Relief floods over me as Ifeelmore than hear Ryan and Luca approaching. I don’t dare look at them. My eyes are solely focused on this piece of shit in front of me.
“Ah, Alpha Rivera, so good to see you again. I’m sure you weren’t aware, but your sister here is trying to prevent me and my mate from being together. I had offered for her to join us,” he drawls as Ryan and Luca growl and snarl. “But I’m happy to take my mate and go.”
I hazard a glance at Ryan’s face and see a pained expression before he asks, “Emily, is it true? Is he your mate?”
My stomach drops.
“Are youseriousright now?” I screech. “That’s what you’re asking? Hetorturedher! She came to us bruised, broken—barely surviving! Don’t you fucking dare hide behind the mate bond on this.”
I know Ryan is obsessed with the mate bond, but not even he can think this is right. Emily was both mentally and physically broken when she came to us, and I know that the abuse would be even worse if he got his hands on her again. She's said as much.
“Sofia, you know how important the mate bond is,” he sighs. His face pained like he knows how fucked this is, but his hands are tied. Fuckingbullshit. “I can’t stand between mates who want to be together.”
I can’t believe this. This is beyond ridiculous. “Get here now,” I tell Jack through the mindlink. The salty scent of Emily’s tears as she silently cries behind me is a constant reminder that I can’t let Aidan take her. This was always her worst fear, but I’m not letting her believe for a second that no one cares even if the pack Alpha doesn’t seem to give a fuck. I’m so fucking disgusted by Ryan right now.
“Does she look like she wants to be with him? Don’t you remember the state she was in when she got here?” I plead. Ryan has the decency to at least look like he hates this, but why the fuck is he behaving like this? This is so unlike the big brother I’ve grown up with.
“Your sister needs to learn respect for her betters, Alpha Rivera. I told you she needs to be gagged and leashed,” Aidan sneers as he looks at me like I’m dirt under his shoe. Luca growls and steps forward in front of me.
“You don’t fucking talk about her! Don’t fucking look at her,” Luca snarls as his claws extend and fur erupts along his arms, but Aidan just laughs. And Ryanstillremains silent. I don’t get it. This is not the brother I have spent my life looking up to.
“What about Jack?” I ask, my tone begging Ryan to see sense.
“They aren’t mates. I wish they were, but they’re not.”
Aidan doesn’t even blink. “Who the fuck is Jack?” he demands, and suddenly the thin veneer of civility cracks to make way for barely contained anger. His eyes darken and his claws extend.
“You know what happens when you embarrass me,” he says to Emily, ignoring the rest of us. His voice is deceptively calm, but Emily’s whimpers and the scent of her fear and shame peak. She knows exactly what he’s referring to, and the thought has my stomach churning. “Enough stalling, Emily. Get your ass over here now.” He applies his alpha tone to the word now, and Emily automatically steps forward.
“No!” I scream, grabbing her around her waist as Jack’s sandy brown wolf bursts into the clearing, landing between Aidan and us.
His growls are so loud they reverberate through me, and Emily collapses in my arms, sobbing. “He’ll get hurt,” she sobs. “I can’t let him get hurt… he’ll get killed…”
“Jack, shift,” Ryan commands. Jack backs up closer to Emily and me before shifting into his human form. Ryan places his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “They’re mates,” he says solemnly. As if that matters with someone like Aidan fucking Blackwell. He doesn’t deserve a goddess-given mate.
“I don’t fucking care, he can’t have her,” Jack roars, shaking Ryan’s hand off.
Aidan’s face contorts into something monstrous. Something closer to what lurks beneath the handsome mask he wears so well.
“You fucked him,” he hisses at Emily. “Of course you did. Fuckingwhore.”
“Don’t fucking talk to her like that,” Jack growls. With his fists clenched and muscles taut; rage pours off of him. “Don’t fucking talk to her at all!”
“Emily, I’m going to give you one chance and one chance only,” Aidan says. He restrains his anger, but it simmers beneath the surface, like he’s keeping score of all the things he plans to make Emily pay for. “See what happens if you don’t.”
His eyes flick to Jack, and I swear Emily stops breathing completely.
“Over my dead body,” Jack snarls.
“That can be arranged,” Aidan says coolly.
Emily pulls her shoulders back. Her tears have stopped falling, and it’s as if she is in a trance. She pushes at my arms to release her before telling me to let her go. “I need to go to my mate.”
“No!” Jack and I shout simultaneously. “You can’t do this,” I cry, clinging to Emily as she tries to go to the monster of her nightmares. “We won’t let him take you, we can’t let that happen,” I sob, glaring at Ryan, imploring him to see reason.
“He’s my mate,” she insists, peeling my arms off of her. When I glance back at her, it’s like a mask has slipped over her face. Emily no longer looks like the sweet girl who is terrified of her own shadow. She has wiped away her tears to reveal a version of herself that I can barely recognize.
“Emily,” Jack says. “What are you talking about? You can’t possibly want to go with him.”
