All Chapters of FAKE MATE, REAL BOND: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Rose. I thought I was done with running from the past. I was wrong. I had run from my past for over two decades, but it was finally catching up and the walls were closing in on me. I’m in the small sitting room adjacent to the kitchen, folding Gina’s shawl the way I used to when she was a child, trying not to think about the blood Ryan described over the phone. Damian is dead. Just like that snatched away by some unseen hand before I could warn him. Before I could confess everything.I should feel relief. Maybe even vindication. But all I feel is dread.The knock comes hard and fast, shattering the fragile calm I’ve clung to all morning. Before I can even stand, the door swings open, and two of the elders enter, cloaked in midnight blue. Authority rolls off them in waves, thick as smoke.“Rose,” Elder Marius says, his lined face grave. “You will come with us, we have a few questions.”I set the folded shawl down carefully, as if pretending composure could protect me. “Why?”“You wer

RyanI don’t remember leaving the hall.I don’t remember brushing past Ashley’s silhouette in the doorway or Gina’s worried voice asking me what was happening.All I remember is the sick weight settling in my gut the certainty that whatever thin control I’d managed to hold onto since my father died was slipping right through my fingers.I’m still gripping that feeling like a live wire when the messenger finds me in the courtyard, his chest heaving, eyes wide with the kind of fear reserved for terrible news.“Alpha,” he pants, bowing so low his forehead nearly touches the gravel. “The elders sent me. They…you need to come.”I tense, every muscle in my shoulders locking. “Come where?”“The study,” he stammers. “They found…evidence.”I don’t wait for him to finish. My boots crunch over the path as I stalk toward the main house, each step faster than the last. The autumn wind tears through my coat, sharp as knives. I barely feel it.When I shove open the heavy door to my father’s private

DanteI stand on the balcony of my bedroom, looking out over the forest that has been mine for decades. The trees look silver under the moonlight, ancient and watchful. Once, I thought conquering land and holding territory were the only things that mattered. The only things worth fighting for.I was wrong. I didn't know how wrong I had been. Until now. I close my eyes, bracing my hands on the cold railing. A memory slips in, unbidden. Her voice. Her laughter, low and shy the first time I heard it. The way she said my name like it meant something more than just Alpha.Rose.It’s been twenty years, but some nights, it feels like yesterday. She was the woman that haunted my dreams and nightmares, I had never seen her for over two decades but she was all I could think of when I lay awake at night in my bed. Her smile, he laughter. She had that laughter that echoed in rooms. I remember the first time I saw her. She was Damian’s pretty little captive, though he’d never have called her tha

RoseI had been in this room for over twenty four hours now. Ofcourse they thought I killed their alpha, which was so unreal to me. Alpha Damian despite his age was still an alpha and he had so much power in him, I was just a weak omega how could I possibly overpower an alpha? I looked around, the room was extremely cold. I’ve survived worse prisons than these four walls. I’ve survived Damian’s cruelty. Brandon’s contempt. The shame of watching my daughter grow up believing she was nothing.But nothing, nothing feels as suffocating as this: waiting in silence, powerless to help the child I carried in my body and tried so hard to protect.I just wanted to know that Gina was okay, we had not spoken since the confrontation about who her father was. I pace the narrow space, my bare feet tracing the same line over and over. My mind races through everything I didn’t say to Gina everything I should have confessed years ago. About her father. About the reasons I stayed silent. About the wa

Rose.Flashback to twenty years ago. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the way his hand trembled when he reached for mine.The fire was dying in the hearth, throwing long shadows over the walls of the little hunting cabin we’d stolen for the night. Outside, the world slept under a blanket of snow, but inside, everything was too alive, too bright, too dangerous.I lay on my side, watching the lines of worry carve themselves into Dante’s face as he studied me in the flickering light. His hair had fallen over his brow, black as midnight. His eyes were the same impossible gray I would see again, years later, in Gina’s.“Say something,” he murmured.I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “What do you want me to say?”“That you’ll stay,” he rasped. “That you won’t go back to him.”I looked away. My heart felt too big for my chest, beating hard enough to bruise my ribs. If I spoke, if I let myself confess everything I felt, I would shatter.“I can’t,” I whispered finally. “You