Chapter 19 - Alex
I wanted to share everything with my children, but I didn’t know what boundaries I could or couldn’t cross. Stories of going to the beach with my mom in Puerto Rico when I was a boy, or stories of hunting through the forest with my dad. My first shift, my first day of school, my first day in the special ops team when I was younger, fresh-faced, and dumb, paired up with Zephyr and Sweeney to rescue hostages in a shipwreck that had washed up on the West Coast.
And then the day I met Harper while hunting an anti-shifter group that had taken up a branch in Ohio, threatening to wipe out shifters’ existence, especially in communities like Harper’s, where shifters existed but only in the shadows.
But instead, I had to keep my mouth shut for now and let Harper lead this dynamic so I knew where I was still within the right lines of her parenting. She was right: I didn’t know what Commander Tylen would order after this, where we would go. She had missions already prepared for us, but promised us this vacation time without being on call.
I would be gone for missions, yes, but Harper would never be alone in the way I had left her the first time.
“Alex!” Joseph called out from the shore, where he and Hallie splashed around in the shore. “We want to play helicopter!”
“I’ll be right there, little man,” I called to him. Harper placed the packaged sandwiches we’d bought from the grocery store. Marie helped her, meticulously placing all the food items in a certain pattern on the tartan picnic blanket.
“We’ve got it handled,” Harper said, smiling. “Haven’t we, angel?”
Marie grinned up at me. “ Si !”
“Oh,” I laughed. “You learned that one, huh?”
“Yes,” she said. “Uncle Zephyr taught it to me to surprise you!”
“Well, I can teach you some other words when you’re a bit older to say back to him, okay?”
“Alex!” Harper cried but she couldn’t help her smile.
“What? It's all a bit of fun.” Two impatient children who stomped their feet, splashing the water, tore me away. The sun was setting into the ocean waves, and as I ran up to the two children, who lifted their arms so I could scoop them without stopping and swing them around, I thought about this scene and capturing it somehow. Me and two of the kids, them hanging off my arms in their bathing suits, and Marie, sat with her mom. A perfect snapshot of a family. I paused, my feet in the waves, and looked back at Harper. The sun glinted off her hair, and highlighted her face.
She looked like an angel—a gorgeous angel who was sent to damn me, to bless me, to be my undoing. And I would let her. I spun around on the spot, listening to the sound of my children, and I realized that nothing in the world would ever make me happier.
I had been duty-bound my entire life to do what was right, move from place to place, learn stillness and, patience, and authority. But what would my family teach me if I stayed here? What could I teach them?
Looking at them all, as Hallie and Joseph let go mid-swung, rolling on the floor, before running back to their mom, I knew my world was righted. My mate and my babies. This life could never be just in name. I needed Harper to rescind that agreeance. How could I ever leave Azure Cove knowing this was here?
I couldn’t.
I still hadn’t told my Commander, but I wanted to enjoy this without complications for a while longer. Harper gazed at me, a soft smile on her face. I walked over to her, sat next to her on the towel.
“I’ve decided,” I said, “That I never want to be the reason you cry, Harper. But I always want to be the reason for that smile.”
“Which smile?”
I brushed her cheeks, and—there it was. “That one right there.”
Harper blushed, and I heard a coo from the triplets as they dug into their picnic food.
“You could do that by staying,” she said.
“What happened to an island between us isn’t enough ?” I teased.
She shook her head. “You know I take that back. I was angry and upset, and I meant it at the time, but… Hearts can change.”
“Mine never changed,” I said. “I always wanted you.”
There was a determination in her eyes. “Then… Alex, why did you leave me? I’m ready to know.”
I nodded, and thought back to that night…
It was still dark in the early morning hours when the first blow came from behind me. My vision spotted, and I stumbled, falling to my knees. I was back up in an instant, tensing to shift, until five people emerged from the shadows, bats raised…
Before them, they threw someone to the ground, a dark spill of hair flashing in the rain, his head smacking off the floor with a horrible, wet sound. Zephyr.
“We found you, shifter,” one of them drawled. I recognized him. It was Diego, the man that Harper had told me her parents wanted her to marry. He swung a bat—a bat with the blood of my comrade on it. “Don’t worry. We only knocked your friend out. He’ll come around soon enough. But by then, we’ll have backup.”
I had been trained to compose my face. Even when Diego had smashed the bat into my stomach, I didn’t break composure. I didn’t say a thing. I knew Zephyr would have done the same, so he was out cold.
“Leave here, shifter,” Diego spat. “And don’t even think about shifting, either, Arin. Or… Is it Alex ? Yes, I know you. Harper has talked about you. It was her talking about your little summer romance that helped us get onto you. Tell me, did you think she would be your undoing?”
I gritted my teeth, let my scream of pain build behind my teeth when two bats swung, catching both my ribs. I needed to shift, I need to—
A gun cocked, aimed right at my head. If I threw myself away, shifted, I might be lucky to be shot somewhere less lethal.
As I stared at the gun, a boot was swung into my side. I grunted, and withstood it, only for a punch to land to the side of my head, toppling me down. I landed next to Zephyr, rain pouring into my open mouth, washing away the blood, stinging my eyes.
“Zeph,” I whispered, coughing. “Zeph, I’m so sorry I caused this.”
His eyes cracked open but barely.
“Did the others get out?”
A barely-there jerking nod of his head. I told myself this was always a risk when we went undercover, but I had brought this upon the team.
A boot landed on my chest, right where my heart beat.
“Did you think you could have her, shifter?” Diego asked. “Did you think she’d run off with you into the sunset? How does it feel to not be strong enough to resist your own dick? Couldn’t help getting it wet in her?”
I snarled. How dare he reduce what Harper and I had.
“And now, because weak, pathetic Alex couldn’t help it, your girlfriend ruined your entire mission.” Diego crouched down, putting weight on the bat that he pressed against my throat. I coughed, wheezing. “Here’s the proposition: you leave right now. You do not contact Harper ever again. No phone number, no letter, nothing. You let her grieve you and you walk the fuck away. She is a good girl. She shouldn’t be corrupted by cowards like you. We never stood for your little relationship. It was always going to fail. She would always be ousted by her involvement with you, even after your mission ended and you found you could not take her from Haystock.
And if you refuse… Well, then I’m going to smash your friend’s head to pieces, and after you’re both dead, I will tell Harper you skipped town. Left her, and I will be there to pick up the pieces. At least, at first. I’ll have her give birth to a child to continue my line and mission. I have people posted in this town, Alex. People who want shifters like you dead. And I can make that happen and ensure that this is a safe town. And for bitches like Harper… Well, you won’t have to worry about Harper being married to me for long. I’ll kill her just like I kill you.” He cocked his head at me. “It's your call.”
Either way, I didn’t get to stay with Harper.
But I had already been leaving, hadn’t I? I was already going to skip out on her. Only this way would I protect her if I agreed to leave. But would she be protected? If I wasn’t there, would she be forced to marry Diego? I knew it was what her parents wanted after they’d practically been forced together since a young age.
“I’ll have her as my wife and pregnant within a week,” Diego laughed. “And then she will be dead a week later. So, really, if you believe in an afterlife, then you won’t have to wait much longer.”
He raised the bat above my head, poised to bring it cracking down on my skull. But I rolled out of the way just in time. The bat clanged against the wet asphalt. I lunged up, grabbing the bat, and swung it at Diego.
“I’ll leave,” I spat. “But I hope Harper knows to run very, very far from you, you piece of shit.”
My mate, my mate, my mate. My blood roared. If I stayed, I risked my life, Zeph’s, and hers. If I left, she would be safe. I didn’t trust Diego’s word, but what else could I do?
“Take the deal, Al,” Zeph groaned. “Let's get out of here. Please.”
I had never once heard my second-in-command say please before. But he groaned, coaxing me to step back. Diego had too much power, but how could I leave Harper behind? How could I ever even start to get over her?
I lost every second of my composure training when tears stung my eyes. I took a step away from Diego, only to shift in that second. I caught the left side of his face. Blood sprayed. His group scrambled back when I roared a sound that tore the silent night in two.
He would regret the day he ever threatened me. But I had to leave. I had to do what was best and right for Harper. I had to walk away for her own good, and she would never forgive me, but she would eventually move on. Whether it was with this prick or another man, I had to trust that she would.
I was just a summer fling. That was nothing in the grand plan of her entire life.
She would be happy. Settle down with a husband and have babies. She would be okay… I had to trust that…
Zephyr had never heard me scream the way I had done that night, unable to drive any further after we had left Ohio. I had walked away from my mate, and it had broken me.