When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 248

Chapter 248

Chapter 248

Alpha Emris.

“Shit.”

“I can see they’re dancing together…no need to fucking rub it in.”

“No, Emris. LOOK!”

55 vouchers

Silver gets out of the way, and I see some white–haired middle–aged woman coming forward across the lawn. Exact shade as Demetra’s. That’s what makes me look closer, makes me dig into my memory until I place her to the pack house. Demi’s mom. Something convulses in like I’m the one being confronted by someone who abandoned me years ago.

I feel a convulse in my chest, like it’s me who’s meeting someone who abandoned me years ago.

It hits worse because my wolf can sense the restlessness happening in Demetra. I immediately start look for her through the crowd. I catch a glimpse of her walking off, then look back at the woman, whose eyes are stuck on Demetra’s retreating back as she moves forward.

How is she here is the question circling my mind, but that’s the least of my worries. I know exactly how many nights Demetra cried over this woman’s absence. I can still see her in the kitchen, sobbing because the older omegas mocked her for being left behind as a kid in the Black Covenant pack house.

Or left injured with no one to take care of her scratches.

I’d barely crawled out of my own trauma back then, and even I could see she needed help. I’d meet her the second I got back from school, more than once swiping the platinum card to buy whatever I thought she needed, because the older omegas sure as hell weren’t doing their jobs. I put bandages on her cuts when she was six years old. Eventually I got sick of watching her go unhelped, and I tore into those omega….eyes slit with rage. I went after my own mother too for overlooking her, told her flat out that if she didn’t start taking care of Demetra properly, I’d run from school and run from home.

I know the hole this woman carved into her. I am not letting her walk back in just to dig it deeper. I step in front of Janet before she can close the last few paces. Guests are watching. I have no intention of making a scene at Slade’s wedding, but there’s a line, and she doesn’t get to cross it.

“Em… Emris Covenant? Is that…you?”

Alpha Ronin is already moving toward me, having signaled the lion pack’s gammas. He pulls back when security gives him the answer he needs. Allison slides in at my left to murmur under her breath.

“She got invited by Seth’s mom. Apparently they know each other.”

“Janet, omg!”

“Hi, Rebecca!” The White Omega says, and Allison makes me pull back for a second as they exchange pleasantries with kisses in the air.

“Go check on Demetra. We’ll make sure she leaves shortly.”

1/4

11:40 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 248

(

55 you

I back away, then turn on my heel and head into the house to find her. I don’t know exactly where she wen but I trust my wolf. Rust picks up her scent and pulls us toward the garden, fast.

Problem is the moment I get there, Tyson is there. Hugging her from behind.

It almost feels like someone smashed our mate bond under their feet and threw a boulder on it. Every bloodline in me rises at once… stretching, sharpening, ready to tear skin from bone and reduce it to nothin but shedding shards shreds.

It feels like a stranger’s hand has closed our mateship and is squeezing. Like Tyson’s arms weren’t just touching my mate, they were touching the bond itself, leaving fingerprints on something that should only ever answer to me. It’s not just possessiveness clawing up my throat… it’s DNA violation. A foreign presence pressed right up against my luna-

And just like that, my claw whips out of my hands!

Tyson hears the sharp snipe first and lets go of my mate to look at me. Demetra is next, looking back at me like I wasn’t supposed to walk in here.

I feel it. I feel it.

The bloodlust is diabolical right now. All parts of my wolf want to fight. I feel it climbing high and vicious, every part of my wolf howling that this is a fight worth having, that defending the mate bond is reason enough to draw blood. I’m baring fangs I can’t fully pull back.

Vampyr is not all the way out of my chest, and so, Rust is diagonally leaning into it, borrowing Vampyr’s hunger for blood and wearing it like armor, because as far as my Rust is concerned, this cause is righteous!

Defending the mate bond is law. Older than any pack hierarchy.

I take another step forward.

The idea vampyr has given me is to dig my hands into Tyson’s muscles and make sure that he can never try another championship ring again. Tear the tendons. Snap the ligaments. Shred the fibers that make him a fighter. He wants to sink his fangs into the bastard’s throat until there’s nothing left but a gaping hole.

Grab by the jaw, snap it sideways!

I move to make it real, chasing the taste of bloodlust crawling up my throat when Demetra literally comes, stands in front of me, and looks me in the eyes.

“I was about to trip and he held me.” She whispers it, and because she’s my mate, I let my attention slide away from the blood I can hear rushing through his veins, away from that toward the sound of her heartbeat instead. I make myself look into her eyes. I remind myself this moment is crucial that I have to push the jealousy down and decide what actually matters here.

Demetra is what’s important here. Relatively, not my jealousy.

11:40 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 248

ค

6 65 vouch

“Tyson, please… be careful how you touch me next time. I know you meant to help.” Demetra says quietly next, and that silences the sickening greed in me that seeks a fight out of this.

I can’t possibly be immature and unable to be controlled at this stage of me and Demetra’s life, especially when she’s pregnant. So I’ve gotta push through on this.

“Are you okay? You want to leave?” I ask.

“It’s Slade’s wedding-”

“Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that my wife is fine.” I say it, wondering why Tyson is in the background. Does he think Demetra is on the single market? She is a reigning Luna with kids, and he’s lurking around like there’s an opening. That’s a threat. I have every right under heaven and earth to end him right where he stands. I could do to him exactly what I did to Radius. I swear I’ll deal with this later but it won’t be a conversation. I’ll find my way into his pack, and I’ll deliver a verdict there instead.

The news will tell the rest of the story come morning, about what happened to their prized boxing champion

“Seth’s mom invited her. They’re friends.” I tell her.

“You shouldn’t have come, Demetra, if you weren’t comfortable.” Tyson says it, and I train my eyes anywhere but his direction, because any bastard who wraps his arms around another man’s mate under the excuse of “catching her” knows exactly what he’s doing. The problem is he doesn’t fear the consequences yet. He’s never been on the receiving end of my fists, so he doesn’t know how deep that pain runs.

I part my lips. “Why don’t you wait inside the house until she leaves?”

“She’s here to talk to me, Emris.” Demetra says, and there’s that pain in her eyes.

“I’ll make her go.” I promise it, and I need Demetra to see that it’s still me underneath all of this, that I’m still willing to lay my whole life down for her. I know I’ve failed and let her down.

I remember the way I spoke to her during the moment I stepped in here darkened. I didn’t protect her dignity…a promise I made when we bonded. I brought her into this. The darkening. The dangerous cost that comes with being married to someone like me. I can’t even imagine how horrible she felt after I dismissed the news of our pregnancy at first.

I’m paying for it so it’s my responsibility to fight for us again.

“I’ll make her go,” I say it once more, and this time she nods, finally giving in.

I wait for Demetra to walk ahead of me, then fall in right behind her, refusing to give Tyson the reaction he’s fishing for.

For now.