who I am with Demetra now.”

“No, you bloody bastard! That doesn’t make it okay. Demetra will be the judge of that if she finds out that her brother’s one true mate was smashed by the idiot she calls a mate.”

“Slade, please.”

Those two words…please….and Slade…are things I have never said together in the same damn sentence. I hear Slade’s gammas chuckle and whisper among themselves, passing looks like they’re watching a show.

Silver looks at me sideways.

“I’m willing to do anything,” I say. “I need you to hear that as a real offer, not a figure of speech. I know the weight of a true mate bond. I know what I took from you when I made that decision, and I’m not standing here pretending it was a small thing. Whatever it costs to get us past this… I’m telling you I’ll pay it.”

The Gammas start looking at each other because they know what it means when Emris Covenant, Trybrid, stands in an open field and tells someone they can ask for anything. It could mean all the guards are down.

Wared

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“Did he just say anything?” Slade’s Beta chuckles.

Slade looks at me over one shoulder first.

“Anything… to end this beef?”

“I started this. It’s only right that I end it.”

“I have twenty Gammas here. Every single one of them has a personal grievance with you. I have a personal grievance with you.” He pauses. “One day isn’t enough for all of that. So here’s what I’m proposing…you have seven days before your bonding gala. We meet here every day between now and then for my gammas to punish you on my behalf. An hour each session. And for that hour, we get to make that point as physically as we feel necessary.”

“Emris,” Silver says, stepping back into range.

“Let him finish.” I say.

“That’s-”

“We won’t touch you the day before the gala. You get one day of rest so you don’t show up to your own ceremony looking like something the wolves dragged in. But we start today. Right

now.”

“Emris, I need you to think about this for approximately ten seconds-”

“Fine.” I say, over Silver’s voice.

Silver closes his eyes briefly.

I just want to get a well done from Demetra when she sees that her brother and I are no longer fighting. She’ll remember it was me who was mature enough to end it cause I’m apparently the kind of man who will let twenty Gammas use him as a punchbag for a week straight for the particular reward of Demetra looking at me like I did something right.

I’m a sucker for her recognition. I’m not complaining.

“Boys. Get the glass cut. Bats-”

“Glas–s?” I raise an eyebrow.

Slade looks back at me with the first genuine expression I’ve seen from him all afternoon.

“Punches are for frat boys. We’re Alphas. Alphas take hits like ones.” He tilts his head. “And you’re a Trybrid which means your healing is fast enough that we have to be creative to make

it count.”

He glances at Silver.

“You can set the timer and watch your brother take what he’s got coming. Don’t worry. I won’t

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touch his pretty face.”

AD