The Alpha Mate

Chapter 71

For the first time in weeks, I found myself slipping away from the others. I skipped meals, ducked out of training early, and avoided shared spaces entirely.

I wasn't trying to be rude—I just… couldn't breathe with all those eyes on me. Eyes that now seemed to watch me differently. The prophecy echoed in my mind with every step I took.

Two sons born under the moon's shadow. One to bring ruin. One to bring glory. Had I always known something was wrong? Was that why I'd felt like a stranger in my own home, in my own skin, for so long?

The crescent mark on my cheek, the dormant wolf that had taken years to wake, the volatile shadows pulsing through my body…

My family didn't just hate me. They feared me. And now, I did too. What if they were right? What if I was the destroyer?

I leaned against the cold stone of the training wall just outside the western edge of the packhouse, arms crossed tightly over my chest. The wind whispered around me, but it didn't offer comfort.

I didn't know how long I'd been standing there when I heard his voice. "You've been quiet." I turned. Evan.

He stood a few feet away, his expression unreadable, but not cold. He looked like he had the night I first saw him again—tentative, careful, but familiar. The memory of what we'd once shared softened my stance just enough to keep me from walking away.

"I've had a lot on my mind," I said.

He nodded. "I figured." Silence stretched between us.

"Come on," he said at last, jerking his chin toward the trees. "I know a place. No one goes there. It's quiet."

I hesitated. Then nodded. I didn't want comfort. But I also didn't want to be alone in the weight of this.

We walked in silence, footsteps soft on the path through the woods. The forest closed around us, and slowly the tightness in my chest began to ease.

Evan led me to a small clearing ringed with moss and stone, the kind of place you'd miss if you weren't looking for it. A crooked tree leaned toward the center like it had grown just to shield anyone sitting beneath it. I lowered myself onto one of the stones. He sat beside me, not too close.

"I discovered this place while exploring the borders between our packs, actually. I used to come to a place like this one when I was younger," he said, voice low. "Before the noise. Before the politics. When it was just me and my wolf, trying to figure things out."

I gave him a tired glance. "Did you figure it out?"

He gave a soft laugh. "No. Not even close."

For a while, we just listened to the forest. The wind in the leaves, the distant sounds of life. The world felt far away here. And then I spoke—barely above a whisper. "There's a prophecy," I said. "A really old one. From before we were born."

Evan stilled but didn't interrupt. "Two brothers, born under the moon's shadow. One to bring ruin. The other, glory." I swallowed, voice tight with emotion I couldn't contain. "And they think I'm the ruin. They've always thought it."

His brows drew together, concern crossing his features. "Dominic and my parents… they've known all along. Since I was born. I overheard them." The words came faster now, spilling out like poison I'd been holding in.

"That's why they treated me like they did.” Every word is relief, even if it’s painful. “Why they needed me to be weak, to never reach my potential. Why they wanted me gone. Because I'm the threat to the whole bloodline. I'm the curse of the pack. The destroyer."

Evan was quiet for a long time, his silence weighted with thought. "You're not," he said finally, firmly, with conviction. "You're not a threat, Atlas. You're not cursed."

"How do you know?" I looked at him, desperate for him to be right, for someone to tell me this wasn't inevitable. "I still could lose control of my powers. The shadows are unpredictable.”

My every misstep now seemed like a herald of the prophecy. “I wasn't able to shift and meet my wolf for a very long time, years longer than normal. I've lashed out. Hurt people without meaning to. And now I find out I might've been meant to destroy everything—everyone—around me from the start. Maybe it's inevitable."

Tears blurred my vision, hot and stinging, but I kept going. "What if Draven's pack isn't safe with me here? What if he isn't? What if caring about me is what brings the ruin?" Evan reached over then, his hand brushing mine, warm and solid and real.

"You're not cursed," he said gently, his voice soft but sure. "You've survived things most people couldn't even name aloud. Abuse, neglect, betrayal. That doesn't make you dangerous. That makes you a fighter. That makes you strong." I didn't speak, couldn't find words past the lump in my throat.

He squeezed my hand, his fingers tightening around mine. "I know you think you're alone in this. But you're not. You've never been. Even when I made the worst mistake of my life, even when I chose wrong—you were never alone. You were always worth fighting for."

Something in his voice cracked, something real and raw and painfully honest, and I felt it. That old familiarity washing over me like a wave. The quiet safety I used to cling to when I had nothing else, when the world was too cruel and cold and Evan was the only warmth I knew.

Evan had been the only soft thing in my life for so long. The only person who'd seen me, really seen me, before everything fell apart between us.

And now, sitting here beside him again, his hand in mine, feeling his warmth seep into my cold skin, I could almost fall back into that feeling. Could almost let myself believe that going back was possible, that we could reclaim what we'd lost, that maybe he was the answer I'd been searching for.

But something stopped me. Some small voice in the back of my mind, some persistent image of stormy eyes and fierce protection, of a hand extended in the darkness, of someone who'd chosen me when he had no reason to, who'd defended me against my own family. Draven.

And I realized with startling clarity that what I felt for Draven was different from what I'd felt for Evan. Deeper. More consuming. More terrifying. Like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing the fall might destroy me but unable to step back.

Evan was my past. Comfortable, familiar, safe. The person I'd loved when I didn't know any better, when I thought safety was enough.

But Draven might be my future. If I was brave enough to reach for it. If I could trust that what we had was real, not just instinct or fate or some cruel trick.

If I wasn't the destroyer the prophecy claimed I was. If I could believe I deserved something more than ruins and ash. The question was: which would hurt less to lose?