Todos os capítulos de Mated to two rival alphas : Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 30

Eric Sees Them ERICI was near the eastern equipment shed checking the late rotation notes when the black car returned.I had seen it leave earlier. Unmarked. Silver Hollow. I had known she was inside it the moment it passed the gate. Now it was back, and this time it did not simply drop her off and disappear.The rear door opened. Adrian Blackwood stepped out first. He came around to her side and opened the door himself. Sherry rose from the car in the deep green dress, and in his hand was a small cluster of white tulips.He held them out to her.She took them.Then she smiled.It was not the careful, measured expression she wore in most rooms. It was real. Unguarded. The kind of smile I had not seen directed at me in over a year. It changed her entire face for a moment before she controlled it again.Something ugly and useless turned over in my chest.They stood beside the car talking. I was too far to catch the words, but I did not need them. I could see the ease in her posture.

The Apology SHERRYEric located me the following morning on the low stone wall bordering the smaller courtyard. I had wandered out here with a mug of coffee in hand, intending, as it was still cool enough for the steam to curl, to sit for a while and do nothing in particular prior to the day's business beginning.Behind the courtyard, the practice grounds were busy, and the constant thud of army boots against packed earth punctuated occasionally by a shouted-out order echoed around the yard. Typical morning noises, which made what he had to say next, once he paused a courteous distance away, seem more important."Can I sit?"I lingered on the request too long, then shifted my weight slightly to the left. He took the space without coming any closer than the necessary length of the wall.For a while, he did not speak, but was watching the tree line, the same as I, as if the conversation that had drawn him here needed a few more heartbeats of silence before beginning.I drank from the

The Old Wound SHERRY Sleeping was a challenge. I lay in the dark, the soft hiss of lingering rain moving through the gutters, and replayed the moment under the overhang in careful fragments. The narrow space. The familiar half-smile when I mentioned the leaning fence posts. For a few seconds, the years seemed to thin, making the present briefly continuous with a past that hadn't yet been broken. The look in his eyes when the distance between us almost vanished. I almost let it happen. The knowledge rested quietly in my chest, undramatic, and simply present, clear yet incomplete, just as the almost-kiss had been before I stepped away. I turned onto my side and stared at the faint outline of the window. The rejection from a year ago did not arrive as a full scene. It arrived as a sensation. The sudden public exposure of being found lacking by the one person the bond had told me would not find me lacking. The way my body had gone cold while the hall watched. The partic

The Rumor SHERRYI noticed the change in small pieces before I understood the shape of it.In the kitchen corridor two women stopped speaking the moment I turned the corner. Their eyes flicked toward me and then away with the particular care people used when they had been discussing someone who had just entered the room. Near the supply shelves a younger warrior glanced at me, muttered something to the man beside him, and both of them found sudden interest in the inventory list.Not everyone participated. Ruth nodded at me the same way she always had. One of the senior patrol leads asked about the eastern rotation without any shift in tone. The pack did not turn as a single body. It only developed new currents, and some of those currents carried my name.I did not demand explanations. Chasing every lowered voice would have fed the thing that was already moving. I kept my schedule. I trained. I worked in the archives. I answered direct questions when they came and ignored the ones t

The KissSHERRYHalf way through our appearance in training, the light had already dwindled.The majority of the pack had already entered the house to consume their evening meal. Although there were some younger wolves that covered up the main yard, Eric stood guard for me and did not inquire if it could be done. He appeared to have fallen asleep before I finished his final rounds, but was straight away until the path taking him back toward the move took place behind the squad housing complex.We've been participating in workouts now more frequently, walking the same tracks and seeing no communication between locations. This is the quietness of its own doing, the last few months, where both groups wait for their payoff to begin for training when actually needing assistance.The trail wound through historic storage rooms and wound its way to the stands of oaks that lined the formal gardens.The sun shone before my wolf, very last evening; she had been restless all afternoon due rushing