When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Demetra.

“I’m… I… 1…”

I stare at Emris from the beginning of it to the end of it. When all the gammas in their pack crests have walked out, it’s just us and he faces me.

My feet feel light, like there’s no volume left in my body.

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He didn’t lie to when he said he and Elena didn’t share a sexual relationship. I left and he punished himself. Five years without touch. Five years of full moons and heats with no one in his bed. Five years of full moons burning him up from the inside with no one in his bed. I know what that does to a wolf. I know what that does to an Alpha.

It was hard to believe because Emris was known for dating multiple girls before me. Elena was the last of it before I became his mate. So my brain kept telling me there’s no way he spent five years alone. No way a male like him…a rich, powerful Alpha walked around looking like that went without a woman warming his

bed.

But he did. Because of me.

And now…he made it clear to divorce Elena. Because I gave him the cue to chase me. Or was it the tears in my eyes that aggravated him?

That never used to work back then.

While he was still my mate, I used to be jealous of him going to clubs. I would stand at the window watching his car disappear, counting the hours until he came back smelling like strangers. I hated the smell of other women’s perfume on him while he was out with his boys, he’d just ruffle my hair and tell me not to worry. It never made a difference.

Emris didn’t see my tears all those years. He saw them and walked past them like they were nothing. And now? One smear of them and he’s ending the bond he had with the mother of his son.

I feel… guilt.

Is this right? I wanted to teach Elena a lesson. That was the plan…to use him, make her jealous, make her hurt the way she hurt me. But on the other hand I’m fooling him. I’m never really going to accept him even when my body screams for him. Even when my wolf howls every time he’s near.

The lesson I thought would take months to teach Elena has happened in only a matter of days. And now I see why Tiffany said it was dangerous. I would end up telling Emris I don’t want to be with him cause it’s a vow I made a long time ago after I felt his true rejection felt like.

I promised myself I’d never be that vulnerable again because now, I have to think of Amira. There are many in his pack house that don’t care about her. It’s one thing to break Milo’s parents apart. It’s another thing to come into it.

I would be no different from Elena.

“I’m sorry.” Emris says.

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And I… I… I don’t know what to say.

I’m back to the stupid Demetra I was. The same Demetra that was so in love with him but I’m fighting it. I have so much to sacrifice now. My pack. My brother. My dad. My only daughter.

“You’re not saying anything”

Emris uses his thumb to push my hair out of my face and when it rests on my lips, I subconsciously kiss it. I’m shocked by my own act but it’s just the response that comes with a bond.

“It’s you I choose.”

This wicked Alpha kisses me. His lips are so soft. He smells so amazing. His body is so strong.

When he kisses at first, it’s just lip to lip, his nose touching mine, his face feeling my face and our bodies coming closer to each other so that my tits are pressed against his beating chest and my hands are trying to reach around him even when I know I cannot reach. I’ve never been able to wrap my arms perfectly around him before.

“You drew me so wickedly already.” Emris jokes and I feel his chest vibrate against mine because he’s chuckling.

“I’m sorry.” I say it and it’s really from my heart.

Emris stops to looks at me.

“What?” He sounds surprised and even I am surprised. Why did I apologize? Why is my heart behaving this way? I’m feeling like it’s getting easier to forgive him. Am I forgiving him?

“I…” I put my hand on his chest and just decide it’s better to leave it unsaid because I don’t even know what’s going on in my brain itself. “I should go back to painting.”

I look behind me and see all the food.

A charcuterie board. An extravagant one. Cheeses, wine breathing next to it, grapes, crackers, little pots of jam and honey arranged like art.

I look at Emris in shock. Wait…he remembers this!

I used to love charcuterie boards back when I was a maid. I wasn’t supposed to have opinions about food so I’d sneak pieces from events when no one was looking. For some reason Emris never liked them….always said they were pretentious, too much effort for little bites. But for every event at the pack house, he’d tell the chefs to make one anyway.

Oh…moons, he must have seen me liking it all those years ago. All those little details I thought he ignored.

“You knew?”

“Knew what?”

“That I loved this!”

I walk away from him to the extravagant set as my fingers hover over.

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“I might have seen you stuffing your face every now and then” Emris jokes and I cover my face in embarrassment because I really used to do that. Hiding in corners at pack events, sneaking cheese.

“I hate you.” I say, looking around the platter and picking a piece of cheese. I pop it in my mouth and my eyes brighten as I chew…

He comes closer as I reach for another.

“I don’t.” Emris says.

“Hmm.”

“I never hated you.”

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I look up at the way he says that. The way his voice means it. It’s normal that for someone who was thrown out of the Black Covenant pack to have thought I was hated. That’s exactly what I thought. I thought he hated me. Thought he hated the fact that I was a whore’s daughter and an abandoned girl. Thought he hated that I wasn’t pretty enough, mate enough, powerful enough for a hybrid like him.

“I let you go because I was trying to prove I was stable.” Emris runs a hand through his hair, frustrated at himself. “Now that I think about it, I didn’t even really want to be Alpha until I heard people saying I could never be Alpha because I was a broken kid. That shit got in my head.”

He looks at me like he’s seeing something he missed before.

“When I was with you, I’d let out confessions in my sleep…broken stuff, trauma stuff…curled up in your arms. And I thought that made me weak. Having you as a mate made me realize I wasn’t healed. So every little thing you did, whether it was suspicious or not… I used it as a reason to push you away. To remove you from my life so I could look stable to everyone else.”

He steps closer.

“It was never about you, Demetra. It wasn’t about what my mom said about your mom. It was me being scared. You were perfect. You are perfect.”

The mind link between our wolves must be passing my thoughts to him because it feels like he’s answering questions I haven’t asked out loud.

“And how did you get better?” I decide to ask. Right before I left he was still wearing that eyepatch. Now he has his wolf completely under control.

Emris chuckles darkly. “My wolf was too busy mourning you to be traumatic. The moment you left, he weakened. The episodes reduced and the slits in my eyes left?” He touches near his eye.

I eat a bit more before going back to the painting.

Emris settles into the couch, It’s strange seeing a lethal Alpha like this. His eyes move from me to the painting, processing what I’ve done,

I step up to the canvas and my brush finds a eye with the slits, the feral one. I start working, softening the edges, lightening the pressure until it starts looking normal.

One eye stays wild. Yellow. Slitted. The other becomes brown. Two sides of him. One where his wolf is feral and raging. One where he’s reclined. At peace.

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The brush moves easy now. My anger isn’t shaking my hands anymore. My heart isn’t shattered in my chest. I didn’t think it would be this easy to finish the first painting. I was ready to fight it for days, weeks even. But now? Now it just… flows.

I add depth to the fur around the calm eye. Soft strokes. Making it look like the wolf is resting, not hunting. The feral side keeps its edge and aggressive angles but it’s balanced now.

When I’m done, I drop the clipboard and pull the art apron off my body so I can see everything at once.

The painting stares back at me.

I notice Emris staring at it intensely. He hasn’t said anything yet so I bite my lip, unsure if I should ask. I’ve never shown him my dreams before. Never shown him anything this personal. This is a first and I feel shy…nervous in a way I didn’t expect.

“What… do you think…?”

I fold my arms and put my hand over my lips while I wait. My heart is doing that thing again.

Emris rises to his full height and studies it from different angles.

I feel nervous. Really nervous when he doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever seen. You captured both sides of me. The monster and the man. The feral and the calm. Out of everyone in the world, you were once the only person that saw both…you know I thought I lost that. Until now.

The damn blush on my cheek deepens and I don’t know where to look.

Emris snaps his fingers. “You deserve something for this.”

My mind goes somewhere else dirty. Filthy. A memory of his mouth between my legs on a rainy day, teaching me that it wasn’t only his length that could bring me to tears. At first I thought it was wrong for him to have his mouth there. Until Emris not only destroyed me in orgasms but left marks on my thighs too. His tongue lapped at my part like I was his last meal, sucking on my core until I screamed into his pillows with legs shaking around his head while he held me down and made me take it all of it.

“Ice cream.” He says. “You, me, Milo and Amira. Let’s go pick them up from school.”

“Oh yes.” I fix my face quickly, feeling sweaty. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

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