Page 47 of Awakening His Mate

“Because you’re an alpha. Alpha magic creates mating bonds.”

Cade walks back over to the couch, sitting heavily, his hands clasped between his parted legs. Unease spreads through my veins.

“I’m an alpha,” he agrees, “but I don’t know how to access that kind of magic. I was never shown it.”

My brows knit together. I didn't consider that he might not know how. I wonder if that’s true or if he just doesn’t want to do it. He lifts his head to look at me, and I see the regret there.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, Jackson. I was never meant to be an alpha. I know some of the basic spells, like how to make pack links and add pack members, but that’s as far as it goes.”

What the hell?

I glance at Wyatt and Sawyer, wondering how they're taking this revelation. Neither wolf gives away anything, though.

“So all that alpha power comes from spells?” Apryle asks.

“Pretty much. Everything we do is spells. If I’d been in a normal pack, that information would have been passed down to me.”

Sawyer folds his arms over his chest, peering down at his brother. “Just out of curiosity, what was your plan if one of us brought home a woman we wanted to make our mate?”

Cade shifts his shoulders.

“That’s your answer?” He tugs Roux against his side, pressing a kiss into her hair. “I guess we’re lucky that we’re fated mates.” He glances at Wyatt. “Best hope you accidentally run into yours.”

I ignore him, focused on the only thing that matters. Cade can’t make me and Dove chosen mates. Pain spreads through my chest, a weight so heavy it feels as if an elephant is sitting on my ribs.

And then Dove is in front of me, her hands against my chest, her sweet gaze looking up at me from under her lashes. “We’ll find a way, I promise.”

“I’ll find a way,” Cade adds. “If this is what you want, I’ll figure it out.”

“It is,” I tell him. “I want her to be mine.”

“You’ll give up the chance of meeting your fated mate?” Sawyer asks.

“I don’t give a shit about that. I want Dove.” Her fingers tighten around my bicep. “As far as I’m concerned, she is my chosen and my fated mate all in one. And I hope you accept that, or else there's no place for me here anymore.”

Chapter 10

Dove

Jackson’s words ripple through the room like the blast wave of a bomb exploding.

I can’t read Cade, but Sawyer narrows his eyes at a man he once called brother, as if he cannot believe the distance between them. Wyatt watches without a word, and I wonder what he thinks. He has never bothered hiding that he never wanted to come here in the first place.

“Please calm down,” I urge. “Don’t say things in anger that you can’t take back.”

“I have no intention of taking anything back.”

Anger vibrates in his voice, but although I believe what he’s saying, there is also a part of me that understands the way bonds work for wolves. No matter how much he cares about me, how much he loves me, the moment his fated mate steps into his world, he will not be able to resist her pull. If Cade can’t bind us together, that risk will always be there.

But that is not a problem for now, and I hold onto the hope it may never be one. The chance of finding a fated mate is slim, and it is nothing short of miraculous that three of the pairs living at the Sanctuary are fated.

I remember only one couple in my pack being true mates, while the rest were chosen.

I blink. My pack? Where did that come from? A memory?

Things are starting to slip through whatever walls have been built within my mind—tidbits of information about the life I had before my capture, before the facility was all I knew.

Part of me is scared to remember all of it one day.

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