Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

ELEANOR

“ W hat?”

I stared at Dylan, unable to understand what had just happened.

Had he just…proposed to me?

Was it possible I’d misheard him?

Dylan smiled at me—a real smile, not the strained ones that had graced his face since our failed mating ceremony.

“Once my separation with Micah is finalized, we can get mated immediately, as we should have done months ago,” he said.

Immediately ?

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, still struggling to wrap my mind around his words. “I…we can’t just get mated. Both of us are mated to other people and I…I’m not sure if I’ve forgiven you for everything that happened.”

Dylan nodded amicably.

“I understand.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, his gaze never leaving mine. “And I will spend the rest of our lives together trying to atone for that mistake.”

The rest of our lives together?

Panic bubbled over within me, and I tugged my hand free of his grasp.

“I don’t think you’re listening to me,” I snapped. “I said , we’re both mated. We can’t?—”

Dylan didn’t let me finish. He put his hands on my shoulders as if trying to relax a skittish animal.

“We can and we will. My annulment will happen in three days, and I know there’s no love lost between you and Alexander.” His hazel eyes searched mine. “I just need you to say yes, and I’ll take care of everything else.”

A fragile, uncertain smile settled on his lips.

“Please give us a chance, Eleanor.”

For a moment, I let myself consider it.

He’d cheated on me with Micah while he was under the influence. It didn’t negate the fact that he’d done it, but he’d apologized and shown his remorse over and over.

And I’d gotten back at him by sleeping with his brother.

We’d hurt each other, but could I forgive him and put the past aside?

Honestly? Yes.

But Dylan wasn’t just asking me to forgive him. He wanted to be my mate.

To do that, I’d need to break my bond with Alexander.

I thought of the past few months with Alexander, from the moment he’d marked me to the last time I’d seen him. I thought of all the hurtful words Alexander had said to me, and all the times he’d shown he would never truly accept me as his mate.

I took a step away from Dylan, and his hands fell from my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” I said, unable to believe my own words. “I can’t.”

Dylan’s face fell, but he reached for me again, misunderstanding what I meant.

“Eleanor, I’m truly sorry for what I did. I really a?—”

“I forgive you,” I interjected, meeting his gaze for the first time as I came to a realization that rocked the foundation of my world.

“I think I have for a while now, but I can’t be your mate.”

Dylan paused.

“Why?” he asked, his tone casual. Too casual.

But I was too lost in my thoughts to notice the danger.

I couldn’t leave Alexander.

“I already have a mate, and I…” My throat closed up as I tried to get the words out. “I have feelings for him that I can’t explain, and they aren’t going anywhere.”

“You have feelings for Alexander?” Dylan echoed in obvious disbelief.

It was the first time I’d admitted it to myself.

It wasn’t rational, but it was true. I could only guess how much pain it would cause me in the long run, but that didn’t change how I felt.

I didn’t know when I’d started harboring these feelings for him, or what it said about me that I could feel this way about someone who hurt me at every turn, but I could no sooner change my heart than I could stop the sun from rising.

“I have feelings for him,” I affirmed. “I hope you find someone who loves you for all that you are.”

With that, I headed toward the door.

My hand was on the doorknob when Dylan spoke, his words laced with venom.

“He’s manipulating you. He doesn’t love you.”

A lance of pain tore through my heart. I already knew Alexander didn’t love me, but my feelings weren’t led by logic. If I was being honest, I wasn’t sure if these intense feelings I had for him could be called love yet.

I’d never been in love before, so I had no baseline to compare this against.

I turned the doorknob, but before I could open the door, Dylan’s next words yanked the rug out from under me.

“Alexander has less than two months left to live,” he said.

I froze before spinning to face him.

“What did you just say?” I demanded.

If this was a joke, it wasn’t even remotely funny. But there was no humor in Dylan’s hazel eyes—just plain, cold truth.

“My brother is dying,” he repeated, his gaze dark and brooding. “You might have noticed the signs—the migraines in the middle of celebrations, his frequent exits from the pack for his failing treatments, and, of course, his penchant for secrets.”

Alexander was dying? How? He was the strongest person I knew.

My mind chose that moment to remind me of the medication Anastasia had dropped off at our house.

The medication I’d been confused about because Alexander wasn’t ill. But now…

Forgive me. I need you to be happy forever and I…I can’t give you forever.

Alexander’s words from the last night we’d been together echoed in my head.

A rough gasp escaped my lips and I stumbled over nothing, my knees wobbling.

“He’s dying,” I rasped.

How had I missed it?

How could I have failed to realize what was right in front of me?

“Don’t feel too bad for him,” Dylan said, interrupting my train of thought. “You see, my brother has found a way to cheat death…you.”

“What?” I frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Dylan shook his head, like I was the one being silly.

“Let me tell you a little story, Eleanor. A family secret, if you will. One my brother has ensured stayed hidden from you.”

A chill suddenly raced down my spine, and some instinct deep inside me warned that I didn’t want to hear this, but I couldn’t stay in the dark anymore.

Dylan continued.

“You see, generations ago, before the Hawthorne family led the Nightshade Pack, they were just an ambitious family who wanted to climb in ranks in a very small pack, the Rising Star Pack.”

“Bernard, my ancestor, aspired to usurp the alpha of that pack. After he tried to assassinate him, he failed and barely managed to escape with his life.”

I wondered what Dylan hoped to achieve by telling me this run-of-the-mill werewolf pack origin story.

But more importantly, my mind was still hung up on the fact that Alexander was dying .

I’d suspected he was hiding something, but I’d never expected this. I certainly didn’t accept it.

Was this why he’d been so intent on pushing me away? Did he think by making me hate him, he could prevent me from being heartbroken by his death?

Goddess, I was mated to an idiot.

We could have been spending all our time together trying to find a cure or a solution, and instead we’d wasted it fighting each other.

This was all my fault. I should’ve uncovered this sooner.

Dylan’s story took a turn that made my thoughts pause long enough to register his words.

“While he was on the run, Bernard met a priestess. A piety, if you can believe it.”

Pieties were a legend. No one was sure they really existed.

They had a direct connection to the Moon Goddess that made them so powerful they could bend the laws of reality. But due to that connection with the Goddess, they couldn’t utilize any offensive powers.

It was how they’d managed to be hunted to extinction—or so the legends claimed.

“Bernard saved her life, and she offered him a boon in exchange—anything he wanted. Bernard asked for power. For the strength he’d lacked when he tried to usurp his alpha. Strength to take down any foe that stood in his path. He wanted to be unopposable. Undefeatable. Insurmountable.”

An image of Alexander popped into my mind as Dylan described the attributes Bernard had asked for.

Dylan was still speaking.

“She agreed to a generational pact, warning that it would come at a great cost, as all such things do, but Bernard could’ve cared less. He was a true Hawthorne, after all.”

Dylan’s face was set in a strange mix of pride and condemnation as he said those words, and once more, I a chill raced up my spine.

“Bernard returned to his pack, challenged his alpha to a duel, and won. And so for generations, every Hawthorne firstborn son inherited the alpha position, the great pact, and its great cost, while expanding the family’s power and pack boundaries until we became who we are today.”

All the Hawthorne firstborn sons?

Realization about why Dylan was telling me this began to creep in.

Alexander was a firstborn son.

A firstborn son born with inhuman strength. Who had initially inherited the alpha position. Who healed faster than I thought possible. Whose reputation as the dark alpha had reached me long before I met him.

The misnomer had come about because of how he’d step onto a battlefield and paralyze his enemies with an unending wave of dominance while he cut them down mercilessly, drenching himself in their blood.

Then I met him, and while he’d been sarcastic and condescending and demeaning, I’d never seen that part of him.

Dylan’s lips were at my ear, and I couldn’t recall when he’d moved so close.

“Do you want to know what the great cost was, Eleanor?”

My stomach flipped. No. I already had an idea.

There would be no cure for Alexander because this wasn’t an ailment—it was a curse.

“The firstborn sons of the Hawthorne family couldn’t live beyond thirty years,” Dylan said. “And Alexander turns thirty in less than two months.”

“No. That’s not possible.” I shook my head, even though I’d come to a similar conclusion. This couldn’t be the end for us.

Besides, he said all the firstborn sons, right? Someone would have noticed if every alpha of the Nightshade Pack died at thirty. Besides…

“Your uncle lived past thirty, and he was a firstborn son,” I reminded Dylan.

Elena had given me a rundown on the Nightshade Pack’s history in the days before my mating ceremony with Dylan.

And from what I could remember, Alpha Maximus, Dylan and Alexander’s father, had only taken up the position of alpha after the death of his older brother, who’d died young and without an heir, but had definitely surpassed thirty.

Dylan shrugged like my words meant nothing.

“That’s because after Bernard acquired his power, he wanted to live longer. So he revisited the piety, and she gave him a solution that was almost as terrible as the initial curse…but it worked, and he lived out his normal lifespan.”

I should have been ecstatic that there was a way to save Alexander. But why couldn’t I shake the feeling that I didn’t really want to know what that solution was?

Maybe it was the fact that Dylan was so readily offering up the information, while Alexander had done everything to hide it.

“What was it?” I asked. “The solution.”

“It’s the reason Alexander marked a woman he despised.” Dylan’s expression grew darker as his gaze turned inward. “He spoke big when he left the alpha heir position. Claimed he was different from the firstborn sons before him. That he would accept his fate. Then his thirtieth year rolled along, and he stole my bride.”

Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for Dylan’s next words.

“The solution the piety gave the Hawthornes was death—a life for a life. The Hawthornes had exchanged their lifespan for power, so to live longer, someone else would need to pay the price for the terrible power they’d been given.

“But not just any life would work for this sacrifice,” Dylan continued, his gaze focused on me as he delivered the cruel truth. “It had to be a partner who loved them. If this partner who loved them died, naturally or not, before their thirtieth birthday, they would retain both their powers and their lifespan.”

Dylan kept talking, saying something about how he’d wanted to tell me this from the beginning, but I was no longer listening to him.

My mind was too busy replaying every moment Alexander had pushed me away. From refusing to touch me during my heat, to coldly pushing me away, to his cruel words after every bonding moment, he’d continuously put up walls between us.

All the while knowing that he had less than six months left, and his only hope of survival was for me to fall in love with him and die in his place.

He should have been cozying up to me, acting like he was madly in love with me, putting up a front to make me fall in love with him.

Instead, in our last argument, he’d been as vicious as ever.

I don’t want you at my side. No matter what you believe, Eleanor, it doesn’t change the fact that I. Don’t. Want. You .

Then he’d said even more hurtful words, breaking my heart all over again.

Those weren’t the actions of a man trying to save himself by sacrificing me.

Can you try to trust him? For my sake?

I recalled Seraphina’s words and the way she’d trembled as she spoke. I realized Seraphina had known as well. And she’d known Alexander wouldn’t let me sacrifice myself in his stead.

You make me want things I have no business wanting, Eleanor.

That night, when he’d said those words, I’d been equal parts elated and confused. Elated because he’d finally admitted he wanted me. Confused at the depth of sorrow in his voice.

“Do you see it now?” Dylan said, once again misunderstanding my silence. “He’s been manipulating you into falling for him so that he can sacrifice you. He wants to stay alive no matter the cost, like all the Hawthornes before him.”

But that was the thing. He hadn’t.

“Even the feelings you think you have for him are fake, Eleanor,” Dylan continued eagerly when I stayed silent. “Every firstborn son has a unique gift in addition to the other powers they inherit. Alexander’s is psychic. He has short-term memory manipulation.”

I lifted my eyes to meet Dylan’s as he explained what that Alexander could alter recent memories before they were stored as long-term memories in the brain.

“You remember something,” Dylan said, a triumphant glint in his eye at the prospect of freeing me from Alexander’s “manipulation.”

“No, I don’t, I—” I started, but Dylan didn’t let me finish.

“Has there ever been a time when you’ve had two versions of a memory that involved Alexander?” he pushed. “If a conflicting version of an old memory tries to resurface, that’s your original memory fighting its way through Alexander’s powers.”

I stared at Dylan in disbelief. There was no way Alexander had that sort of power. Besides, I’d never had any such opposing memories about Alexander…

The strangely vivid dream of Alexander saving me instead of drowning me the first day we met jolted into my mind.

No, that was just a dream.

Alexander wouldn’t have used his psychic powers to hide that he was my true mate and almost let me get mated to his brother…right?

I tried to recall my original memory of the incident, the one where Alexander tried to drown me, but as I fought to remember specific details, the memory fractured.

Was that why nightmares of that day plagued me? My mind replayed the day over and over in my head, but instead of noticing the inconsistencies, my fear and dislike of Alexander had grown.

My knees buckled as Lara keened loudly within me, confirming this discovery.

Alexander was our true mate.

My Goddess-given mate.

That was why my feelings for him were so strong, and why Lara had been so attached to him from the start. It was also why we’d continuously failed to stay apart from each other, and every little touch quickly spun out of control.

Alexander hadn’t been manipulating me.

He’d been torn between his instincts as my mate and the harsh reality that he couldn’t let me fall in love with him without putting my life in danger.

I need you to be happy forever and I…I can’t give you forever.

Those words suddenly held a deeper meaning.

My eyes burned with tears. He’d gone through all this alone, and what had I said to him?

I hope you don’t survive this war, so I don’t have to see you again.

Tears streaked down my cheeks.

Dylan cupped my cheeks compassionately, wiping away my tears.

“You remember it now, right?” he asked, searching my eyes. “How Alexander manipulated you into falling for him?”

I remembered it all, but it wasn’t what Dylan thought.

I took a step away from him, brushing his hands off my cheeks.

“You’re wrong,” I said, meeting Dylan’s hazel gaze. “Alexander never manipulated me or tried to make me like him. All this time, he was pushing me away. He was trying to protect me.”

Dylan went silent, his unreadable gaze shifting from my face to his hands.

Then his face hardened and when he spoke, his voice was detached and cool.

“I was too late. My brother has already brainwashed you. Even with the truth in front of you, you make up lies to protect him.”

“Brainwashed?” My eyebrows shot up. “Dylan, he didn’t?—”

Dylan moved quickly, closing in on me. I raised my hands, but that was exactly what he wanted.

Faster than I could blink, he clapped my hands into silver cuffs.

It took me a moment to comprehend what just happened.

“Dylan, what are you doing?”

Dylan offered up a guileless smile and took my cuffed hands in his.

“Don’t worry, Eleanor, you’ll be free from his manipulations soon,” he reassured me. “Once I kill him in this battle as planned, you’ll have free will again, and we can finally be together.”

My heart stopped.

As he planned?

There was something about the way Dylan spoke that made me instantly realize what he’d done.

“You sabotaged the treaty,” I said.

Dylan’s jaw clenched and unclenched, but he didn’t deny it.

“I made a decision that will protect our pack in the long run.”

He’d put the lives of his people in danger just to kill Alexander?

Had I ever truly known Dylan?

The door of the receiving room opened, and a stone-faced pack warrior stepped inside.

Dylan inclined his head in my direction.

“Lock her up in the dungeons. She is to have no visitors until I return.”

He was going to go after Alexander. With the silver on my wrists, I was powerless to stop it, but I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

The guard reached for me, but I headbutted him and launched myself at Dylan.

Dylan cursed and shoved me off him, but not before I bit his cheek, the tangy, coppery taste of his blood flooding my mouth.

I spat out his blood and bared my canines at him.

“If you hurt Alexander, I’ll hunt you down myself.”

Dylan clutched his bleeding cheek, his eyes wide with surprise before his features hardened and he turned to the guard.

“Take her!” he growled.

The guard picked me off the ground despite my struggles. I kicked harder, almost freeing myself, but the guard’s hold was secure.

Then I felt a prick on the side of my neck, and the world went dark.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a cell. Each of my limbs was shackled with silver chains to the wall behind me.

I couldn’t feel Lara, much less summon her strength.

I was trapped.

I had no idea how long it had been since Dylan had ordered my arrest or when he planned to attack Alexander, but I needed to get a warning out to my mate.

For that, I needed to find a way out of there and?—

The sound of footsteps on the dungeon’s cobbled floors reached me, and I raised my head, hoping for help of any kind.

The person was heading right toward my cell, keys in hand.

“Micah,” I breathed, and my former best friend smiled at me.