When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 29

Emris.

Milo runs inside ahead of me, clutching new toys in his small hands. I barely register his excitement. My mind is still locked in that storage room, replaying what happened between Demetra and me.

The first real intimacy I’ve had since she left. The drunken night that created Milo doesn’t count… that was a ghost, a shadow of her, not the real thing. But this… this was her. Every inch of her.

I walk slowly through the pack house and my body is still humming with the memory of her. I can still feel her breasts filling my palms. Her mouth moving against mine. The way she tastes…still the same after all these years. How her hips have widened, softened in the most devastating ways, and how sweet she was when I took her on that cold table. The way she clenched around me, pulling me deeper until I lost every ounce of control like some untrained pup. She cried the way she used to. It was like no time had passed.

For the first time in years, I realize I didn’t know what I had back then. When she was in my bed. When she was mine. She was in love with me…genuinely, completely. I was all she had. I knew it. And I still treated her like she was disposable. I’d look into her eyes back then and she’d tell me every day, in every way, that she loved me. She got jealous when other girls looked my way. When she found out my mother was arranging a marriage between Elena and me, I watched something in

her crack.

But I let the anger win. I let seeing her with Ronin and his bastard Slade fester in my brain like poison. I never gave her a chance to explain.

I don’t know why I’m realizing all of this now, without her saying a word. But it’s clear…it’s her wolf glaring at me and communicating to mine.

Now, my own wolf is howling at me, showing me how wrong I was.

I sent her away. I lived with the consequences. And now… it’s undeniable. If I reject her, I will never know a bond like this again. Not with anyone.

When she was still in my pack, I never said the words. I thought my claiming was enough, that my possession was proof of love. But in that storage room, with her body wrapped around mine, I was ready to tell her…that Elena means nothing. My marriage is nothing.

Can you imagine that? One hour of intimacy and I’m ready to burn my marriage down. That’s how powerful it was. That’s how powerful she is. I didn’t want to let her go. But she called it a mistake. It was disgusting to her and she walked out.

I shut the door harder than I meant to. I didn’t realize how loud it was until Regan’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

“Emris?”

I look back.

“You’re not getting ready for tonight’s Alpha Fest. It’s in two hours-”

“I’m not going.” My voice is rough.

“What?”

“I said I’m not going.” I walk further into the room and almost pull my shirt off in front of the mirror but I remember I have claw marks on me.

“You know Elena is going, right?”

“Regan, I don’t care. You can go if you want. I’m not-”

“What is actually wrong with you?” His voice rises. “Because I was going to stay quiet since you’re the Alpha and all but I don’t care anymore! This is really bothering me. Elena was hurt by Slade. Mom gets slapped by that fucking charity case. And you… what do you do? You stand there and catch the bitch!” He jabs a finger in my direction. “Have you forgotten who we are? Why we’re the Black Covenant Pack? Why are you letting these people taunt us without revenge?”

I pick up the whiskey glass I left hours ago.

“I will take revenge for everything tomorrow night. At the Alpha brawl.”

Regan stops. “Revenge?”

“Yeah. Go with Elena tonight. Keep her company.”

Regan studies me for a long moment but he doesn’t push. He just nods and leaves the room.

The moment the door clicks shut, I strip off my shirt completely.

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20

Demetra put a nail scratch on the back of my neck. Deep crescents on both sides of my waist where she held on. Red lines across my chest, my shoulders, my back. The more I look at them, the more I remember exactly how each one got there. I groan in animal satisfaction before I can stop it.

Reliving it. What started in my dreams, I completed with her. In the flesh. In reality.

One would think that finally tasting her again would satisfy the hunger. But it’s the opposite. I feel emptier now than before. Desperate. It’s in my head, in the pumping of my blood, a madness creeping through my veins. If I don’t have all of Demetra …if I don’t chase her, catch her, keep her… this feeling will consume me completely.

There are so many buts.

But she’s Alpha Ronin’s daughter. But my family hates hers. But I’m married to Elena. But she has a child with another man.

The last one digs deepest.

She told me to reject her. So she can be with her lover. The father of her child. The Alpha she bragged about in the theatre.

I won’t allow it.

I have one mate and as a Trybrid, the bond is absolute. And now that I’ve felt her underneath me again, heard those soft sounds she tried to hide, seen the way her body still knows mine. I cannot let go of this rope. Not when I’ve only just grabbed it again.

I need to find out who that Alpha is. I need to figure out how to delay the Council of Bonds. What can I do? What leverage do I have?

I sit at my desk and get to work.

Who can get me vital information as fast as I need it? Silver would be my first choice, but he’ll be at the Alpha Fest tonight. If I find the Alpha she claims is her lover, I’ll kidnap him. Keep him somewhere no one will look. Stall for as long as I can. I don’t know if she’d ever accept me back. I’m not sure what I’m doing at all, if I’m being honest. But I know one thing with

absolute certainty:

I am not ready to reject Demetra.

Not after everything we still need to talk about. She’s Metra…the artist whose work I’ve collected for years, whose paintings hang in my private study. She’s Miss Pride. And she’s my mate.

There are too many things I don’t know. I will not reject her until I understand every single one.

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