Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

ALEXANDER

“ Y ou don’t plan on coming to the celebration at the bonfire.”

It wasn’t a question.

But Anastasia had always been perceptive.

“No,” I said, rolling up the map and plans on the table.

There was no more need for them.

Anastasia walked farther into the tent, her languid gait akin to the prowl of a predator.

“But you’ve earned it,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. “You not only defeated the Bloodfrost Pack, but you also made them agree to a peace treaty. Even your grandfather couldn’t manage that.”

But then again, Grandfather had never truly wanted to end the war, regardless of the drivel he’d peddled to the Nightshade Pack.

As a true Hawthorne, the only thing that had concerned him was power, no matter the cost.

I picked bag off the ground and felt Anastasia’s gaze track the movement.

“The pack needs to know the war is over. I’ll go ahead to deliver the information,” I explained.

My initial plan had been to slip out during the treaty celebration. I’d failed to anticipate Anastasia seeking me out since we hadn’t spoken much over the last two months, apart from fights and strategy meetings.

Anastasia placed her hand over mine, then took a step closer, her eyes molten gray pools full of indecipherable emotions.

“A messenger could take it. We have a lot to catch up on.” Anastasia’s voice dipped into a breathy caress.

There had been times when I’d taken her up on similar offers.

Many times.

That had been when I’d been desperate to feel something, anything, to drown out the inevitability of my future…the future that awaited all firstborn sons of the Hawthorne family.

But not anymore. Not since that day…

The image of fiery forest-green eyes that’d haunted my every thought since the first day we’d met resurfaced in my mind.

I freed my hand from Anastasia’s grasp and lifted the bag to my shoulder.

Anastasia’s eyes flashed from her fallen hand to my face before going wide with shock.

“You’re going back for Eleanor.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but her words reverberated through the air between us.

Eleanor.

The sound of her name from Anastasia’s lips shattered the barrier I’d labored to build in my mind these past two months.

My mind took me back to the night I’d left the pack.

The front lines have fallen.

Dylan’s words had come through the pack link.

For him to have contacted me directly rather than send an in-between, I knew the situation was dire, yet I couldn’t make myself leave Eleanor.

As if she could sense my thoughts, Eleanor sighed and nestled closer to me. Most of her body was sprawled above mine, in the position she’d slept in for most of the last three nights.

Her fever had broken two hours ago.

I should have already been en route to the battlefield to fulfil my side of my agreement with Father. In exchange for giving up the alpha position, I’d promised to be the Nightshade Pack’s first line of defense.

But I hesitated.

I reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, so I could look at her one more time before I left.

My hand formed a fist before it reached her, anger flooding my veins.

Anger at myself.

Was three days truly all it had taken to erode my resolve?

How pathetic.

I left without a backward glance.

The battles had taken longer than I’d anticipated, especially since the Nightshade Pack had ceded ground in my absence.

The Bloodfrost Pack was more than prepared for us. If we’d been another pack, or if the Nightshade Pack wasn’t headed by the Hawthornes, they might have won.

And the entire time, I was distracted by the letters.

The letters I’d almost trashed a thousand times before sending them to her.

Letters she’d never bothered responding to.

Maybe I should’ve been angry at her silence, but all I felt was a gnawing feeling of dread that was slowly consuming me.

That feeling was so strong that I couldn’t wait another minute to ensure that Eleanor was safe.

“Alexander.” Anastasia latched onto my arm again, but this time it was with desperation rather than seduction.

“You can’t do this now.” Her voice trembled with worry. “In less than four months?—”

I didn’t let her finish.

“I’ll see you at home, Anastasia,” I said, cutting her short and prying her hands off me before leaving the tent.

I was barely a few feet away when I heard a low keening sound behind me.

Anastasia was sobbing.

I’d known Anastasia almost her entire life, and I could count the number of times I’d seen her cry on one hand.

I paused for a moment, and then I continued on.

I reached the border in less than an hour, my urgency to reach Eleanor growing with each step I took.

The Nightshade Pack was expansive, its land mass easily ten times the size of minor packs like the one Eleanor used to belong to. Each generation of Hawthornes added to our lands with at least one “justified” war. As a result, our border was a massive stretch of property.

Instead of the usual route, I felt a mysterious draw that led me to the northeastern border, which was far from the shortest route to enter the pack.

In fact, one might even say it was the most dangerous, due to?—

I smelled the acrid scent of rogue blood as I approached the border.

The monster stirred within me, rattled for some reason.

Maybe it was because the blood was fresh…too fresh.

Or maybe it was because it was too quiet. Did the rogues get past all the sentries and?—

The rich, heady scent of lilacs intertwined with the overpowering smell of blood and death hit me hard, and every single cell in my body froze.

Eleanor.

I ran, the image of those green eyes haunting me, regrets piled upon regrets. No. No. No.

I cleared the border and just beyond the fountains, there they were.

Or rather, there they laid.

There wasn’t a single person or beast left standing in the clearing.

The rogues were scattered over the ground in a distinctively macabre fashion–both in wolf and human form, whole and in pieces.

It took me a moment to process exactly what I was seeing. There were no sentries, and only one person had faced down all these rogues with no backup—my mate.

My unconscious mate, who was currently bleeding out on the forest floor.

“Eleanor!” I shouted, oblivious to anything else as I closed the distance between us and took her into my arms.

Eleanor didn’t flinch, and her eyelids didn’t even flutter. She just lay still in my arms.

Small, still, pale, and so damn cold, with her heartbeat so faint it took me several panicked seconds to hear it. Her blood seeped through her damp clothes and into mine.

The monster within me howled in pain and the need to rip into something to avenge this attack on his mate.

I’d never moved so fast in my entire life—and yet it still felt too slow.

A quick mind link to the pack physicians ensured they’d be waiting to tend to Eleanor the moment I stepped into our home. I couldn’t take her to the pack hospital until I understood how she’d gotten attacked in our territory, which should’ve been the safest place for her.

I couldn’t move too quickly, lest I jostle her and worsen her injuries. On the other hand, if I moved too slowly, my mate would die in my arms.

As I ran, every single resolve I had shattered. I never should have left her alone.

I should have protected her.

I should have done a lot of things.

When I arrived at our home, the pack physicians tried to harry me out of the room, but I didn’t budge.

I couldn’t leave my mate’s side when she was unconscious and I was wearing half her blood.

I watched with bated breath, trembling with deep-seated rage as the physicians cut off Eleanor’s clothes to get to her injuries.

Eleanor’s body was peppered with little slashes and cuts that would no doubt have healed on their own if she hadn’t lost so much blood from the eight-inch long cut across her side and the claw marks running up her thigh that’d almost hit her femoral artery.

I didn’t want to think about what could’ve happened to her if I’d arrived even a moment later.

I didn’t want to think at all.

So I stayed at her side until the physicians were done. Finally, it was just the two of us left in the room.

Eleanor’s breathing was already regulating, and her skin was slowly becoming less pale, yet I found I couldn’t leave her even to change out of my bloodstained shirt.

Growing up the way I had, I’d never really wanted anything.

I’d never had a chance to want things, because almost everything had been just handed to me. But it was mostly because I knew how it would all end, and I’d accepted it. What was the point of wanting something you could never keep?

But now, staring at Eleanor, I felt a peculiar ache in my chest and I…I wanted something I knew I could never truly have.

As though triggered by my thoughts, I felt the beginnings of a migraine in the back of my head.

It would be the third one in less than a week. They were becoming more frequent.

Eleanor stirred, a pained groan escaping her lips, and her eyes finally fluttered open and latched onto me immediately.

We stared at each other for a second that seemed to span into hours.

“Alexander.” Eleanor’s eyes were wide with surprise. “You’re back.”

I had so many things to say to her.

But my words failed me. Before I realized what I was doing, I closed the distance between us and carefully slid my hand behind her neck to tug her into a hug.

Eleanor let out a small sound of surprise, but she didn’t move out of my embrace.

She smelled so damn good, so alive. I wanted to bury myself in her scent and never leave.

Sooner than I wanted, Eleanor pulled out of the hug, her gaze curiously searching mine as her hand settled on my wrist.

“I…” Eleanor blinked and cleared her throat, her cheeks flushed. “Is the war over?”

My gaze dipped from those stunning emerald eyes to where Eleanor’s hand lay on mine.

The sight of our hands intertwined made something inside me twist almost painfully.

Pulling my hand away from hers, I put up the wall in my mind brick by brick, until the bond between us stopped confusing me.

“What were you doing at the border?” I demanded.

Eleanor stared at me for a moment, obviously confused by my sudden shift in attitude.

“I was going for a run,” she said finally.

It was a plausible enough explanation, but for some reason, I found it hard to believe.

“A run?” I deadpanned. “Late at night, at the boundary that borders rogue territory?”

Eleanor flushed harder, and when her gaze met mine, it was with more than a little indignation.

“I can go wherever I want whenever I choose to, Alexander.”

Something in me snapped at her words.

“Even at the expense of your life?” I growled. “You could have died!”

My voice must have given something away because suddenly, Eleanor’s anger vanished. She stared at me with an emotion in her eyes I hadn’t seen in years.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For saving me.”

I almost wavered. Almost.

“I wouldn’t need to save you if you didn’t keep putting yourself in harm’s way,” I snapped.

But Eleanor didn’t back down. She sat up and turned to face me fully.

“Why do you?” she asked. “Save me, that is. You… we hate each other, so why do you keep helping me?”

She stared at me, her eyes searching mine for the answer to her questions.

“Does the thought that I could’ve died really bother you?”

I didn’t respond, and that moment of silence seemed to stretch on forever.

Eleanor’s eyes stayed locked on mine. Her breath came fast and her pupils dilated. Her intoxicatingly sensual scent was heavy with anticipation.

The look in her eyes reminded me of the one she’d given me in the bathtub when she said the words that had completely sundered me.

I think I’ve always wanted you.

“You are my mate.” My words came out harsher than I intended them to. “My responsibility, as unfortunate as that may be. You getting hurt while you’re under my protection will bring shame to my name.”

The light in Eleanor’s eyes went out.

“That’s all I am to you,” she breathed. “An unwanted responsibility and continual source of shame.”

I said nothing more, and Eleanor’s features hardened further.

Turning away from me, she attempted to get out of bed. She stumbled, a sharp gasp of pain slipping past her lips.

I caught her before she could fall, holding her close to me to keep her upright.

Eleanor stiffened in my grasp.

“Let me go,” she said evenly.

I didn’t let go of her.

“You’ll reopen your wounds.”

Eleanor tipped her head back and glared at me, her eyes aflame with anger.

“I’ve looked after myself for my entire life. I assure you, I can see myself to the bathroom,” she intoned, her icy tone matching the cruelty of my earlier words. “To me, you aren’t my mate. You’re just the wolf I fucked to get even with Dylan, and now I’m stuck with you.”

I let go of her.

The monster within me bared its teeth. Eleanor was our mate, and we were hers. Nothing else was acceptable.

Eleanor shuffled away from me, her breath labored and her lower lip between her teeth as she tried and failed to hold in another pained whimper.

That did it for me.

Moving too quickly to give her room to dispute my actions, I lifted her into my arms bridal style.

Eleanor gaped up at me in unabashed shock.

“Alexander!”

“You are my mate,” I informed her as I began to walk to my bathroom. “Whether you accept that fact or not is your business, not mine.”

“You can’t do this,” Eleanor protested, shifting in my grasp, only to freeze when another wince of pain escaped her.

I kept walking.

“I hate you,” Eleanor seethed, her voice a hushed whisper, but I heard her loud and clear.

I set her down in the bathroom before stepping out to give her privacy.

When the faucet stopped running and Eleanor stepped out, I was waiting.

Tossing me another glare, Eleanor reluctantly let me carry her.

I did my best to ignore the subtle shift in her scent as we moved, as well as the shift in her breathing when I placed her back on my bed and reached for her shirt.

Eleanor placed her hand over mine, stopping me from pushing her shirt up, her eyes so dilated they appeared completely black.

“W-What are you doing?”

“I need to check your injuries,” I said matter-of-factly.

Eleanor looked away, her jaw clenched, but she didn’t try to stop me again.

Carefully, I peeled off the bandage on her side and inspected the wound. It was almost fully healed on the outside, but I knew from experience that even with our advanced healing, things on the inside took more time.

Eleanor winced as I put a fresh bandage on, those green eyes flicking to mine as her hand reached for mine reflexively. I instinctively took her hand in mine.

At that moment, my world paused, narrowing down to the sensation of Eleanor’s hand on mine, the shallowness of her rapid breaths, and our inevitable connection drawing us to each other.

I couldn’t do this.

If everything went as planned, Eleanor would have a life that did not include me in it. That was the only acceptable conclusion to all of this.

I pulled away from her.

“Get some rest,” I said gruffly. “Lily will be right outside if you need anything.”

I was out of the room before she could respond.

“You made a treaty with the Bloodfrost Pack.” Dylan sounded almost as unimpressed as he looked, and I fought the urge to snap at him.

Something was suspicious about the rogue attack on Eleanor.

On my way here, when I’d stopped by the border to see if I’d missed anything in my rush to save Eleanor, all the evidence was gone.

The bodies of the rogues had disappeared. The sentries patrolled as though they’d never left. The entire mess had been cleaned up in the hours I’d waited for Eleanor to wake up.

Dylan had been shocked to discover I was back, and seemed unaware of the attack on Eleanor.

Was it a pretense?

If he wasn’t responsible, there was only one other suspect I could envision spearheading this.

My brother’s pregnant mate, Micah.

There was a surefire way to confirm my suspicions, but I’d vowed to myself never to do that again.

No matter what.

Deductive analysis would have to do.

“You’ll be the alpha who ended a generational war,” I deadpanned in response to Dylan’s glacial glare.

He stood from his chair and walked toward me, his regal bearing holding all the authority of an alpha.

“Can you guess what they would’ve done if they’d gotten Eleanor, the woman they thought was the future luna of the Nightshade Pack?” he baited, his eyes narrowing at my outward lack of reaction.

Could I guess?

Just the memory of that day was enough to enrage my wolf and me.

It was strikingly similar to the panic I’d felt earlier as I carried Eleanor home, praying she wouldn’t die along the way.

Dylan leaned in, his voice dipping to a vicious taunt.

“They would have returned her to us in pieces. But then again, you don’t really care about her. Eleanor is just a means to an end for you, isn’t she?”

My razor-thin hold on my control snapped.

I grabbed Dylan by his nape and tossed him across the room.

Dylan straightened, a growl on his lips, but I was already next to him, slamming his head back against the wall.

The monster approved.

With no one but the two of us here, there was no need to hold back like I had in the duel.

Dylan struggled, pushing at me physically and with his alpha aura.

He should have known better.

I pinned him against the wall and kept him there. Dylan struggled, his gaze ablaze with fury and frustration, until he finally stopped struggling.

I stared at him for a moment, fighting the primal urge to rip him apart for daring to stand against me, but if his taunts had shown me anything, it was Dylan’s innocence.

Not even he would be stupid enough to pull off a stunt like that with the rogues and then taunt me about Eleanor hours later.

I leaned in, keeping my eyes on him as I spoke.

“Don’t accuse me of not caring for Eleanor. Not after she got jumped on your watch.”

Dylan went limp in my grasp, his eyes full of confusion.

“Eleanor got jumped? What are you talking a?—”

My hand wrapped around his throat and stayed there, choking off the rest of his denials, my monster only a breath away.

“If I find out you had even an inkling about what happened to Eleanor, not even my promise to Father will fucking save you, alpha.”