When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 228

Chapter 228

Chapter 228

Laina Demetra.

can

By his scent, I know Emris. I can pick him out in a room full of wolves and not dare make a mistake. feet myself walking but I don’t know…maybe I’m just hallucinating right now. I’ve spent two months imagining this exact thing. Praying that one day he would walk into the room of our bedroom and stroke my hair. And tell me he’s back. And tell me nothing really happened to him. And ask where are the kids and…

All for him to walk in here.

He’s… Emris looks different. Physically. The last time I saw him, he had hair. He had a different haircut. But now his hair is shaved clean so that every tattoo on his skull is looking back at me. The skull tattoo he keeps hidden so the kids don’t see it is obvious now. Something reckless he did when he became eighteen. I once heard him say he worried it would make Amira afraid.

Emris is just standing there and the aura coming off him makes the Deltas who know his name physically step back without coordinating it. We can all tell that something is wrong in the hierarchy, something that isn’t the Emris they were trained under.

His thick neck turns slowly as he looks across the room, glancing at everyone else. What is he thinking? Why does he look like someone that cannot sniff his mate in this moment?

His knuckles are cracked and darkened along every ridge, skin split in the specific pattern of someone who has been hitting things without rest or recovery. There’s a cut along the left side of his face, healed badly and recently. The veins along his neck and his forearms stand out like cables under tension, visible in a way that makes him look assembled from something harder than flesh.

Emris‘ chest is so buff, impossibly hard to look at yet alone touch. Anger is written all over him. Why do the tattoos on his arms look darker, like they’ve absorbed something from his time away?

His eyes are not darkened…they are normal again so I’m sure that he’s Emris. I’m sure that he can see me, hear me!

I run towards Emris and hug him. When I do, I shut my eyes and wrap my hands around his body so tightly. I can feel my heart beating. My throat meeting against his chest. I want to cry. I want to cry so badly, and I can feel it building up in my throat and in my eyes-

I loosen my arms to hold his face instead.

Emris grabs both of my wrist with one huge enormous hand and stares at me with a look I have never once seen on his face directed at me. Flat. Like he’s deciding what category I belong in.

He didn’t hug me back. I have no way of asking what’s wrong when Emris throws my hand away, and the space between us widens.

Somehow, I realize Lake is behind me as if he caught me-

“Emris-”

I stop speaking when Laura steps in.

1/4

17:20 Thu, Jul 2

Chapter 228

93

55 Vouchers

Rage purifies my bones. I don’t know when I’m walking toward her with claws out until Emris grabs the back of my dress and the entire rear panel tears away in a single pull. I slap both hands to my chest in pure shock at how fast it happened.

“Lay a finger on her and you’ll spend a long time trying to put your skin back where it belongs!”

I lift my head up at him sharply.

“Emris, it’s Demetra you’re speaking to!” I hear Silver’s voice.

“Lay a finger on her,” Emris says quietly, “and you’ll spend a long time trying to put your skin back where it belongs.”

It’s in a huff of a second that Emris grabs his own brother and throws him off upstairs so that his body cracks, breaking the railing where the Deltas were standing. Before I’ve looked back down to Emris, I see his hand on Radius’s neck. He twists it in one go so that Radius’s life support snaps off just like that.

Radius’s body goes gray at once! His eyes bulge. His mouth opens in a silent scream that never escapes. The twist is so clean except Emris’s fangs are barred from his mouth, resting against his bottom lip like they’re waiting for someone to try him.

I have known Emris was a scary wolf, but never to the point where he looks like he takes delight in ending an enemy’s life like that.

That’s what it looks like when he drops Radius on the floor.

Emris moves again. Every Delta backs off!

“Demetra?”

I hear Emris rasp with a sharp smile as he slowly looks at me where I’m shaking. Now I know for a fact that there is something wrong with Emris. There is something wrong with him. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH HIM.

“You mean the mate that was about to bond with this one?” He points at Lake, who has just bared his claws to fight.

“Exactly.” I hear Laura say.

I shake my head instantly.

“That… that’s not what was happening. I wasn’t going to bond him! Emris, what is wrong with you? If you know me, why are you acting this way?”

I’m literally shaking as I’m speaking. Because we are mates and his wolf trusts me. His wolf doesn’t boast of hierarchy in front of me. But right now, that extra pillow I used to have with my mate is not there. He is staring at me at foot level. At ground level. Like I’m but a pack charity case all over again.

I need the Deltas out of this room.

The way Emris was scanning when he first walked in… he was measuring sizes and assessing threats. The

2/4

11:20 Thu, Jule

Chapter 998

darkening may have left his eyes but whatever it did to him while it was there is still operating underneath, He wants to hurt someone and the Deltas are the closest available targets.

93

But Silver drops from the broken railing above….however high that height was and faces his brother directly!

“She was not bonding with him.” Silver says, even as blood drips from his forehead. “But I guess whatever I’m saying is entering one ear and coming out the other. You’re still darkened!”

“Darkened?” Emris pushes his fangs back in.

“Yeah.” Silver tilts his head toward Laura. “The shit they did to you. Do you know she was complicit?”

Laura is smiling like there is nothing that can be said that would make Emris hate her right now. I see Monroe and the Gammas begin to come forward.

“NO!” I yell, with my hands still clutching myself. “All of you stay back! Do not do a single thing…he is your Alpha; you will stay down!”

I look back at Emris.

“Emris, you’ve got it all wrong. I was not bonding with Lake. I would never. It was just a trick to get his guard down and attack him! I don’t know what Laura has told you-”

I’m speaking, and I see him stare around again. Not even listening, as if I’m boring him. He just walks away from me like I’m inconsequential. Laura chuckles, putting a hand over her face.

“Emris?” I hear Derisha’s cracking voice. “Emris, it’s me…your mother. Why are you acting this way? We’ve been searching for you-”

“I wasn’t lost. I’m right here. You can see me, can’t you.” He walks past her, not even glancing her way.

I look behind me, wondering where Radius’s Barbarian wolves are. I see Jupiter saying something through the intercom, telling our Deltas not to come forward. A message is passed that makes his eyes bulge out.

“Emris has cleared the threats.” Laura says with a snicker. “Any Barbarian wolf that survived out there from his wrath are either limbless or blind. So you don’t have to worry…your Deltas can go back to normal house duty.” She gestures toward Radius’s body. “The enemy is… well, look at him. He’s never going to wake up again.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify