"I'll kill him,"
Aiden was still lost in his own thoughts, looking at the woods, while Jayce was standing by the back door, looking at him. Aiden didn't know what he was waiting for, he just didn't feel like going inside yet.
Jayce, on the other hand, was having an internal conversation with his wolf.
'What are you waiting for?' Eliseo said, 'Go to him.'
'I don't know what to say to him...'
Eliseo sobered and became curious, 'What's wrong human?'
'Lila...' Eliseo growled at Jayce, making him stop.
'That bitch was never our mate,' the wolf growled
'Then why did I feel so?'
"It might have to do something with the interruption of a witch." Jayce turned around instantly to come face to face with Lorcan. "Hey, I am Lorcan Vyris, the warlock associated with this pack."
"How did you..."
Lorcan smiled at Jayce's wide eyes, the amusement covering up the previous sympathy he felt for the wolf, "You were speaking out loud."
Jayce still looked at Lorcan with confusion, but voiced the question in his mind, "What did you mean by the 'interruption of a witch'?"
Lorcan looked at the man who had suffered without a reason and wondered how to say the words to him.
"Your pack, the Lunar Eclipse, had a... a complicated relationship with what was previously my coven of witches. I had gotten news a few years back that the leader of the coven was planning something like this, but I didn't know who they were targetting."
"So... you're saying that Lila..."
"She was not your mate," Lorcan nodded, "A witch from that coven had cast a spell so that you feel the pull of attraction towards her. That's what you had felt, it wasn't the true bond."
"But... we have a child though. You very rarely have a child with someone who isn't your mate."
Lorcan nodded, "Agreed, but in the case of homosexual wolves, it is different. Werewolves don't have fertility problems, but surrogacy is still not completely out of the option. However, not all werewolves are comfortable with this idea. They are too possessive to even consider this. But some do. It's rare but not unheard of."
"Aiden is my mate then," Jayce said and Lorcan nodded his head, "Then I cheated him by being with Lila."
"Jayce," Lorcan said quite firmly, just to get his attention, "You didn't know. You were under a spell."
Jayce took a deep breath before he spoke, "When did you know?"
"When I saw you... I saw the hatred in your eyes when you told Selena about Lila. She was a rogue wolf, under a spell, helping the hunters. If she was your mate, you would have had sorrow, all there I could feel from you was hate."
Jayce nodded.
"Wow...: Jayce sighed but that look didn't last long and Lorcan could see the self-loathing take over, "Okay so now, what do I do and tell him? Hey I am your mate but I didn't even recognize my own mate, so now here I am with my son?"
Lorcan was going to say something, but he stopped. There wasn't anything he could say, or he could...
"Guys?"
Both the men looked out the door to find Aiden there looking at them confused, "Is everything okay?"
Lorcan smiled at Aiden and walked back, leaving Jayce and Aiden there, all alone.
Jayce tried to smile at Aiden, trying to look confident, but on the inside, he had no clue what he was going to do.
"Do you mind taking a walk with me?" Jayce asked with a nervous smile.
Aiden could sense the nervousness in Jayce's voice and his instant reaction was to reassure his mate, so he smiled at Jayce with reassurance and confidence before he said, "Yeah sure."
Both Jayce and Aiden walked out side by side and into the woods.
It had been a few minutes and Aiden kept stealing glances at Jayce, eagerly for the man to speak. But Aiden was never known for his patience.
"You're my mate," Aiden blurted out. Jayce chuckled at his blunt action but he nodded his head.
"Yes, I am."
"And you have a son." This time, there was a slight tone of hurt in his voice.
They both took a few more steps.
"I do have a son, yes," Jayce said stiffly.
Aiden recognized the guarded tone in Jayce's voice and admonished himself for not framing it more softly. Sure, he didn't expect his mate to come with a son, but he had already started loving the kid like his own. Even though he had all the right to be angry at Jayce, he couldn't find it in him.
"Is that gonna be a problem?"
"No, of course not!" Aiden said very fast.
Jayce shook his head slightly. His heart was breaking and his wolf was planning on tearing him apart for what was going on inside his head.
"Aiden, right?" Jayce asked looking at him sideways.
Aiden looked at him too, "Yes, and you are Jayce."
Jayce nodded. Aiden was still looking at Jayce and didn't see the large branch just lying on the ground. He stumbled on it but Jayce was too fast. He held Aiden's hand and pulled him close to himself.
For a second, the world froze and both the men just stared into each other's eyes, only darting down to steal glances at their lips.
Jayce was the first one to look away from the other man's eyes, and his gaze moved straight to Aiden's lips. Aiden noticed that and he gulped. His eyes glazed in lust.
Jayce slightly moved forward but stopped, as if he was contemplating whether he wanted to go for that kiss or not. But then, breaking off the trance, Jayce moved a step back, only after making sure that Aiden had regained his balance.
The latter's cheeks tinted red as he stared at the ground, not being able to look at his mate.
"I think it is better that we maintain some distance."
Silence.
Even the crickets had stopped, that's how creepily silent it was. Aiden looked at Jayce with a blank face. First, he has sex with someone else, he comes here with a child, and even after all that when he was ready to give him a chance, he rejects him?
"Why?" Aiden asked lowly.
"Because Nicholas is my son. He comes first."
"As he should," Aiden spoke up, "I didn't expect anything more but..."
"Oh stop it." Jayce interrupted him. "You didn't expect anything more? Are you kidding me? I am your mate. I come in with a child from someone else and you didn't expect anything better? You really want me to believe that?"
"Jayce..."
"No. I hate Lila. I hate her, I hate everything she did to us, but Nicholas is the only good thing that came out of it. And I love him, I love him more than my life, and I am not going to make him go through anything that ruins his childhood."
"You think my presence will ruin his childhood?" Aiden asked hurtfully.
Jayce looked at Aiden sadly, "Wolves are possessive creatures. What says that you won't start hating the kid when you see him? He after all is the sign of your mate having sex with someone else. I have seen kids suffering because of this. I won't let Nic go through it."
"I will not put that child through anything like this. The fact that his father didn't know a random rogue from his mate is not his fault!" Aiden said loudly this time, partly losing his temper.
Jayce flinched but stayed rooted to the spot. Aiden might be submissive by nature, but he was an alpha-born, he wasn't going to just sit and let his mate reject him.
"What? Cat got your tongue?" Aiden said with a smirk, but his eyes were lit with fire, "You have the gall to come in here, in my pack, and reject me like I am worth nothing when you are the one who couldn't even recognize your mate and started a family with someone who wasn't yours?"
"Aiden, I get it that you are hurt, but Nicholas..."
"He comes first, yes, I know, Jayce. I am not saying I have a problem with that. But you are just assuming that I have one."
"I have seen it happening, I don't want to take the risk."
Aiden scoffed, "Pathetic."
Aiden walked away, leaving the beta standing there all alone, with a broken heart and shattered self-esteem.
____|~.~|____
The next time when Lorcan came to the packhouse, he came rushing in with a panicked look on his face. Xavier and Selena were talking in the office when Lorcan opened the door.
The attention of both the alphas in the room fell on Lorcan and they immediately understood something was wrong. Xavier was instantly in front of him as Selena only stood up.
"What is it?" Xavier asked dead serious.
"I..." Lorcan stuttered, "Damien and Adriana left."
Xavier frowned, "Yeah, you already said that to me earlier."
Lorcan shook his head rapidly, "I... I had lied partly. Damien had told me he was going away and that he will keep in touch. That was the deal, he couldn't tell me fine, but he had to keep his telepathic link with me open at all times but I just cannot feel him anymore."
"What does that exactly mean, Lorcan?"
"With that link, if anything had gone wrong I could have tracked their location. But now... I have no way of knowing where they are," Lorcan sighed dejectedly.
"How did you lose your connection?" Selena asked confused.
"Damien cut me off."
"And you couldn't prevent that?"
"I am just a normal warlock, Xavier, not a god. There are restrictions to my powers too. I need to know at least a vague location for my connections to work Damien knew that. Not knowing made me unable to connect with him. I am pretty sure he did it intentionally."
Xavier turned around and walked to the window. Selena could see the worry and anger radiating from him. She turned around to look at Lorcan.
"Why didn't they want us to know?" she asked the warlock.
"Because he knew we'd say no," Lorcan sighed and Xavier growled. "Anotherassumption is to make sure the hunters don't get to know about it through theirwitch."
"He's taking a risk."
"No," Lorcan interrupted, "I don't think he's taking a direct risk with the hunters. The fact that he said he needs to travel... he is going somewhere far, and he knew that if we know, we'd ask him to not go alone. So he did this..."
Selena sighed and turned towards Xavier, she walked up to him and put her hand comfortingly on his shoulder, "They will be okay, you have to trust them."
"I know," Xavier sighed. He then turned to Lorcan and held Selena's hand before she could retract it, "Thanks for letting me know." He nodded at Lorcan.
"Anytime, bro." Lorcan took a deep breath and looked around, "So how are Jayce and Aiden doing?"
The couple looks at each other with concerned and worried looks and let out a breath.
"Not good," Selena sighs, "I don't know exactly what is wrong, they won't speak of it, but I am sure it has something to do with Jayce having had a mate before."
"That's... stupid," Lorcan shook his head.
"Yeah," Xavier shook his head, "However, Jayce and Nic are settling in well and more importantly, Nic seems to love Aiden, so hopefully whatever it is, the little man will kick some sense into his parents."
"Well, whatever happened, Aiden deserves to be happy and I really don't know where this is going."
"They both do..." Selena whispered and turned her head to look out the window. "I thought he was dead, and then Lila not being his mate... he really was smitten with her. It hurt to see him like that because no one in our pack liked her. Now that he has been given a second chance..."
Lorcan scoffed but before he could say anything, he stopped. His brain gears started to run as he stopped his mouth just in time.
Xavier wrapped an arm around her and rubbed her arm soothingly.
"Okay so... I think I will just go. There's something I need to do."
Just as Lorcan walked out, Seth walked in, looking visibly disturbed.
"Alpha, I found a note on the tree which marks the border of our territory in the west," he said.
"What does it say?"
Seth handed Xavier the note and gulped. He took a step backwards before Xavier read it.
Selena peeked in to read the message and her face became hard.
"Did you read it?" she asked looking at Seth.
He nodded.
"Did you show it to anyone?"
He shook his head.
"Then let's keep it that way. We need to hold a meeting, the pack needs to know about it as soon as possible. Arrange for a meeting within ten minutes.
"Yes, ma'am."
When Seth walked out, Selena turned her attention on her mate.
"You okay?" She asked softly.
Xavier crumbled up the paper, threw it on his table, and pushed Selena gently against the wall. And then he kissed her.
It wasn't a kiss that evokes the feelings of gentle love, no. This was raging passion. Xavier didn't hesitate, and Selena didn't wait for a second to respond. Xavier bit her lips and tasted her mouth. Selena held his hair and tugged on it and Xavier groaned into the kiss.
He held one of her hands against the wall on top of her head, and the other one held her neck gently.
He pulled back and looked at her as Selena took deep breaths to make up for her breathlessness. He looked at her eyes, deep brown, almost black now, as she bit her lower lip and looked at Xavier.
Xavier saw her lustful eyes roaming over her and he kissed her again, this time, a lot softer. There was a fire burning deep within both of them, it was need and anger and lust and rage all at once.
"No way is that bastard getting his hands on you," he growled, his eyes now silver, marking the presence of Zion.
Selena gulped and looked at him. Taking another deep breath, she held his cheeks in her hands, "I know."
"I'll kill him," he growled louder.
"I know," she said more confidently.
Xavier sighed and closed his eyes, resting his forehead on hers. She too closed her eyes.
"Mine," Xavier whispered, almost as if he said it to reassure himself.
Selena smiled softly, "You have a meeting to conduct."
Xavier nodded and raised his face, he studied her for a second before kissing her forehead, and then once again her lips before he stepped towards the door.
"You coming?" he asked her turning around from the door.
When Selena smiled and nodded, Xavier turned and walked ahead. She stared at the crumpled up note on the table.
Taking the note in her hand and straightening it out, she read it again. Her eyes were hard with anger and her lips were sealed together in a tight line.
"I don't have a doubt that you will kill him, Xavier. But not if I get to him first."
Shetook the note with her, in case Xavier needed it during the meeting, and walkedwhere they had all accumulated.
____|~.~|____
Do you like the angry Aiden? :p