Chapter 83 83
Emmanuel
I had arrived with Lois and Ezequiel, but I couldn’t even tell Lois that everything was going to be okay, that things would work out. When I really thought about it… everything was wrong.
Now we were entangled with a vampire who had been kidnapped… whom Enzo had kidnapped.
Because, to begin with, what was a vampire doing on the wolves’ side? There were so many important questions running through my head, and one of them was: how old was Aidan really? Was he young, an adult, or ancient? Those were the simplest ones. Then there was that collar; I’d known from the start it was strange, and now I understood it had everything to do with it. It turned him into a wolf—but not a real one; it altered perception, or so Lois had explained.
The one good thing in all this was that she was okay, which meant Aidan was too. His connection to her anguished me, how vulnerable it made her.
Exposed.
I watched her sleep and went outside with Ezequiel. He was perched in the treetop, eyes closed but alert to everything. Before I could leap up, he opened them, extended his hand, and I took it when I reached his level, settling onto the same branch.
“Do you think he’s one of ours?” Ezequiel asked without looking at me. It was the first private conversation we’d had about Aidan.
“We are one,” I said without thinking. It was what Lois had made us understand.
“We are one,” Ezequiel repeated, gazing at the stars overhead. “Dad won’t be long in catching up to us, and given Aidan’s situation, Lois’s priority will be getting him back—something that… is impossible. He doesn’t belong on this side, Emmanuel. Right now he’s where he belongs; we know that. There might be punishments for him being on this side—I have no idea how that kingdom works, even though I’ve been there—but there’s a strict order, almost a tyranny.”
“Same as here, isn’t it? Just look at how we’re hunted.”
The situation was complicated; I knew it. It was impossible for Aidan to come back—not just because he was a vampire. I didn’t think Enzo would let him go either, and this was wolf territory.
The rules were clear.
“What do you think of Enzo, Ezequiel?” I asked my brother. He’d spent time there; he must know something about him.
“That if he’d wanted to kill us, he would have. He entered the cabin without me noticing until it was too late—until he already had Aidan. I didn’t sense him, didn’t smell him, didn’t hear him; it was as if he just appeared there, without coming through the door. It’s impossible to explain, Emma. If you can’t take Dad, you can’t take Enzo—so don’t think about a confrontation to get him back. Not to mention that would spark a war, and… Emmanuel, Lois isn’t a warrior. We can’t sustain a fight and risk her getting hurt, and… Dad will always hunt you. Dad won’t let you go,” my brother said. I knew every one of those things; I’d thought about them all while I was locked up, searching for a way out, a solution to our problems.
I clasped my hands as the thoughts formed in my head.
“I can’t give up Lois, Ezequiel—not her, and not you either. To go back, I’d have to submit to Dad—not just accept a position that conditions me, but also let him get rid of Lois. He wants to pair me with someone else; Lois would be secondary. I don’t want to be with anyone else! Do you think it was easy for me to decide to run?” I asked him.
“Emmanuel, this is our world, and we can’t escape it. In this world, the rules are followed to the letter, and one of the ones who enforces them is Dad. Enzo is… a lethal weapon. The moment he decides to do something to Aidan—about whom we know nothing—Lois will suffer it in her own flesh,” Ezequiel explained.
“Then she’ll have to reject him—break the bond!” I said outright. “We’re not going to sit and watch her suffer.”
“You should have seen her, Emmanuel,” my brother said. “Rejecting wasn’t an option—and you said it yourself: we are one.”
Yes… I’d accepted it too.
My mind kept spinning, searching for a solution, but there wasn’t one.
“What if you set the terms?” Ezequiel asked. “The only advantage we have is you—he wants you, he needs you, Emmanuel. Dad might listen to you and…”
“And what?” I cut him off. “Accept another mate? He wants a strong bloodline, to keep the line of power intact. Lois is weak—and she might be even weaker now with three mates. Things haven’t changed with her, and they won’t; that’s the reality, and it doesn’t have to be bad. Is strength the only thing that matters? She’s weak; it’s no secret. And with Aidan gone, she’ll be weaker still,” I explained.
Ezequiel put his hands to his head, then leaped down. As he fell, his body curled into a ball, and when he landed, the wolf howled at the sky.
He knew it. I knew it.
It was as if we had no way out.
I’m the one who has to make a decision while the places we can run to are running out and my father hunts us. He wants to separate me from Lois… and that’s something I can’t allow. Maybe open a dialogue—but that puts me at a disadvantage.
The responsibility of being the successor Alpha, the weight of my father’s expectations, and the bond with Lois and Ezequiel kept me in constant tension. But now, with Aidan in the equation, everything was even more complicated.
I couldn’t let Dad separate us. I couldn’t let Lois suffer. And I definitely couldn’t let Aidan become a victim of something he hadn’t chosen.
As I stared at the starry sky, I knew I had to make a decision—one that could change everything forever. I didn’t have all the answers; I only had questions.
But I knew the options.
The way our father thought was perfectly clear.
They were the first to oppose Ezequiel being Lois’s mate too—just because of what people would say.
Eventually they realized that Lois’s condition as an omega wasn’t going to change and that it could be a disadvantage for me. What did they think? Find me another mate—one so strong that, to them, she’d be considered worthy.
None of this was even about me; it wasn’t love for a son, sacrifices, or well-being. It was all power, lineage, the pack—a rigid rule that never bent. And I knew my father was ashamed that I didn’t think like him, to the point that I wouldn’t sacrifice my happiness—or myself—for the pack.
Lois was my priority, something they neither understood nor tolerated.
I could try dialogue, try to secure lasting permission for Aidan to be in wolf territory—mostly within our pack—but… if they found out he was also Lois’s mate, or that Ezequiel was again, I suspected my father would rather kill us and try for more sons than accept that “abomination.”
I couldn’t negotiate with so many conditions either; there would have to be a huge uproar now that it was known a vampire had walked among us.
As guardians, responsible for and protectors of the border with humans and vampires, my father took that duty with overwhelming seriousness.
I had too many things stacked against me.
Bringing in a vampire.
Keeping my mate.
Letting my mate keep her other two mates.
Each of those things was simply unthinkable, and if I looked at it clearly, my father wouldn’t agree to any of them. It would be easier for him to try to subdue us.
I couldn’t see a way out of any of this.