Chapter 86 BIG ARGUMENT
SEBASTIAN'S POV
“You were not in any danger Sebastian.” Alisander replies coolly.
“That’s besides the point!”
The Alpha’s gaze sharpens again. “Fascinating,” he murmurs. “You both are arguing.”
“Of course we argue!” I snap aloud, mortified. “He’s a fucking coward!”
“I am exercising restraint, you insolent pup!” Alisander says.
“You’re just abandoning me,” I shoot back. “You always do this. Whenever things get complicated, you retreat and leave me to deal with the fallout of it all!”
“Well, you are the one they see first,” he replies. “You are the one they will target first so you must learn to stand alone.”
The words hit harder than any blow.
“So this is training for you?” My chest tightens. “Letting random strangers pin me to the ground and call me a war catalyst?”
“You are not a catalyst,” he says.
“Then what am I?!”
Silence.
My heart fractures around the quiet.
The Alpha watches me with open curiosity, like he can see every crack forming.
“Oh little wolf, you did not know,” he repeats softly. “He kept it from you.”
My throat burns as my eyes redden.
“He didn’t keep anything from me,” I say, the lie tasting like ash in my throat.
Inside of me, Alisander says nothing.
“Why?” I demand internally. Why didn’t you tell me?
“You were not ready.”
The words are calm and cold.
They shatter me anyway.
“Not ready?” My vision blurs. “This is my body. My life and my bond with Ragnar. And you decided I wasn’t ready to know what I’m sharing my soul with?”
“I decided you deserved to live without the weight of it all,” he replies.
“That wasn’t your choice to make!”
My chest heaves as my breaths are coming out too fast. The Alpha’s weight is still there, grounding and suffocating all at once to me.
“You lied to me,” I whisper.
“I protected you.”
“You humiliated me.”
That lands.
I feel it, the flinch he tries to hide inside of me.
“You think I don’t know how they look at you?” I continue, my thoughts spilling over.
Since we're letting all the secrets out, why not this one too?
“How they compare us? You, the one who's always calm, powerful and unafraid. Whilst me, the weak one who's always stuttering and rambling.”
“You are not weak,” he says.
“I am,” I choke out. “And you always made sure I stayed that way.”
Silence stretches between us, now heavy and unbearable.
The Alpha shifts slightly, easing more of his weight off me but I barely notice.
The real pressure is inside my skull, in the space where two souls share one body and the trust between us is cracking like thin ice.
“You think Ragnar chose you,” I say bitterly, my thoughts jagged now. “Well maybe he did choose you. Maybe I’m just the shell that came with the prize.”
“That is not true,” Alisander says sharply.
“Isn’t it?!” My chest aches.
“He respects you, he listens to you and even argues with you like you’re his equal. Hell you even met his elusive wolf Yurik. Me? I can barely form a sentence around him without sounding like I swallowed my own damn tongue!”
“You are his mate,” he says.
“And you are the one he hides things with, things he refuses to tell even his ‘mate’.”
The realization hits like a knife to my guts.
The whole silence between Ragnar and Alisander.
The secrets.
And the things they never say when I’m present.
My stomach twists.
“He knew about it,” I whisper out loud. “Didn’t he?”
Alisander doesn’t answer.
The absence of denial is louder than any confession from him.
My breath stutters.
“You told him,” I accuse him. “You told him what you are. And you both decided I didn’t need to know.”
“It was not like that, he doesn't know it all”
“Then what was it like?” My thoughts sound sharp and desperate.
“Tell me! Because from where I’m standing, or, you know, lying in the mud under a stranger, it feels like I’m the last to know what lives inside my own skin.”
The Alpha’s voice cuts through the storm in my head.
“He fears what you will become if you learn the truth too soon,” he says.
My eyes snap to him.
“Stay the fuck out of my head,” I snap.
“I am not in your head,” he says calmly. “You are simply very loud and expressive.”
Heat floods my face in shame.
Inside, Alisander’s presence is a coiled, restless thing.
“You are spiraling Sebastian,” he says.
“Oh I wonder why,” I shoot back.
The Alpha studies me for a long moment, something almost like pity flickering in his eyes.
I hate that more than anything.
“I am not your enemy,” he says to me.
“Congratulations,” I mutter. “You’ve pinned me to the ground and informed me I might be the prelude to a war. Forgive me if I’m struggling to see the friendly angle from here.”
His mouth curves faintly. “Fair.”
He shifts his weight again, finally lifting himself enough that I can drag my arms free.
He doesn’t move away completely, but the pressure eases.
Freedom.
It doesn’t feel like victory.
I push myself up onto my elbows, mud clinging to my clothes, my hair and my dignity.
“You said ancient wolves or whatever bring war,” I say, my voice quieter now. “So what does that make me?”
His gaze doesn’t waver.
“Important,” he says. “And in absolute danger.”
My stomach drops.
Inside me, Alisander is silent again.
Not absent or gone.
Just… watching in silence.
And for the first time since he appeared in my life after puberty, I feel utterly alone inside my own mind.
The forest exhales around us, a slow, whispering sound through the leaves as it resumes its activities.
I don’t know which terrifies me more.
The stranger who knows what I am, the mate who kept it from me or the wolf inside me who decided that since all these years, I wasn’t worth the truth.
And somewhere deep in my chest, beneath the fear, the anger and the humiliation, a new thought begins to take root.
If they are all going to be deciding my fate without my knowledge or consent…
Then maybe it’s time I start deciding for my damn self.