Fatal Temptation: Between Two Alphas
Chapter 51

Chapter Fifty-One

"No!" It's an instinctual reaction. I shove him off me, using all my strength.

Cam's expression falls.

I've...rejected him.

He shakes his head, crushed.

I don't want to hurt him.

But it doesn't feel right. I don't know why I feel this way or how I know it. "We can't," I tell him.

"We just did," he says calmly, even though I know he's not. "And we certainly fucking can."

I shake my head and sit up on this bed. My hands are shaky. I clasp them together. "Ashley?" he growls. "Is this about her?"

Yes. But only partly.

I love this man.

My wolf recognizes him as our mate.

But the time in my life when I was mindless with love, rendered thoughtless by passion... that time has come and gone.

I can't just think about myself now.

"You're still mated to another woman," I remind him. "The same woman whose family is hell-bent on war."

I don't dredge up the fact that she already tried to kill me once.

"We need to understand the bigger threats surrounding us, Cam. We have to do what's best for our children."

It's the wrong thing to say. He snaps his head back like I've slapped him. "I will always protect my children. And I am the Alpha-protecting my pack from threats is my sole purpose." I'm not trying to offend him, but clearly I am.

"Cam...what are you doing here?"

He looks tired now. "I flew down here to accompany you. So you wouldn't be alone. So I would know you were protected. So our children would know you were protected." Part of me is so happy.

Part of me is... disappointed. It's as if he doesn't trust me to take care of myself, or as if he doubts my intelligence and capabilities. And what does that mean that he should leave the Pack just because I chose to go off somewhere?

If something happens while he's gone, he'll blame me.

They will all blame me.

I draw my clothes back on.

Making love to Cam was everything I dreamed of.

And now I just want to cry.

I rub a hand along my neck and it comes away with blood. Not a lot. But enough to know he'd intended to mark me.

I stare at the blood on my hands for a long time. I wanted him to mark me. For years, I'd waited and hoped that I could someday have him claim me. I remember thinking how proud I'd be to have his mark on my skin, so everyone would know that we belonged to each other.

"Don't look so disappointed," he tells me. He's angry now.

I've hurt him. Deeply.

"It's not for the reasons you think." I sigh. "I assume you know why I'm here."

He nods. "Your father is my beta." He's jerking his clothes back on too. "You should think about that. It put him in a bad place."

"Did he tell you where I was going?" I need to know if my dad's loyalty is to me or to his Alpha.

"He didn't have to, our kids did."

Cam frowns.

I hate that I ruined this moment. I hate that I'm conflicted. This man is everything I've ever wanted and yet...something doesn't feel right.

When he tried to mark me...I panicked. I don't understand it, I just know at that moment I didn't want him to do that to me.

He opens the door. I have no idea whose room we just debauched, but I feel like I need to leave a note or have the sheets laundered or something. "It's just sex, Mia."

Ouch. That hurts and I think it's unfair that he belittles what we shared. I remind myself that I rejected him, and no doubt, this is his way of compartmentalizing.

Or punishing me.

Cam is an Alpha.

He's proud and strong and generally quite reasonable, but what I've done... I think I may have caused a permanent rift.

I'm not sure how or if I can repair it.

"Let's go, Mia. The sooner we meet with this Seer, the sooner we can return to pack lands."

I follow him out of the room and along the balcony. As we pass door after door I think of who-or what-resides behind them. And what is this place? Where vampires lounge and greet wolves with humor and civility.

In our realm, we patrol the vamps. Ensuring their bloodlust doesn't cause harm to humans or to the supernatural community.

When we return to the courtyard, it's like a party started and we missed the invitation. Music plays. Food and drinks are passed around. It's barely eight in the morning.

I rub my eyes.

Cam holds a chair out for me.

The giant brute sits across from us, Corinne is on his lap. "That was fast," Theo teases.

Cam doesn't bother to reply.

"It was the best I ever had," I feel compelled to say.

Cam glances at me sharply. I shrug. It's true.

I'm not defending him to spare him embarrassment or to feed his ego. And it wasn't exactly quick. I have the sore muscles to prove it.

I change the subject. "How do I find my mother?" I ask him.

He stretches his huge legs and repositions Corinne so she's draped across his lap like an offering. "You don't. She's a Seer, wolf. She'll find you."

Corinne leans against him, her head on his shoulder.

She looks younger, wistful even.

His lips brush her forehead.

"I'm surprised you haven't sought her out sooner. Even though these Seers are a sect separate from your world, it's not like they don't circulate within your packs." "Where I'm from," I say, "we don't have oracles."

,

Theo taps Corinne on the nose. "We don't talk about Bruno-no-no."

She laughs and punches his shoulder. "Did you seriously just quote Encanto?"

"I did." He grins at her with affection and it's like no one else exists around them.

My attention flits between the two of them. It's clear they have an easy relationship, and an intimate one. And that bit of humor about a kid's movie, wasn't expecting that from this...whatever he is. I glance around the courtyard.

Corinne's fellow Ravens are spread

out. They're called Ravens as a nod to our forefathers' Norse ancestry and the role of these women as harbingers of war, or so I learned on the ride here. Much as the Valkyries of old and the Valhall they prepared for the warriors who'd die on the battlefields, it was the Ravens that heralded death.

They don't look so deadly now though.

Rachel and Lianne are drinking and laughing. Jessica is chatting with one of the males. There are a

handful of wolves here, and Cam

makes small talk with them toet

introducing himself, inquiring about their pack, which resides in the French Quarter and in the bayous

surrounding the city.

But of the fifteen or so people in this courtyard, the ones that hold my attention most are these 'Other' beings.

Theo, one other male, one female and one non-binary.

They're bigger. Their features could be of a dozen different ethnicities They seem 'otherworldly' and I don't mean that in some alien or sci fi sense, more an angle that they're more than they seem to be

They are...not human or wolves or vampires.

They carry no scent I've ever encountered before.

"If you keep sniffing like that," Theo tells me. "You'll give yourself a headache."

Corinne smirks at me.

I asked once. I won't be so rude as to ask again. But the thought keeps pestering me: what are they?!?

"That conversation will have to wait, wolf." He inclines his head.

I sense her before I turn. My wolf stirs irritably.

The wind blows her scent and with it some faint, long forgotten memory.

11

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