When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 136

Chapter 136

Demetra Pride Covenant.

Contd

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I get to the training area, and the first thing I meet on my way is the sounds of both Deltas and Zetas… groaning.

I turn the corner and immediately have to step sideways as a Delta comes limping past me with both hands pressed over his nose, blood running freely between his fingers. Behind him, a female Zeta is bent at the waist against the wall and some of them are bursting out holding back vomit.

He didn’t spare anyone.

“EMRIS!”

I spot him in the center of the fighting pen while he’s wrapping his training bands and his head snaps toward my voice.

“What is she doing here?” He doesn’t say it to me. He says it to Jupiter, who is standing to the side looking like a wolf who very much wishes he had chosen a different career. Emris literally told me he was going to join the elder meeting. Yet this is where he came.

“What am I doing here?” I push forward. “Is the training area restricted to a Luna now? Is that new? Because nobody told me—”

And… wait. What is that?

I stop walking when I notice he’s wearing an eye patch.

Black, fitted, covering his left eye completely.

No.

No. No.

Is this what Derisha was on about when she was worrying about the slit in his eyes? So the slits in his eyes. came back after the fight? But when I spoke to him last night, it wasn’t there. So how can the slit in his eyes come back overnight?

That’s why he didn’t even open the door this morning. That’s why he wouldn’t let me see his face when I knocked.

“You’re wearing an eye patch-”

“I’m busy.” He uses his teeth to tighten the hand glove.

“Yeah, no kidding. You’re busy concussing the entire Gamma unit!” I get to the edge of the fighting pen and haul myself up and over. It’s nice that I’m wearing jeans. “You missed the elder meeting…which, fine, I

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Chapter 136

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handled it, great, you’re welcome. But… why are you down here giving the pack’s defense team brain injuries. Emris, can we please talk?”

“No.” He looks directly at me with the one uncovered eye. “I’m training.”

“You call this training-”

“Lake has very talented Zetas. The exclusive ones. If he were to storm into my pack, we need defense.”

“Defense?” I gesture around us at the groaning bodies who are limping away from their own Alpha. “How are we gonna get defended when all around us is broken bones and limping gammas?” I try not to scream, but I swear it comes out as one. “Are you out of your mind!?”

“Yes. Next. Come in.” He tightens the band again and raises one arm, beckoning toward the door. I look back. Four Zetas in full pack uniforms step forward and the patch on their sleeves mark them as exclusive unit, and my stomach drops.

“You’re fighting the exclusive Zetas too—”

“These are the last of them.” He rolls his neck once, side to side, and the crack of it makes two people in the room flinch. “Jupiter, I want the rest of the recruits here. Now.”

He growls the order at Jupiter, who is looking at me for help like he doesn’t know whether to obey or run.

Then I see Derisha and Silver rush in.

“Yes, Silver.” Emris’s head snaps toward his brother. “Get in here. Let’s spar.”

He has a dangerous smile on his face when he says that. The last time I saw that smile, Emris was not yet Alpha but my secret mate. And along with that dangerous smile was a dangerous personality…. that made me cry constantly. The one that made me question whether I loved him or feared him more.

No. I’m not even going to think for a second that Emris is back to being the person he was five years ago.

“No, bro. I’m the Beta. I actually need my head attached to my neck and not spinning independently. So I’m going to respectfully decline and also maybe stand over here by this wall.”

I turn back to Emris.

“Emris.” I whisper. “Is this about what I told you. About what Lake did.” I watch his eye flick upward and away from my face….a flinch exactly.

“You won’t even look at me. Emris. You won’t look at me because I told you what happened, and now you’re-”

“I don’t want to talk about it and that’s an order.”

“An… I’m sorry, an order?” I look down at myself. Look back up at him. “Am I wearing a pack uniform right now? Do I have a rank insignia somewhere on my body that I’m not aware of?”

He blows steam.

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Chapter 136

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We stare at each other like it’s a staring contest. I hear Emris growl through our mind link then looks past my face to a specific point behind me.

“Oh, and just so you know…for the sake of being newlyweds and all so there’s no secret between us, I slept with that she-wolf!”

I….

First of all…what the hell just came out of his mouth?

I stand completely still while my brain tries to decide if those words were arranged in the order I think they were arranged in, and then slowly.. slowly… Emris raises one finger and points, and I turn around to Riley.

Riley is standing just inside the doorway. And she is blinking…rapidly, repeatedly right now and her mouth is a flat line.

I turn back to Emris who is bone–faced.

“EMRIS. Hold your damn tongue-”

“No, I’m not done.” He raises his finger to keep Derisha from speaking. “We are Alpha and Luna, right? There ought to be no secrets between us so there’s the truth. And by the way…she’s Slade’s mate. But he rejected her after my actions.”

The words land and my body…hurts.

I feel myself float backward… not dramatically, not a stumble exactly, more like the ground shifted half an inch and my legs didn’t get the update in time. The room tilts. And then Emris’s hand is at my back, catching me before I hit the mat, pulling me upright and into him, and I am in his arms in the middle of a training room in front of everyone and my chest is doing something I don’t have a name for.

Shattering, maybe.

Quietly. Without making a scene. Just…coming apart at a seam while Emris is holding me up with one arm like it’s reflex and his face is giving me nothing. Not guilt. Not satisfaction. Not even the decency of discomfort.

“Why,” I start, and my voice does something embarrassing on the first word, “why are you telling me this?”

“Because you didn’t know.”

I slap him and Emris doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t let go of me. He keeps his arm at my back until my legs remember what they’re for, and I press my against his chest to push myself upright and away from him.

“You bastard.” I say it quietly then I turn around and walk back to the edge of the ring.

Riley is standing where I left her. I don’t look at her for long because I can’t. Not because I’m angry at her but because looking at her face right now requires me to put two things in the same room inside my head.

I know Emris has a past. I have never once in five years asked him to account for the years before me.

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Chapter 136

But Slade’s mate!?

It hurts.

Derisha quickly stands in front of me.

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“He said it to make you leave him alone so you won’t stop him from training all day long. Don’t walk away-”

“He’s your son. You deal with him.”

I walk out.

The sunlight hits me at the front of the pack house and I stop for exactly one second. I see Aunt Scotty and the kids.

“Demetra?”

“I’m going home with you guys.”

Aunt Scotty turns from the car door she’s holding open.

“What happened?”

The kids spot me from the back seat and they yell, “Yay, vacation!”

My lips shake but I press them together.

“Slade’s mate. When I asked you and Aunt Allison about her… you both kind of went around it. You gave me nothing. Why?”

Aunt Scotty blows a slow breath out through her nose.

“Because…. we were guessing….everyone was guessing that maybe she was unfaithful. someone else. But we don’t talk about it because whatever it actually was, it broke Slade. Your aunt and I decided a long time ago that if he wanted us to know the real story, he’d tell us.”

I look at her.

“So neither of you actually know what happened.”

“No.”

“I need to talk to Slade.”

“Demetra. Did you hear something?”

“I’m fine.” The lie is terrible and we both know it.

If I even tell Aunt Scotty, the entire house will know before dark. And as much as Emris deserves whatever

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Chapter 136

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storm that would bring down, he doesn’t get to blow everything up and then make me the one who spreads the fire.

“I’m fine. Let’s just go.”

I get into the car cause I have to speak to Slade.

曲

AD