When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 81

Chapter 81

Alpha Emris.

Contd

“Did you say… Demetra?” I ask again.

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Let them in.” I move, taking the stairs two at a time down to the floor where Elena is still causing a scene.

“We’ll test them immediately-”

“No, test Slade. Bring Demetra right in. At once!”

“Demetra?” Elena whispers, eyes tracking me like she’s trying to solve a puzzle.

“Demetra?” Elena whispers, and I hear the suspicion in her voice before I even look at her.

I run a hand over the back of my neck and force myself not to start pacing. Waiting feels impossible. Even a few seconds stretch like punishment. What am I going to say to her? I don’t even realize the gammas are watching me lose my composure, because all I can think is that she’s here, and I need one chance to make her listen.

Once she’s in front of me, I’ll hold her. I’ll take her upstairs. I’ll explain everything. I’ll tell her the truth I should’ve given her from the start and pray to every moon goddess in the sky that she sees what I’m trying to do.

Because that bastard Slade saw us leave together. I know he did. He probably told her everything with all the subtlety of a hammer. He saw her in my car and it dragged him straight back to what I did to his mate. And yes, I did it. I did it because his pack kept me starved of answers, because I was angry and grieving and reckless enough to reach for the one thing I knew would hurt him.

I decided to shorten his chances of having a Luna when it was his time for rule. Now he’s going to deprive me of mine.

Now he’s trying to strip mine away from me.

But Demetra is not going to look at me and only see the worst thing I’ve ever done. She knows what my father’s death cost

1. me.

So she won’t hate me. She’ll understand. Won’t she?

“What is she doing here?” Regan demands.

I’m still trying to shove my thoughts into some kind of order. Knowing what to say, how to say it, how to stand in front of her. How to apologize. Just how to act right, in essence. I don’t have time to answer stupid questions. She’s going to walk in any moment now.

“I just adjourned your meeting.” Silver appears behind me, and the elders who were in the office just a moment ago are ting

out too.

Ah, shit. It’s the whole pack at this point. I hope it doesn’t make her feel like she can’t breathe

Then I smell her scent.

My hands righten at my sides.

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Soon enough. I see her. White hair twisted into a bun, two soft curls falling against her forehead. Dark eyes. Dark liner tracing the waterline and making her look even more devastating than she did yesterday on the yacht. For one insane second. I can’t even enjoy how beautiful she is, because all I can focus on is the harmful look on her face.

Full of edge. Devious to the core. She’s back to the girl I spoke to in her office.

“It’s… it’s our fated Luna.”

The voices of the elders behind me start murmuring between themselves, but Demetra doesn’t even cut them a glance.

“Luna Demetra.”

“The prophecy,” another whispers. “The white–haired Luna who will unite the bloodlines.”

“The Moon Goddess sent her to us-”

“Enough!” I don’t look back at them to yell.

She parts her lips, looks at me, and keeps coming.

“Shouldn’t you test me?” she says.

I…”

“What is she doing in our pack?” Regan snaps. “Is she here to give us fucking answers!?”

Before I can react, Regan yanks Demetra by the arm.

She squeals in pain!

Something inside me cuts in half.

My hand connects with Regan’s chest and I push…not like a brother, not like a friend, but like an Alpha whose mate has been touched. He flies backward through the glass doors behind him. They shatter. Shards explode outward like a bomb, raining across the floor, catching the light in a million deadly sparks. Regan lands on his back amidst the wreckage, blood already seeping from cuts on his arms, his face, his neck.

The whole house goes silent for a beat too long.

My chest rises once, but the breath doesn’t come.

I stare at the broken mess, my wolf surging hard and hot beneath my skin, then turn back to Demetra as if nothing else exists.

My mother is already rushing past us, shouting for someone to get Regan up. The elders are frozen. Someone mutters my name. I don’t care.

I catch her hand before she can move away, and this time I don’t let go. I guide her toward the elevator somewhere private that we could speak.

The elevator doors close behind us with a soft chime and the silence is loud enough to hear her breathing

It’s fast but mine is faster.

As the doors open. I’m waiting for her to step out, but she just stands there body against the wall not moving, just looking at me with those dark–lined eyes. So I put a foot forward before the elevator can close, and I pull her apatiste. Umulher

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lips are inches from mine.

“Demi. “I say her name softly, and her eyes….those eyes that came at me so deviously moments ago begin to water. They re shiny, wet, but she’s not letting the tears fall. Soon enough, she snaps out of it and blinks it away.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you. I just want to know what happened to

“I know,” she answers.

“Demi-”

my father-”

“I said, I know!” She repeats it like I don’t have the right to explain myself. Like my words don’t matter;

“What we came here for is simple. We were willing to pay you to let us use our land for a while until we gave you every single answer you wanted. Detailed answers for every question, evidence that our pack had nothing to do with it. The supermarkets are already running low. Our pack members will start talking. And with the Loo Fever spreading, the last thing anyone needs is panic. So I’m begging you, Emris Covenant. Give us access to our farmland, and you’ll get your answers. Can you do that, or do I have to get on my knees and beg you?”

“I will.”

“Thank you.” She turns away-

I catch her hand and stop her before she gets far.

We still haven’t said the thing that matters most. That this is not intentional and it doesn’t have to ruin anything between us.

“We cannot be together, Emris.”

“What?” I stare at her. “After everything we said to each other-”

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t hate my pack and expect me to love you anyway. Ever since we became mates, the world has been against us. That’s why you didn’t tell me in the first place, isn’t it? So just let it go. Reject me. Do it now.”

For a second. I’m so angry I actually step back. Then I turn and walk off into my room with a sharp scoff, but she follows me

anyway.

“Emris, reject me now! If you reject me, the feelings you have for me will die, and then you’ll be able to fight my pack with no feelings in between!”

“Shut it!” I face her in my bedroom.

I see her look at me first… then around. Yeah. She needs to remember this place. What memories this place hekl. How she loved me so much. I am trying to fight for us now.

I’m doing it when everything else is saying no. The obstacles we faced years ago are so different from right now but I’m still trying to fix it.

And she just says… reject me.

“The way you speak of rejection so easily. is there nothing in your heart that’s hurting you when you speak about #2*

“The only thing that hurts me is watching us pretend we can be together, only for something to come back and possibility out of my hands.”

the

I point at the bed. “That bed. I took your virginity. That bed. I marked you and called you mine. That bed You saw the for

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what I was. In my sleep. I groaned to you. There was a reason I wanted you to be by me every night as I slept. Because you were the only one who could bring me back to reality after every nightmare. And after you were gone, it wasn’t seeing myself in dungeons anymore. I was seeing the day I let you go. The day I let my mother have Radu tear your clothes off your back. The day I didn’t defend you.”

My hand presses against my chest, where the ache still lives. “It kills me.”

“I’m sorry. We can’t be together-”

“You think your fucking dad had something to do with it!?” I yell with hot tears in my eyes.

I’m not calm anymore. I’m breaking. I’m all over this place, and it’s from a corner of my wolf that hates the fact that she keeps saying no and suspicion of whether her pack really had something to do with it.

“My dad would never do that!”

“You just knew that fucking man. This is where you lived all your life.”

“And I have the scars to show for it!” She yells back. “I have the hideous memories to show for it! And no amount of marking can change it. I know your anger more than anyone. It would be stupid of me to be with you when you hate my pack so much. I will be the first to suffer for it.”

Her voice breaks on the last word, and something in me twists hard.

“That’s not true,” I say immediately. “I won’t hurt you. I’m not the same person I was back then. I’ve been proving it to you.”

“I don’t believe you, Emris.”

I grab her, drag her into me, and kiss her before she can say anything else. I hold her face against my mouth, take what I’ve been starving for, and for one impossible second, I think she might melt into it.

Then she pushes me away.

“Just reject me.”

“No.”

“Emris, please!”

“I said no.”

“Then I’ll do it myself. Your wolf may be stronger than mine, but I’ll keep saying it until your tribrid cuts me loose from this bond.”

“It won’t work.” I hold her tighter. Her body is soft against mine even when she’s fighting me off. Our faces are touching each other. Our bodies are so close there is no space. “You’ll only hurt your wolf.”

“Then I’ll marry someone else.” She looks me dead in the eyes. “The Alpha of the Irish pack. I will marry him, and my new bond will weaken this one. Then it will be easier to reject you. Since your wolf will already feel betrayed”

That’s when I finally let go and watch her walk …

of my bedroom

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