The Millennium Wolves novel Chapter 2

Sienna

We were nearing the Ferris wheel, and I was trying to shake the image of the purple– eyed woman from my head. Aiden clearly hadn‘t seen her, and if I brought her up again, I was sure he would sign me into a psych ward or something

“Come on,” I said, pulling Aiden up to the teenager manning the Ferris wheel ticketing b ooth.

I dipped my hand into my purse to buy us both a ride, but the teenager just held his hand up.

“Alpha, man, you‘re good,” he said to Aiden.

Then he nodded to me. “Her too.”

Huh. It seemed traveling with the Alpha had some perks.

The teenager escorted us past the line—

I turned back to gauge Aiden‘s reaction and he just shrugged— and then we were stepping into our own private car. I slid across the bench, and Aiden c ame to sit right beside me. The teenager helped us bring the bar down, making sure we were secure.

“Enjoy the Love Wheel,” he said with a wink, and then he disappeared back into the cro wd.

“It wasn‘t called the Love Wheel last year,” I said to Aiden, feeling a blush spread over my cheeks before I could stop it.

“Maybe

something‘s different this year,” he said, and his hand laced through mine. Before I coul d read too much into that, we started moving. Our car rose quickly until we were right at the top of the wheel, looking down at the town beneath us.

“It‘s beautiful.”

“It is.” I looked at him as he said that and had an overwhelming feeling that he wasn‘t talking about the view. I looke d down into my lap. I still wasn‘t comfortable with all the attention.

“Who‘s Emily?” At the sound of her name, my head whipped

up. “I heard you say her name when you were sleeping. You kept repeating it.”

His eyes searched my face for answers, but I wasn‘t ready to talk about it. I hadn‘t talke d about it with anyone before.

“I can‘t... ” I said, not wanting to lie to him.

He sighed and looked out at the view, and I thought I‘d lost him. But then he started talking

Aiden

I‘d heard Sienna whimpering in her sleep last night when I was holding her in my arms. I could feel her body

trembling, and I couldn‘t see tears in the darkness, but I wouldn‘t have been surprised if there‘d been some on her cheeks.

She‘d called for an Emily, over and over again, loud enough that I‘d been woken up. I di dn‘t mind, of course. Maybe it was the Alpha in me, but I liked being needed.

I hugged her to me tighter and smoothed her hair until she stopped whimpering, and the n I fell back asleep.

I was fairly certain that she‘d been deep in slumber through the whole thing, but I knew t hat that kind of unconscious emotion didn‘t just come from some arbitrary character in your imagination. There was more to what she was whimpering about than I knew, an d my curiosity got the best of me.

So when we were locked into our Ferris wheel car, looking down at the fair, all the way down, I brought it up. Something immediately shifted in her. She inched a little away fro m me, but I don‘t think she did it on purpose. I think her instinct, when someone asks he r something personal and important, is to create space.

Being Alpha, I‘d learned a long time ago how to put those around me at ease. Somethin g my dad taught me when I was young was to never expect anything for free. “Give something to get so mething,” he‘d say, and that notion had stuck with me.

So in the Ferris wheel, I prepared myself to give something

“I had a brother,” I began, looking out into the distance. I could feel her gaze fall on me almost immediately. “His name was Aaron.”

“Was?” she choked out. I looked at her now, nodding

“He was older than me. By a few years. He‘d always known I‘d surpass him as an Alpha, said he could sense it the whole time we were kids But he didn‘t care He‘d tac kle

were kids. But he didn‘t care. He‘d tackle me and throw me around anyway.” I smiled, re membering the times we‘d had together growing up. It had just been the two of us and o ur parents, so we‘d always been close.

“What happened?” Sienna whispered.

“He met his mate,” I said. “Her name was Jen. She was a human. A scientist. Beautiful and smart, she was his perfect match. I‘d never seen him as happy as when he was wit h her.”

It was true. Seeing them together, that was what gave me the inspiration to keep my hope inta ct—the hope that, one day, I‘d meet my mate too.

“Then one day, in the lab she was working in, there was an explosion. It was at the stati on over from hers, a mix of chemicals that shouldn‘t have been together. An accident. H uman error, they said. But it was too late. She was gone.”

I saw Sienna‘s eyes fill with tears. She was waiting for me to finish, silent.

“You know what happens when we lose our mate. Aaron‘s heart couldn‘t take it. It broke into pieces, disintegrating day after day, until there was nothing left And then he was one there was nothing left. And then he was gone,