Chapter 27 Confrontation
RYAN'S POV
My plea came from a place of desperation I had never experienced before, not even when Alpha Marcus threatened Lisa's life or when Viktor attacked our territory. Watching Adrian with Lisa over these past three days had shattered my heart.
Lisa looked at me with tired eyes that held none of the warmth I remembered from before her exile, none of the softness that used to appear when she saw me approaching. She looked at me like I was a problem to be solved rather than a person to be loved.
"You want to make it right?" she asked, her voice quiet. "Then tell me, Ryan, if the elders demand I leave again, if someone threatens your family's Beta position, if Sophia came back, would you choose me? Or would you make the practical choice again?"
I opened my mouth to answer, to promise that everything was different now, that I would fight the entire world for her without hesitation. But the words stuck in my throat because a small, terrible part of me wondered if I was capable of that kind of certainty. What if choosing Lisa meant destroying everything my family had built? What if loving her cost me the Beta position my father had held and his father before him?
Lisa nodded slowly. "Exactly what I thought. The mate bond says we belong together, but I need more than destiny, Ryan. I need a choice. Your choice. And you have never chosen me freely."
She walked into her quarters and closed the door with gentle finality, leaving me standing in the hallway like a man drowning in air. I pressed my hand against the wood, wanting to bang on it, to demand she listen to all the ways I did choose her, all the sacrifices I had made in silence. But what sacrifices mattered if the one time she needed me to speak, I stayed quiet?
Nathan appeared suddenly, his usual humor completely absent. He looked at me with disappointment that hurt worse than anger would have.
"You really screwed this up, brother," he said, the endearment sounding more like an accusation. "Lisa spent three years thinking she was not enough. Now she has realized the problem was never her. It was you being a coward."
I wanted to defend myself, to explain the impossible position I had been in, but Nathan cut me off before I could start.
"Save it. I have heard all your reasons, and they are all just excuses dressed up as logic. You chose safety over love, and now you are losing her to someone brave enough to choose her first."
"Adrian is not better than you. He is just braver. Remember that when you are lying alone wondering where your mate is."
Over the next few days, I watched my worst nightmare unfold in slow motion. Adrian continued courting Lisa openly. He brought her favorite coffee every morning, somehow having learned she preferred it with honey instead of sugar. He discussed the pack business with genuine interest in her opinions, asking questions that showed he valued her mind as much as her power.
They trained together in the mornings, and I forced myself to watch from a distance as Adrian showcased Lisa's strengths rather than his own. He treated her like an equal, like a partner, like someone worthy of respect before affection.
Well, in no time the pack noticed. How won't they? Our Alpha spent more time with a visiting Alpha than with her own mate. Some pack members supported Lisa finding happiness even if it complicated the mate bond, believing she deserved joy after everything she had endured. Others said that she should honor the bond with me, that walking away from a fated mate brought bad luck and instability.
Well, Lisa had made her choice and this was all on me.
Daniel tried to counsel me, his own experience with loss making him sympathetic to my pain. "Fight for her, Ryan. Not with words or grand gestures. Fight by being present, by making different choices, by proving you have changed."
But how could I prove change when Lisa would not give me the chance? She avoided me in hallways, communicated through Daniel or Nathan for pack business, kept our interactions strictly professional and achingly distant.
At a formal pack dinner on Adrian's final night before returning to his territory, I sat at the opposite end of the long table from Lisa and watched her laugh at something Adrian said.
Alpha Dominic spoke with Elder Catherine about alliance terms, their conversation technical and diplomatic. But everyone in the room was watching Adrian and Lisa, seeing the easy chemistry between them, the way their conversation flowed without effort or awkwardness.
Adrian stood suddenly, raising his glass in a toast that quieted the entire hall. "To Moonstone Pack and their remarkable Alpha. Your strength and wisdom have impressed me greatly this week." He looked at Lisa with warmth that made my wolf snarl inside my chest. "Alpha Lisa, I would like to extend an invitation for you to visit my territory. To see my pack, to discuss our alliance in more detail, and to continue the conversations we have begun this week."
Everyone understood this was more than politics. Adrian was offering Lisa an escape, a chance to explore what could develop between them away from the complicated history that haunted Moonstone.
Before Lisa could answer, Nathan stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor with deliberate noise. "If Lisa goes, I am going with her. As her Third and her friend."
My wolf snarled audibly, the sound escaping my throat before I could control it. Nathan was supposed to be my friend, my brother in everything but blood, and now he was aiding Lisa's potential betrayal of our mate bond.
I never knew this was what torture felt like. I felt like dying, this felt like Lisa prepared my tea of rejection and served me right back. I screwed up big time.