Chapter 58
“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected." ― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
Aiden's POV
I woke up screaming Rose’s name.
"ROSE!" I roared frantically.
“Aiden, calm down, you’ve been in a coma for nearly two weeks!” Mom begged.
I struggled against my mother, pushing her aside and standing up.
“No-Rose! She-I have to—”
Kyle and Brad appeared from the waiting room, grabbing me.
But I was an alpha and stronger than my younger siblings who hadn't even turned yet.
I flung them away from my arms like flies.
I could hear Mom yelling for the clinic's doctor.
But none of it mattered. I HAD TO GET TO ROSE. She was in trouble!
Three fully grown male werewolves barrelled into the room and forcibly restrained me. I moved against them, preparing to shift into my wolf and fight my way out of here. But a swift prick in the side of my neck told me that nobody was going to let me leave.
“SHE NEEDS ME!” I yelled the words before drifting off into oblivion again.
When I awoke next, I found myself strapped down to my hospital bed.
“Are you going to listen to us calmly or are you going to struggle again?” My paternal aunt Alice looked me straight in the eye. “You look so much like your father now.”I saw her eyes shimmer with unshed tears.
“Where am I?” I asked aggressively. “I need to get to Rose. You guys have to help me—”
“What else do you think we’re here for?” Aunt Alice snapped.
I jerked my head towards Mom who was sitting next to Aunt Alice.
Last I’d heard, Mom had suspected Aunt Alice’s husband, Dan, of being the one behind everything.
Well, now we knew that Mom had been wrong.
It had been Lexia’s dad.My blood boiled when Irecalled all the timesI’d gone to Alistair for guidance after my father’s passing.I’d been sitting with my dad’s murderer! !
“Aiden—” Mom began quietly. “Dan is at the perimeter of pack lands. I’ve told him to get Rose out as soon as he can. But she won’t leave. Jake’s tried, Ezra has tried…” Mom stopped speaking, helplessly shrugging her shoulders.
“She keeps saying she isn’t going to leave her pack. The pack needs her. She’s waiting for you to come back, Aiden,” Aunt Alice said encouragingly. “She knows you’ll come back for her. So you have to get better and go back.”
“I’m awake,” I spat hotly. “Let me go.”
“Not yet,” Mom said sternly. “Not until the doctor gives you a clean bill of health. Aiden, Alistair, he...Rose tells Ezra, Tony, and Dylan everything she sees. She says she’s seen performance-enhancing drugs in Alistair’s gym bags.
You can’t take him on until you’re strong enough to fight him and win. ”
“How does” —my voice increased in tone and fury as the words progressed— “Rose know what Alistair has in his gym bag?”
Panic and shame were filling me up.I’d failed to protect my luna and pack. Alistair was probably forcing himself—
“He lets her stay at her own residence while he stays at his,” mom said quickly.
Maybe suddenly realizing the thoughts running through my mind.
“But he drives her to the pack company headquarters every day because he wants her to see to a smooth transfer of power. See…Rose has a…a theory. She’s probably right,” Mom conceded, and there was a sense of admiration coloring her words.
Then Mom began to explain everything in detail regarding Evercore inc.
, with help from Aunt Alice. I listened to them silently.
“Austin called me after Rose’s first kidnapping attempt, when you were a toddler,” Aunt Alice finally volunteered the information.
“Despite Hilda turning into a werewolf, Austin wanted to make doubly sure Rose was safe. He purposefully set Rose up in the same town as my family so we could help keep an eye on her. But he wanted the information kept top-secret. He didn’t trust anyone…
I think…I think he was afraid of the wrong people finding out.
He even matched Dan’s salary so that Dan could quit work and devote his time to being Rose’s secret bodyguard.
Dan kept an eye on Rose, even after Austin died, and the money stopped coming in.
It wasn’t until Rose was back with the pack that Dan finally allowed himself to look for a job. ”
My eyes widened in surprise. So that explained all the money Rose found being sent to my aunt.
“I remember the Evercore deal,” Mom added her two cents in.
“I remember that Alistair initially wanted to sell. He tried to get Austin to agree but when Austin started talking about how werewolves already didn’t have enough land and it wasn’t fair to decrease our pack land in exchange for money, Alistair agreed. ”
Mom thoughtfully rubbed her chin. “I think he was just pretending to agree and plotting to take over our land. Hence, Rose's first attempted kidnapping. It wasn’t until much later that Alistair came to Austin, telling him about the company petitioning for permission to drill. There were new laws in place that can force landowners to be subject to drilling on their property as long as twenty-five percent of the surrounding landowners have agreed to it. Alistair told Austin it was better to go ahead and try for a sale before the petition was approved. That's when Austin told Alistair that he’d have a detailed EIA done which might be able to help save their lands.”
Mom sighed sadly. “Austin called Alistair, telling him about the report. There was substantial evidence to make our lands off-limits due to the risk of severe habitat degradation drilling would cause. Your father even told him he’d be taking the report the next day and filing for their lands to be declared protected zones by the government. ”
“And that’s when he decided to murder Dad.” Iclenched my fists. It made me sick to my stomach thinking about it. While I’d been head-over-heels for Alistair’s daughter, the man had been plotting to kill my father. I suddenly looked up atMom. “Was Lexia part of this?”
“No,” Mom spoke firmly. “She’s just as much a pawn in all of this as you were, Aiden.”Mom’s eyebrows furrowed. “Do you remember what happened after your fight?”
I shook my head. The only thing I remembered was the desperate need to keep going, to win.
“Lexia stopped him from killing you.” Mom’s voice reflected the profound debt she owed the girl. “And she brought you here. She got you the help you needed. She got Dylan his antidote too.”
“She manipulated Jake into challenging me,” I grit out.
“She’s been misguided, Aiden,” Mom said achingly. “With a father like that, I don’t blame her for being a little messed up in the head. But she realizes that what she did was wrong. She tried to help Rose too. Told her she’d make sure you came for her.”
“I think Lexia’s never really been accepted by her father,” Aunt Alice further supplied.
“She’s been staying here, trying to make sure you have everything you need.
Even making the drive to nearby cities to get the medicines the clinic doesn’t have for you.
Her father thinks she's gone back to school. She’s not doing it for herself.
She’s doing it so you can get better and finally go be with the girl you love.
I’ve…had a few discussions with her. Her methods were wrong but in her own twisted way, she was just trying to hold on to the only man in her life who actually accepted her for who she was. ”
“Lexia is willing to sneak you into pack territory. I don’t think Alistair’s going to accept a challenge from you once you’ve fully healed, unless it is face to face,” Momexplained.
“You’d have to show up at his doorstep to issue the challenge to his face.
That’s the only way he has no choice but to accept. ”
“How’s Rose? Is she OK?” I looked at my mother desperately. “I-I got this weird feeling…” I did my best to feel Rose out but there was nothing. It was like she’d completely disappeared. “The mate bond was broken. I’ve lost her,” I said in anguish.
“She’s OK, Aiden,” Mom assured. “She’s upholding things marvelously, doing her best to delay transferring too much power to Alistair.
She's the only thing keeping a sale from going through in favor of Evercore Inc. As soon as the doctor says you’re back to one-hundred percent, we’re going to help you go back! ”
“You are going to stay here,”I said firmly. “At least until I kill that son of a bitch.”
For once, Mom didn’t admonish me over my language. I knew she agreed whole-heartedly. Alistair was all that and more.
“I really am sorry for everything, Aiden,” Lexia spoke the words remorsefully as we drove in her car, back towards our pack lands. “Rose made me see, she made us all see…” Lexia corrected. “…things differently.”
“It makes me sick when I think about all that time I spent with you.” My words were so harsh and as I took a glance at her face, I realized my words had cut deeply into her.
But I kept going, letting my verbal arrows fly hoping they would pierce deep into her heart.
“All the while your father was plotting against me and mine.” I turned to look out the window.
We were almost there. “I wish I’d never dated you,” I said dully.
“Then Alistair wouldn’t have used your scent to kill my father. ”
Two glimmering teardrops fell from Lexia’s eyes. It didn't bother me at all.
“I can’t change the past. But I can help fix the wrongs my father has done.
” Lexia clenched the wheel more firmly in her hands.
“Aiden, I promise you, I will help you get Rose back. You’re the only guy who ever truly cared about me.
You never thought I was inferior. I’ll…I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you get your happy ending.
I was so wrong. I should never have done what I did. But you promised me—”
“I promised myself to the daughter of my father’s murderer!” I exclaimed furiously, my fist weakly hitting the window my forehead was leaning against. “As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t count!”
“Well, it counted to me. I kept banking on that promise. Kept waiting for Rose’s turn so you could fully reject her and her wolf like you said you would!
” Lexia kept talking, desperate to get her part of the story out.
“Then when you didn’t…” She sniffled a little, “I thought you’d been confused by the mate bond.
I decided to keep egging Jake on. Telling him you needed a way to get out of this arrangement.
I was so sure that once you had a way out or the mate bond was broken, you’d come back to me.
I’d hoped you’d step aside and let Jake take over.
You could always be alpha of my pack anyway, if being alpha was so important. ”
“I wanted to be alpha of my own pack. I love my pack,” I responded. “It just goes to show …you didn’t think about me at all!”
“I didn’t,” Lexia agreed. “I was too self-absorbed and blinded by what I wanted, to actually think.” She gave a sad sigh.
“And then I finally realized what you guys had…well…” She shook her head helplessly.
I was watching her expression with stern eyes.
“It was something even beyond what we’d had.
It was true love. The kind you’d see in the movies.
” Lexia gave a bitter smile. “What we shared was nothing in comparison to what you and Rose had formed. And…I left. I stopped meddling after that. I had no idea what Dad was plotting.”
I shook my head in disgust, not even deigning to reply to Lexia.
If I’d had my way, I wouldn’t have even come here with her, but I didn’t have a choice.
This was our best bet to get in. She was going to cover me with one of her blankets andI’d have to hide in her trunk until we reached Alistair’s mansion.
“Take me to see Rose first,” I said suddenly, turning my head to demand it of Lexia.
Lexia shook her head. She’d known I’d ask this. Tony had warned her over the phone.
“It’s too risky, Aiden. My dad is alpha of both packs.
He might sense you or smell you. His patrols will alert him.
We have the element of surprise on our hands.
I’m not letting you mess it up and lose a second time.
” She drew in a shaky breath. “Seeing your brains nearly bashed into the ground one time was enough. We don’t need a repeat. ”
“Lexia,” I growled in warning.
“No,” Lexia said firmly. “You can see her after. She’s fine.
She’s not going anywhere. And it’s better if she stays put where she is.
You really think she’s going to let you go fight my dad alone?
And then what if she gets hurt? Her wrists had burns from the manacles my dad left on her, so she wouldn’t shift, from the last time you guys fought! ”
That made me shut up. When we reached close enough, Lexia stopped on the side of the road to help me get under the blankets in her trunk.
When she was stopped by the patrols, they didn’t question her.
Didn’t even ask her to open the trunk and it didn't surprise me at all. She was the alpha’s daughter and patrols wouldn't dare question her . The sun was setting when Lexia finally pulled up and I knew it must be her father’s elaborate mansion.
I waited for a few moments till Lexia opened the trunk of her expensive car. Before I could jump out of the trunk, Lexia closed her eyes.
“Betraying my father is going to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
But I am done being wrong. For once, I want to do good.
I want to be right. Because isn’t that why I am trying to become a lawyer anyway?
To do good? To help people? I spent my whole life vying for my father’s approval, dating you initially because I’d picked up on the way my father encouraged it.
But look where it has gotten me. I should have just waited for my mate!
Maybe then none of us would be in this mess. ”
I heard her with an expressionless face. I didn't come here to listen to her speech. She was wasting my time. I also didn't want to come under Alister’s radar, before getting in.
“Move aside.” I whispered and jumped out of the trunk.
“Aiden,” Lexia pleaded as I did so.. “Just…please don’t kill my father.”
I looked at her cuttingly. “I can’t promise you that.” A tormented expression overtook her features. “But I’ll try to keep it in mind,” I finally added before swooping upon Alistair’s home like an avenging angel in my black pants and black coat.