When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 153

Chapter 153

Alpha Emris.

Ten hours.

I know I got

good ten hours because I remember nothing between the moment my back hit the mattress and the moment I opened my eyes just now, which is the closest thing to a medical miracle. It’s directly the next morning after we got back from the contest fight between Lake and me.

I got home, took a bath that turned the water pink and now, the day is bight.

I step out of the elevator into the main area of the house and the housekeeper nearest the door gasps.

“Look! It’s the Alpha-”

I hear it move through the pack house. The omegas near the kitchen corridor turn with bright faces and the Deltas snap their posture straight with the instinctive deference of wolves who have just registered something above them in the hierarchy.

Did I really need to physically beat a Lycan in front of witnesses to re–confirm that I’m the one and only true Alpha?

I shake my head, but I’m not annoyed. I’m amused cause apparently yes. Apparently that’s what it took.

I shake my head and keep walking when I hear the sound of the kids which means they’re back, which means the house is full.

As soon as I enter the dining room, everyone and their mother is here. Eating breakfast like it’s Thanksgiving and Howlmas rolled into one.

Slade is next to Sabrina, Silver beside him, Teddy with Eden, Tiffany, and Alpha Ronin of all people seated at the center of my dining table like he was invited and I just wasn’t informed. The giant turkey at the center of the spread is half demolished. Whatever joke just landed is still running through the table in waves of laughter, and not a single one of them has noticed I’m standing in the doorway.

What’s the joke they’re laughing about? I catch fragments-“and then he just threw him-” and “did you see the look on his face-” and Tiffany snorts so hard she chokes on her orange juice.

I scan for Demetra.

There. Her skin is visibly glowing in the morning light coming through the east window but can she even sniff me with all this food in the way? Probably not.

“Daddy!”

Amira sees me first.

She’s off her chair and running with little legs pumping, her white curls bouncing. Milo is right behind her…or he would be. if he wasn’t currently letting go of the corn in his hands like it’s on fire.

“Hey, princess.“”

I catch her mid–run and lift her into the air just to hear her shriek with laughter. I scoop Milo up with my free arm. One kid on each hip. I kiss Amira on the forehead, then turn to Milo and kiss him on the same spot, then kiss both of them at the same time…smooshing their cheeks together until they squirm and giggle.

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“You guys having a celebration without the main dude?” I ask, looking over their heads at the table

“You were resting.” Demetra smiles.

“Everyone is talking about you,” Teddy announces, pointing her fork at me. “They’re calling you the Great Apha Em every platform.”

“Oh, really.” I carry both kids toward the table, Amira already trying to climb higher on my shoulder while Milo age grab something from the nearest plate.

“Since everyone likes you that much now, you should star in mine and Sabrina’s wedding. Slade says, and the table laugh

“I’d love to.” I mean it, which is the part that would have made no sense to me a year ago and makes complete sense now ! set the kids down in their chairs and they immediately abandon them and start chasing each other around the table, praty taking out one of the butlers in the process.

“Kids, careful.” Demetra taps the seat beside her and I sit.

“I want to thank all of you for coming to the contest.” I look around the table cause I mean it. “It–it gave me something Having you all there.”

Eden smiles. “You know I’ve never liked you. But you were tough. Took the Lycan down in under twenty minutes. You have my respect.”

“Well, if you wanna to marry my sister one day, it’s better to like and respect me all together. Okay?”

“Leave my boyfriend alone please!” Teddy glares at me.

“Henceforth you ask my permission before you visit him.”

“Or maybe you should tell Alpha Ronin the next time you impregnate Demetra-

“Hey, what does that have to do with me?!” Demetra looks in disbelief.

“He’s right.” Alpha Ronin, who has been eating through this entire exchange looks up. “You didn’t ask my permission de first time.”

“Sir, he won’t make that mistake the next time.” Silver says, in the voice of a Beta performing his duties with complete. seriousness, and I have to look at my plate to laugh.

“Next time?” Demetra picks up the butter knife.

“I’m just―” Silver raises both hands. “I’m saying what Emris is thinking. That’s my job.”

“The two gangsters who just ran out of here are already a handful,” Demetra says to me, watching Amira and Mo around the far end of the table. “They were bouncing on you while you were sleeping”

“What?” I genuinely have no memory of that whatsoever. Could have been an earthquake.

I lean toward Demetra’s ear and she tilts slightly, expecting words. I kiss her instead and table responds collective “Awwwwn” especially from Scotty.

Demetra’s face goes pink and she covers it with both hands, which is the reaction that never gets

Breakfast runs long. Good food, loud table, the kids eventually retrieved and reinstalled in their chairs. When a oran out pull Alpha Ronin aside and we talk for a while in my study. Then I ring Honey to contrm she’s dready back at Wolf Arts Academy before I make my way back toward the main corridor.

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The moment Alpha Ronin’s car clears the driveway mom appears.

“You did good, Emmy.”

“Oh, really?” I raise an eyebrow, “You’re gonna use the nickname you gave me what ten years.

She smiles and now it just makes me feel… something. Something I don’t want to name

I don’t even want to address that damn part about her and Radu. I swear, I don’t even wars to hear of

“About what Flora said-”

“Did you and him?” I ask flatly.

Silver walks into the corridor at exactly that moment and hears that exact sentence and has the audacity to look unsurprised.

“Of course they did.” he says.

“Silver-”

“Mom. Don’t lie to us. I saw your face when Flora said it. Be glad we didn’t know at the time because I would have ended him. That’s not a figure of speech.”

She opens her mouth.

“I have work to do.” I cut it off but I stop on the way past her and put my hand on her shoulder long enough that she understands what I’m saying without me having to say it.

I’m not done being angry at her. But I’m working on it. Slowly.

Mom understands. She puts her hand over mine for exactly a second and then I walk away. As I get to our bedroom area the kids run past me.

Then I hear Demetra’s voice coming through the bedroom door.

“Um, I’m not sure I want a dorm.”

“There’s only dorms.” The person on the line says, and I fold my arms across my chest, watching Demetra’s profile. Wondering who the hell she’s talking to.

“So I’m gonna have a roommate?” Demetra tucks a curl behind her ear. “Well, I guess it’s not bad if the person’s not a maniac.”

A roommate?

What the hell is she talking about?

I tilt my head slowly.

“You know it resumes in a few days, right?”

“I’m aware. Book my flight-”

“Book what flight?” I ask and she spins around so fast the phone leaves her hand entirely hits the floor bounces once. She with the speed of someone who wants that object back in their possession before I can get any informaton Scoops

it

up

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from it and ends the call in the same motion.

Then she stands there looking at me with her face doing several things at once.

65 vouchers

“What was that?” I’m still in the doorway. I’m not jumping to conclusions. It could be Teddy. Could be any number of things. I’m being reasonable.

I’m being perfectly, completely reasonable.

“That was

1. um. My assistant. Lolly.”

“Right. But what were you and Lolly talking about?” I take one step into the room. “Why is your face red, Demi?”

“Red? I must have put too much blush on.”

She tries to walk away from me… but I stand side step, close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin and to see the pulse jump in her throat. She won’t meet my eyes.

“Should I just find out myself?”

“Em – Emris. Husband. I mean-” she blinks. “Alpha-”

“Demetra.” I look at the phone in her grip.

I am done staring at her shaking lips. I reach out and take it from her hand and she immediately jumps for it…reaching for it the way Amira reaches for things I’ve confiscated.

I raise it slightly higher and Demetra makes another attempt-

“Tell me before I go through every email on this thing.”

“I’m going to an academy. Alright!?”

“An academy. So a one–day teaching thing?”

“No, Emris. As a student.”

“Oh…so you’re going to teach the students?”

“No, Emris! I’m a student. I applied. I’ve already applied, actually, to go as a student.”

I shake my head slowly because there is genuinely no way that she is-

“Do you mean a college?”

“No. It’s not… it’s just four months, I was waiting for everything to settle and then I was going to tell you properly. It’s–it’s Wolf Arts Camp.”

I laugh.

Not because anything about this is funny. I laugh because the alternative is something I’m not going to do in this bedroom right now, and also because Wolf Arts Camp!? Of all the places on this earth–

Wolf Arts Camp at Rocksville!?

The last time I set foot in that school I was a senior. My mother had enrolled me cause she thought it was the best place to

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curtail the excesses of the slits in my eyes.

I graduated as a fucking disaster.

My reputation at that school is the kind of thing they tell freshmen to warn them. Stay opens the Box, Don’t make eye contact. Don’t challenge him. Don’t even breathe too loud when he’s in the roo

students that the student council held an emergency session and voted unaumwaytorze er for man me seven to zero…all the student council put their names on a document that sad kurs Berkey sosed un this campus again.

But here’s the thing about being the heir to the Black Covenant Pack.

We pump money into that school. A lot of money, Scholarships, building funds, an entire library with my pers name on the plaque. So their vote meant nothing. The administration took my family’s checks and grote se ne never happened.

That’s not the strange part, though.

The strange part is what else I did there.

I had a relationship with one of the teacher’s wives. Or was she the librarian: I don’t even remember your had te there was the other one. The principal’s son….mate. Shit. The omega who worked in the headmaster’s

delta who was supposed to be mentoring me.

Now imagine what those wolves would do if they found out my mate was there.

My eyes land on the suitcase propped against the foot of the bed. So, she’s been planning this. Making arrang was sleeping off a fight with a Lycan.

“No. No fucking way.”