Filed to story: Claimed by My Ex’s Alpha Brother
I didn’t want to feel sad about Liam rejecting me as his Mate. My resentment for him was easier to confront than the agony he had made me experience.
“No arguments here.” I crossed my arms and lifted my chin.
His lips twitched.
Liam and I shared a look, and my breath caught in my throat.
I scanned his face, truly taking him in, noting the small differences six years had made.
What would it be like to kiss him now that he has a beard?
My heart quickened, and my gaze fell to his lips for a fraction of a second.
Liam noticed, and his expression darkened with desire.
With effort, I tore my eyes away from his and looked down at my hands.
Why the hell was my body reacting this way to him? Liam had broken our bond. So, why did it still seem like our souls were connected? Was it just because I’d spent my whole life loving him, even these past five years when I hated him, too? I didn’t want to crave his touch. I didn’t want to remember what his soft yet firm lips felt like on mine.
Unhelpfully, my mind conjured up the memory of Liam shirtless, wearing only loose black sweatpants. What did his body look like now? Was the V-cut in his hips even deeper?
Stop.
Nothing romantic could ever happen between Liam and me again. The animosity and anger I held for him just went too deep. When I had needed him most, he had broken my heart and sent me away from the only home I’d ever known.
I let out a long, slow breath and made a promise to myself that I’d never allow Liam back into my heart.
I had to change the subject. I needed to think about something else other than the fact that my intense attraction to Liam hadn’t faded with time.
“What happened with Noah after I fainted?” I asked the question I’d been avoiding. “Do you know why he was so aggressive? His attacking us couldn’t have been just because he found out you and I slept together six years ago…could it?”
Liam’s jaw clenched, and his brows furrowed.
“Noah ran away like the coward he is,” he said. “And I do have a theory about why Noah reacted the way he did. I had asked him to meet me tonight because I was going to tell him that when I became Alpha, he wasn’t going to be named my Beta.”
I gasped.
“Why?”
“Noah is away from the pack for weeks at a time,” Liam said and scrubbed a hand down his face. “For the past few years, I’ve noticed that he’s not interested in helping improve our pack or even in the people of WaterLock. Noah is like my brother, but we’ve really drifted apart. The only time he ever talks to me is to ask for money. Then, last week, my mom invited Noah and me over for dinner, and I caught him sneaking around in my dad’s home office. When I confronted him, he didn’t have a good excuse. Tonight, I was going to tell him that in order to stay in WaterLock, I was going to conduct a formal investigation on him to make sure he hasn’t turned traitor.”
Cold fear settled into my stomach.
“You can’t mean…” I trailed off and rubbed the scar on my arm.
“Yes. As he was making his escape, Noah spoke to me through our mind link. He told me that he would get revenge on me, and then couldn’t help bragging about the kind of connections he has. I think he’s been working with the Rogues for a while now. I think Noah was angry about finding out we slept together, but I think he was going to leave our pack either way tonight.”
“You think Noah is going to join forces with the Rogues?” I asked with horror seeping into my voice.
“Yes, I do.” A muscle ticced in his jaw.
His murderous glare made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, even though it wasn’t directed at me.
“But I don’t believe Noah will stop there. I think that once he joins the Rogues, he is going to share all of WaterLock’s secrets to help them take over our pack.”
Liam POV
I have a five-year-old son named Grayson.
I needed to keep repeating this information to myself until it fully sank in. As I strode through the halls of the compound’s hospital, I tried to maintain a neutral expression, even saying hello to a few healers. One of them asked me if I was all right after the fight, and I assured them I was.
But on the inside, I was panicking.
When I woke up this morning, my biggest worry was how to confront Noah about whether or not he was working with the Rogues. This talk had been a long time coming. I’d made enough excuses for Noah over the years. Even though he was my brother, he could no longer have a position of power when I became Alpha. To clear my head when I woke up, I left my facility and went on an early morning run to the edge of Brindle Creek. I was hoping to speak with my father about how best to approach Noah. I’d told my father about Noah snooping in his office, and my dad wanted to be there when I confronted him, but I thought it would be better if Noah didn’t feel like this was an ambush.
As I was running this morning to Brindle Creek, I saw a few of the guards that I hired out on border patrol. My father had agreed to let me build a large fence around WaterLock’s territory so the pack would have the same kind of security protections my compound had. Right now, I split my time between my facility to run my cybersecurity company and Brindle Creek to help run the pack. I had a small residence in the WaterLock territory near my parents’ house and my home at the facility. Since they were only thirty minutes apart, it was easy to travel back and forth. It was nice to have a separation between work and pack business.
But even with all the precautions I’d taken for my compound and around WaterLock, there had been some close calls over the past six years with Rogue wolf attacks. There just weren’t enough warriors in our kingdom to defend against the Rogue’s growing army. Every month, the army seemed to double in size. Some shifters had begun to join the Rogues, even if they hadn’t been exiled from their pack. These traitors believed that the Rogues would soon rule over our kingdom-and surrounding kingdoms-and wanted to switch sides now to ensure they were on the most powerful side of the war.
I was terrified that the Rogues would have the advantage over us soon, both in numbers and in power.
That was why I’d hired warriors from other kingdoms to help defend us, but now their own kingdoms were being invaded by Rogues and they had to protect their own homes. That was why my father, Delta Theodore, and I had taken to patrolling around the territory. Noah was supposed to be helping as well, but he barely showed up for his shifts, and sometimes there was no one to cover for him.
Early this morning, when I was running through the forest and into our territory, I sensed something was wrong. There weren’t any birds chirping or rabbits poking their noses out of their holes. The forest was never still in the early morning. The wildlife was hiding. That could only mean that there was a predator nearby.
Immediately, I was on high alert. I scanned the area, and in the distance, I saw two wolves, one tan and one white, weaving through the large oak trees. Digging my paws into the dirt, I gave chase, adrenaline pumping through my system. At first, I didn’t think that these two wolves were members of our pack, but there was something familiar about the way the tan one was sprinting across the forest floor.
Then, I spotted Ella’s dad.
Delta Theodore was lying on his back in his human form. There were large bites all over his body that were oozing blood. His eyes were closed, and his chest didn’t seem to be moving. I stopped running, knowing that if I kept going after the two Rogues, Delta Theodore could die from his injuries. Even though WaterLock’s hospital was closer than my compound, I couldn’t take him there. For a long time, I’d been convinced that there was a mole in our pack – my own brother. I wanted to ensure that the Delta of our pack had higher security and wanted to keep Ella’s father away from Noah.
For the rest of the day, I’d been monitoring Ella’s dad’s condition and wondering what it would be like to see Ella again after all these years. Her mother had told me she was coming, and I wondered if it was wise for her to travel, since her father had told me she was too sick these past six years to go anywhere.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?