Chapter 14 WHISPERED SECRETS
Adam’s POV
The air in the storeroom was thick and heavy, the kind that stuck to my lungs and made every breath feel like a chore. The chain around my wrist rattled when I shifted, the sound sharp in the silence.
I’d been in here before.
Too many times.
Normally, after a while, I’d stop struggling and just sit still until morning came. I’d learned to wait, to go numb, to make peace with the darkness. But tonight, I couldn’t.
My body refused to settle.
It wasn’t the cold or the hard floor… It was this awful restlessness clawing under my skin. My chest hurt, like something inside me was twisting the wrong way. I curled my knees closer and tried to breathe through it, but it didn’t help.
The chain clinked again. My fingers were already sore from trying to pull free.
Why was it so unbearable this time?
Why did it feel like something was missing… like part of me had been ripped out and left somewhere far away?
I pressed my forehead against the wall, trying to ground myself. The concrete smelled like dust and oil. My heartbeat felt uneven.
Kael’s face flashed behind my eyes; the look he gave me when he said ‘please stay safe.’
I squeezed my eyes shut harder. “Stop thinking about him,” I whispered to myself.
But the more I tried to block him out, the stronger the ache got.
I didn’t know how long I sat there — minutes, hours, maybe longer — until I heard voices. Muffled at first, then clearer as they came closer to the storeroom door.
My parents.
I froze, instinctively quiet. Their voices carried through the crack beneath the door.
“—you saw him, didn’t you?” my mother hissed. “Whoever he was. Tell me the truth.”
“He’s an Alpha; and not just any Alpha, he appears to be high ranking,” my father said flatly.
The words hit me like a punch to the chest.
An Alpha?
“What?” my mother demanded. “How do you know that?”
“I could feel it,” my father said. “The air changed when I approached the car. His pheromones— it was suffocating. If he wasn’t a high-ranking Alpha, I would’ve dragged Adam out of that car myself.”
My stomach dropped.
They… they knew? They knew about werewolves? Did I just hear my father talk about Alpha and pheromones? I'm a hallucinating?
I pressed closer to the wall, heart pounding, afraid to even breathe too loud.
My mother’s voice turned sharp. “And you think he’s one of those Alphas?”
My father let out a heavy sigh. “He’s not just any Alpha. The way his aura flared even when he was resting— that was a defensive state. It means he was protecting something.”
“Protecting what?”
“Adam,” he said simply. “He was protective of Adam. I couldn't even get close enough to the car because I got warned away without him physically warning me away.”
The words sent a chill down my spine.
Protective… of me?
My mother scoffed. “So what, now you’re saying that Alpha thinks Adam is his mate?”
“I’m saying,” my father snapped, “that’s what his aura told me. He wasn’t even looking at me, but I could feel it. The warning in his energy. An Alpha wouldn't get that protective with just anyone. They're bonded mate.”
Bonded wolves.
Mate.
Alpha.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry. They were talking about Kael. There was no doubt now.
My mother went silent for a moment, then hissed, “This is bad.”
“How?”
“Because we can’t afford for him to remember,” she whispered. “We can’t. And if the Alpha finds out—”
“He already knows something,” my father cut her off. “If he truly believes Adam’s his mate, he won’t let go easily.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to piece everything together. Remember? What did they mean by that?
Then my mother said something that made my blood run cold.
“Are you sure he’s still taking the pills?”
Pills?
“Maybe not regularly,” my father muttered. “But he should be fine. The suppressant lasts for a while—”
“Well, clearly it’s wearing off!” she snapped. “If an Alpha could sense him like that, then it means the suppressants are failing!”
Suppressants.
My head spun.
Suppressants for what?
“I didn't notice that. He still doesn't have a notable scent. But that Alpha must have sensed beyond his human guise.”
I felt dizzy, my mind racing so fast I could barely keep up. Were they saying… I wasn’t human? No, that couldn’t be. That shouldn’t be. I would’ve known, right?
I wanted to scream through the door, to demand answers, but my body wouldn’t move.
“Lower your voice,” my father said sharply. “Do you want the whole neighborhood hearing us?”
“Then fix this, Marcus,” she hissed back. “Before that Alpha comes back looking for him.”
“He won’t,” my father said. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay away.”
“Yeah, it'd be good if the Alpha stays away but if there's one thing we know about Alphas, it is the fact that they're arrogant. So we need to inject him now, pills will take some time to take effect.”
“Inject him? That's for an emergency.”
“Well, this is an emergency.”
And just like that, their footsteps began to fade.
I stayed still long after they were gone, heart thundering against my ribs.
Alpha.
Mate.
Suppressants.
The words looped in my mind like static.
I tugged weakly at the chain again, the metal biting into my wrist. My whole body trembled. I wanted to believe this was some messed-up dream… that my father wasn’t talking about pheromones or suppressants, that my mother didn’t sound anxious.
But it was real.
And worse, it meant Kael had been right all along.
I let out a shaky laugh, the sound hollow in the small, dark room. “Werewolves,” I whispered bitterly. “What the hell is happening to me?”
A few hours ago, I’d been sitting in his car, sharing pastries and pretending things were normal. Now I was chained to a wall, sweating and shaking, while my parents talked about supernatural hierarchies like it was casual dinner gossip.
I pulled my knees close again and rested my head on them. The air was still thick, but the restlessness in my body had shifted into something heavier; dread.
If what they said was true, then they’d been hiding something from me my entire life.
And if Kael was right about the bond… then maybe this sickness, this fever, this constant ache in my chest wasn’t just in my head.
Maybe rejecting him hadn’t just hurt him. Maybe it was killing me.
I let out a long, shaky breath, staring at the faint line of moonlight slipping through the tiny window.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t going away.
And deep down, beneath all the confusion and anger, one thought refused to leave my mind… a thought that terrified me more than everything else.
If Kael really was my mate…
Then maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t as human as I thought.