All Chapters of THE ALPHA’S BROKEN MATE: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

AthenaChase found me after dinner.I was in the studio, which was where I went when I needed to think and didn’t want anyone to know I was thinking. He knocked twice, which was not his usual knock, and came in looking like someone who had made a decision and was slightly uncomfortable with it.He sat in the window chair. Amara’s chair, though she wasn’t in it, she was with Peri doing something that had involved a lot of giggling earlier.I kept working. Let him sit.“I need to tell you something.” He said.“Okay.”“It might make you angry.”I set my pen down and turned to face him. “Chase.”“I’ve been reporting to Lake.” He said it straight, no preamble, which was the right way to tell me something like that. “Not surveilling you. Just. Security updates. What I was seeing, who was approaching, general movement.”I looked at him.“Rowan asked Lake to set up the line.” He said. “I agreed because I thought it was the right call. The palace isn’t safe and you’re not always going to see t

AthenaI found out about Chase from Rowan.Not directly. Nothing with Rowan was ever direct, it came sideways, the way most things in this palace did. He came to the studio the morning after Rurik’s visit, earlier than usual, and stood in the doorway with that still face of his and asked me one question.“The meeting Sael attended three months ago. The one about border schedules.” He said. “Did Chase know about it.”I looked at him. “Why.”“Answer the question first.”I set my pen down slowly. “Chase knows most things I know. We talked about the border situation when it came up in conversation, I don’t remember exactly what I said or when.” I kept my eyes on his face. “Why are you asking about Chase.”He was quiet for a moment. Not evasive, just measuring something.“His name came up in the report.” He said. “He was in a meeting where schedule information was present. I’m not drawing conclusions, I’m asking questions.”Something cold moved through me. “Chase has been with me for six y

AthenaI made a mistake in the studio.Not with the tattoo, the tattoo was fine, the tattoo was good actually, one of those sessions where everything cooperates and you step back and the work is exactly what you wanted it to be. That wasn’t the mistake.The mistake was the conversation.I’d asked about his ink because it was genuinely useful information and because I’d been curious since the courtyard and I’d told myself both those things were purely professional. Then he’d talked about the map on his forearm, the unfinished one, the destination he hadn’t committed to yet, and I had felt something move in me that I hadn’t been prepared for.That was the mistake. Letting it move.I cleaned up the studio after he left, Amara having followed him out with some question about the wolves that he’d stopped to answer in the corridor, their voices carrying faintly through the open door. I lined up my inks in their order and wiped down the table and told myself I was fine.I was mostly fine.Ch

AthenaI knew something was wrong with Chase before he told me.It was the way he was standing outside the studio door when I came out, weight on the wrong foot, jaw doing that thing it did when he was working through something he didn’t want to say. I’d known him long enough to read the specific language of his silences and this one was loud.“Inside.” I said.He came in. Sat in the window chair. Didn’t say anything immediately which was its own kind of answer.I pulled up the stool and sat across from him and waited.“Rurik came to me last night.” He said.I kept my face still. “What did he want.”“To talk.” Chase looked at his hands. “Very friendly, very casual, wanted to know how I was settling in, whether I felt like my position here was secure given the circumstances.” He paused. “Whether I felt like Athena’s attention was still on the same things it used to be.”The last part landed like it was meant to.“He was asking if things had changed between us.” I said.“He was asking i

AthenaThe council deliberated for two days.I knew because Lake updated me each morning with the particular careful politeness he used when he was managing information flow, and I received the updates and said thank you and went back to whatever I was doing, and neither of us acknowledged that he was managing me.It was fine. It was the most functional version of being kept informed that I'd experienced in this palace and I wasn't going to complain about it.Amara took the doubled guard with more grace than I'd expected, which meant she'd decided it was interesting rather than restrictive, and had spent the first day interviewing the two guards assigned specifically to her with the focused attention she gave everything she'd decided was worth understanding.By the end of day one she knew both their names, where they were from, whether they had siblings, and which of the palace wolves they personally preferred. The guards, two large serious wolves who had probably never been interview