Chapter 39 A Mate's Right

Chapter 39 A Mate's Right
Rafael's POV

The door closed behind Zara, and the room felt emptier somehow. Like the air had been let out of it.
I stared at my hands on the table. I couldn't look up. I couldn't look at Alessandro because I already knew what his face looked like. I had grown up with that face. I knew exactly what his silence meant.
It meant he had seen everything.
"So," Alessandro said, pulling out a chair and sitting down slowly. He looked at Aurora, then at the table, then at Alpha Silas. His traveling coat was still on. He hadn't even bothered to take it off.
"Someone tell me what this dinner is actually about. Because I don't think it was just a social visit."
Alpha John cleared his throat loudly. He picked up his napkin and put it down again. Then he reached for his wine and didn't drink it.
"Well," my father started, shifting in his chair. "Alpha Silas was passing through the region and we thought—"
"He wasn't passing through."
Everyone looked at me. I hadn't spoken in almost an hour. Even Elena turned to look at me with mild surprise.
I kept my eyes on Alessandro.
"Father invited him," I said. "He invited him here specifically. To discuss a marriage arrangement between our pack and Shadow Creek." I paused. "Between me and Lady Elena."
The table went completely silent.
Alessandro didn't move. His face didn't change either, not immediately. He just looked at me for a long moment, and then he looked at our father. The quiet in the room was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.
Aurora put her hand flat on the table. I saw her jaw tighten slightly.
Alpha Silas sat up straighter in his chair and opened his mouth. "Now, Alessandro, before you say anything, I want you to understand that this arrangement would be enormously beneficial for both our packs. The alliance alone would—"
"Alpha Silas." Alessandro's voice was not loud. It was not rude. It was perfectly, carefully polite in a way that stopped Alpha Silas mid-sentence like a wall.
"Would you and Lady Elena mind giving us a few minutes? I need to speak with my family. Privately."
Alpha Silas looked like he wanted to argue. He opened his mouth once, and then he looked at Alessandro's face properly. Whatever he saw there made him close his mouth again. He pushed his chair back, folded his napkin onto the table, and stood up.
"Of course," he said tightly.
Elena stood as well, smoothing her dress with both hands. She looked at me once before she turned to leave. I looked away.
The two of them walked out. The doors closed behind them with a heavy sound.
For a few seconds nobody said anything.
Then Alessandro turned to our father, and the polite expression dropped off his face like a coat falling from a hook.
"Explain."
My father straightened up in his chair. He hated being put on the spot. He hated it even more when it was Alessandro doing it, because Alessandro was Alpha now and they both knew it, and my father had never fully made his peace with that.
"It's a perfectly reasonable arrangement," my father said, lifting his chin. "Elena is from a strong bloodline. Shadow Creek has territory, numbers, and trading connections we don't have access to right now. A marriage between Rafael and Elena would strengthen this pack considerably. I want Rafael to marry Lady Elena, and I—"
"Stop." Alessandro cut him off clean. No shouting. No table-banging. Just one word, flat and hard.
My father blinked.
Alessandro leaned forward and folded his hands together on the table. When he spoke, his voice was low and very controlled, and somehow that made it worse than if he had yelled.
"You want what happened to Leonardo to happen to Rafael," Alessandro said. "That's what you're saying to me right now. You want to do the exact same thing again. Because you are actually going to sit there and ask me to let history repeat itself."
"That was a different situation entirely—"
"It wasn't," Alessandro said sharply. "It was exactly this situation. You found a pack you wanted to connect yourself to. You found a girl from that pack. And then you decided that your son's life was a reasonable price to pay for that connection. That's what happened with Leonardo. That is what you are sitting here trying to do again tonight."
My father's face went red. "Leonardo made his own choices. I didn't force him to do anything."
"You forced him every single day," Alessandro said, and now there was an edge in his voice that I hadn't heard in a long time.
"Maybe you didn't lock him in a room. Maybe you didn't put a sword to his throat. But you made him feel like a bad son every time he resisted you.
You made him feel like he was failing this pack, failing this family, every time he tried to follow what he actually wanted.
And because Leonardo loved you and wanted to make you proud, he broke. He hurt the one woman he actually wanted to be with. Over and over. Because of you."
The room was painfully silent. Aurora was looking at her hands. I was barely breathing.
"Because of you," Alessandro continued, "Leonardo couldn't face her anymore. He couldn't live with what he had done to her. And so he left. He packed up and walked out of this packhouse, and we have not heard a single word from him since.
We don't know where he is. We don't know if he is safe. We don't even know if he is alive." His voice cracked slightly on that last word, just barely, but I heard it.
"And you want to do that to Rafael now. You want to stand there and tell me that's a good idea."
"I didn't take the woman Leonardo loved," my father said, his voice quieter now but still defensive. He glanced briefly at Alessandro. "You did."
Alessandro nodded slowly. "Yes. I did. Aurora was his mate before she was mine, and I will carry that for the rest of my life. That's mine to carry."
He didn't flinch from it. He never did.
"But you are the one who made Leonardo hurt her repeatedly. You made him reject her. You made him feel like choosing her was choosing weakness.
So when I came along and the bond shifted, he had already destroyed everything between them with his own hands because you put the axe in those hands, Father. You did that."
My father said nothing. He was staring at the table.
Alessandro sat back in his chair. He exhaled slowly.
"Rafael has a mate," Alessandro said quietly. He didn't look at me when he said it. He said it to the room, carefully, like he was placing something fragile down on a glass surface.
"Whether he has accepted that or not. Whether he wants to admit it or not. He has a mate. And I will not allow you to put him in the same position you put Leonardo in."
I felt something move in my chest. Something I had been pressing down for weeks.
I thought about Zara's face when I had told her to clean Elena's boots. I thought about the way she had gone completely still. Not scared. Not crying. Just still. Like something behind her eyes had gone cold.
I thought about how the room had felt emptier when she walked out.
My father looked up. For just a second, he looked old and tired and a little lost. Then the pride came back and covered it over.
"I only want what's best for this pack," he said.
"I know," Alessandro said, and he sounded almost sad. "That's always been the problem, Father. You want what's best for the pack. But you keep forgetting that your sons are part of it too." He stood up and pushed his chair in.
"This arrangement is finished. I'll speak to Alpha Silas in the morning and handle it properly. Tonight is over."
He looked at me then. Just for a moment.
He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
I looked back down at my hands.