All Chapters of Alpha’s Blood Mate: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Something felt seriously off. I could tell just from how Leo was acting. Ever since I’d dropped the name of that long-lost ancestor of mine, he’d been weird—distant, tense, like he was carrying something heavy he didn’t want to share. My phone finally got delivered that night, and for the next two days straight, all I did was comb the internet trying to dig up anything on this Edemas person. Total waste of time. I just kept hitting the same useless stuff: medical pages about pulmonary edema, random articles on some late-nineties nu-metal band, a handful of people on social media with the last name Edam, but nothing real. Not a single scrap that explained why Leo had reacted the way he did. No birth records, no country of origin—nothing.I’d pushed him for answers the second I saw that look cross his face, but it went nowhere. He brushed it off saying he was just tired and stressed, so I backed off and tried to give him space the last few days. For one thing, I didn’t want to keep prod

There was once a royal line of wolves. Shifters who were part of the longest standing pack in history. Legends say it stretched back hundreds of years and was the biggest pack in history, over a thousand members strong, if the legends are to be believed. My own pack is considered pretty large, and we’ve only got about sixty people, so that gives you some idea of the scale. It takes a seriously strong, commanding alpha to hold that many shifters together and keep them all moving in the same direction.“They all traced their roots back to one powerful wolf shifter who married a human woman—a human princess, actually. He married straight into a real royal family. One of his later descendants kept that tradition going and married a widowed queen. Their kids, just like the ones before them, came out as hybrids—half human, half shifter. That kind of thing was unheard of anywhere else. Only this one royal bloodline could produce hybrids like that.“The alpha of this clan wasn’t famous just b

“Shit,” I yelped, lunging forward to grab her just before her injured head could crack against the tile floor. I caught her mid-fall, then scooped her up and carried her upstairs to her room. I eased the covers back without waking her and laid her down gently. I hoped she’d stay out cold until morning—she needed the rest after everything I’d just unloaded on her. Guilt twisted in my gut for dumping it all so fast. In barely a week, her entire world had been flipped inside out. I couldn’t even imagine how I’d handle it if the roles were reversed. Before I turned to leave, I paused and looked down at her one last time. Her eyes were closed, long dark lashes fluttering faintly like she was dreaming. Her face looked peaceful, calm. And beautiful. A deep ache bloomed in my chest, growing sharper the longer I stared. I leaned down, brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, and let my thumb linger for a second along the soft curve of her cheek as I straightened up. My mind drifted back

“Thanks for coming over so late, guys. Head on home and get some rest,” I said, feeling my own tiredness creeping in deep.The guys filtered out one by one until it was just me and Dad left standing in the foyer. He pulled me into a tight hug, thumped me hard on the back a couple times, then stepped back and met my eyes. “If Lyanna really is your mate, I’m glad you’re the one who found her. Nobody else would look after her the way you have.” He winced and shook his head. “Your mother, though? Man, she’s gonna lose it.”I groaned, because yeah—he was dead right. “Can you hold off telling her for now? I know she’ll start pushing us toward something Lyanna isn’t ready for.”“My lips are sealed.”“We’ve gotta make sure she’s safe before we even think about claiming or anything like that.”“Son, you don’t need to convince me. I’m one hundred percent on board. Some things have to come first. I get it. Your mother, though?” He pulled a face that said everything.“Night, Dad. Love you.”“Love

Rowan must have caught on. He walked over and tipped his head toward the door. “Waiting for somebody?”“What?” I asked, straightening up from the table I’d been wiping down.“You’ve been glancing at the front door like every thirty seconds since we locked up. Again—expecting someone?”I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it. In my head, I kept picturing Javi’s crew bursting in again, snarling that I was some kind of freak who shouldn’t even be alive. I thought I’d been playing it cool, keeping my anxiety under wraps. Apparently not. I dropped my gaze to the floor, cheeks burning with embarrassment, not wanting to meet his eyes.Rowan stepped around the table and slung an arm across my shoulders. “Lyanna, you’re safe. If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that.”“Thanks,” I said quietly. “I mean it. You guys don’t have to do any of this for me, but you are. Thank you.”“You’re pretty much family now, so of course I would.” He paused, then grinned. “I mean, Leo’s paying me like five