Alpha Luke and His Unwilling Mate
Chapter 12

~Luke~

I heard Nyla shut the door and secure the deadbolt as I walked back to my room.

She has been locking her room pretty secure ever since the night I sneaked in after 2 AM to lie down next to her. I expected her to be tired and passed out completely, but she seemed to know about my intrusion that night. So glad she never confronted me about it.

I’m doing a lot of stupid things these days and hoping no one notices the change in me. My wolf is completely out of control since the day I met her. I forgot how to f*****g think when I first saw her. It has been a while that my heart beats so fast for someone.

Seeing her cry twisted my stomach. I’m very well aware of the pain that comes when the mate bond breaks and the fact that I was the one to cause all that pain made me loathe my existence.

When she asked me to spare her friend, I obeyed her without thinking. She is trouble for sure.

My beta won’t stop asking why I let her friend go while we were heading home. I was struggling to not look at Nyla, and Ryder was giving me shit about a lost chance to f**k Nyla’s friend. It’s not like he has a dearth of women. My beta and gamma have changed half the packhouse into a brothel.

“She’s a human and clearly outnumbered. Why do you want to kill someone so weak and helpless?”

“That bitch ain’t weak. She almost got my throat, and I would have been dead if I wasn’t fast enough. She was too distracted about keeping that damsel friend of hers safe. Can you imagine how f*****g awesome taming someone like that in bed would be? You got that damsel for yourself but asked me to let the hotter one go.”

He won’t stop complaining until the chopper touched the ground. I made sure I gave clear instructions to Ren while Ryder was around. I told her Nyla would be a kitchen maid but only mine to f**k.

“Why her? She’s got those floodgates open for hours, sobbing about her husband and baby. Who is her husband, by the way?”

“I think it was Wyatt’s beta. I don’t know his name.” This dimwit beta of mine doesn’t know Wyatt’s beta took a chosen mate and Riley shouldn’t really be mourning so much. He doesn’t pay attention to such details, which was in my favor.

“But why her, Alpha? Are you into new mothers all of a sudden?”

“Why not? She looks sexy to me. I will make sure I f**k her so good that she forgets whoever her mate is. I take that as a challenge.”

Not sure if he entirely buys it, but I won’t hesitate to get rid of him if he tries to dig deeper and harm Nyla in any way.

I couldn’t let anyone know she was my mate. Not sure how I survived losing Leah, but I surely can’t do it one more time.

Rex is going nuts. He yearns for his mate all day and seems to be in pain when he sees her red, swollen eyes. He knows giving the baby back to her will look suspicious to anyone who pays attention, but he was so agitated until I gave in. Keeping her alive already looks suspicious enough to my dad even when he doesn’t know she was Wyatt’s luna.

Wyatt was a friend once upon a time when I did not care about taking over pack responsibilities and making my own rules. Both my brother and I avoided brute force and slaughtering packs back then, and I didn’t care about who ruled what. Both my dad and Leah’s dad believed I should be the alpha to take over the pack after my dad.

Leah was pregnant, and I wanted to be by her side even after my brother died and when it was my job to take charge of things that my dad was too old to tackle. My dad hated Leah for the effect she had on me. He told me many times that a woman should make a man soft-hearted but not weak.

Leah never made me feel weak. I just lacked the ambition to dominate others. My mate’s safety was a bigger priority, and I believed all these petty conquests and power struggles came at a cost, jeopardizing Leah’s life.

There’s a rumor that it was my dad who got Leah killed by sending me away. I still don’t know if he really is the culprit because mom also died that day. My dad is power hungry but not cruel enough to sacrifice his own mate to get rid of Leah.

Even if there’s an iota of truth to those rumors, I’d lose my second chance mate in no time. Leah was a trained she-wolf who was defeated by her murderer. Nyla is a new mother, a human, grieving her husband’s death. I can’t risk taking any chances and blindly trust my dad.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Nyla and lay awake every night, wondering if I’ll ever be able to complete the mating ceremony with Adalyn. Mating with Adalyn will cause Nyla a lot of pain, which won’t be any less than what she felt when Wyatt died. But refusing to take a chosen mate suddenly would raise a lot of doubts.

My pack is already raising hell that I didn’t claim Wyatt’s lands and declare myself to be the next Alpha King. I had every intention to do that and that was the whole reason we attacked them. I changed my mind when I met Nyla.

There will be no other woman who I can picture as my Luna Queen. But making her one would instantly put her life at risk. Every power hungry motherfucker will try to kill her to make me weak and go insane. Losing my mate a second time would definitely do that to me.

Adalyn has zero effect on me and no one would bother killing her to get back at me. If I die fighting some battle, my death will have zero effect on Adalyn as well because she will move on to some other alpha who shares her ambition.

I was lost in my dilemma, and it was morning already before I could make up my mind. Nyla said she doesn’t care, but she obviously cares. Rex is not entirely sure if she’s a human. He told me he could sense her feelings when I was in my wolf form, and he was sure she could know he was apologizing to her.

“She likes the feel of my tongue against her skin. She wanted to stroke my fur and wondered if I wasn’t an arrogant a*s like you.”

When Rex told me this, I couldn’t believe it. He was able to understand Leah’s thoughts only after I claimed and marked her.

I thought I saw a golden glimmer in Nyla’s eyes for a brief moment when I first saw her. But with Rex shouting mate over and over in excitement and the powerful emotions that surged through me, I brushed it all off as my imagination. I just blinked once and saw the sparkle instantly be replaced by an intense hatred for me.

Something else seems fishy about her too. She put Ren under some kind of charm. Not sure how she did it because I should feel any kind of magic she uses.

Ren is one of the most loyal and tight-lipped servants who always maintained a neutral stance. Not only did she flash a wide smile when I said Nyla can have her child back, she even told Nyla when I went into heat. It was very unlike her.

I changed into my training clothes and was heading out when my Gamma Finn mind linked me.

“Alpha! Adalyn is nowhere to be found. And the girl who does the early morning shift in the kitchens, she’s gone too.”

It was barely 6 AM. Adalyn wasn’t a morning person.

“What was she doing up so early? The ceremony isn’t until this evening. Send the trackers out right away. Who saw her last?”

“Ren. She said Adalyn was talking to the girl in the kitchen about something.”

“Is this other missing person Sadie?”

“I think so. I have to confirm her name.”

“You need to know all your pack members’ names, Finn. I will be right there.”

I had to check something important first… to see if Nyla was okay.

This crazy mate bond will be the end of me.