The Game Of Quadruplet Mates
Chapter 40

Jeremy

There was a change in the air as my Alpha walked away. Our surroundings were unnaturally quiet as he did so. No owl hooted. No insects chattered. No wind blew. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything was still like the world was too afraid to move, too afraid of

the strongest man in the world.

I would stay still too if I could.

For I knew his rage even if he tried to hide it. The air was thick with it, his hate, his anger and his worry for his mate.

His.

Not mine.

June had made her decision on that and I was not about to take the only good thing in my Alpha's life. The love he has for her is so obvious that I feel so happy for them, but also feel such hurt.

Out of all the girls in the world, why did I have to love her? The one he wanted too? It was such a cruel thing to have both of us unknowingly fall in love with the same girl. And it's even crueler when I am her fated mate but not her chosen mate. There was so winning.

The first fated mates in centuries and we won't end up together purely because life doesn't go as planned. That things get in the way. That heartbreak is always there. Pain is constant, I've learned this at a young age and I just have to choose which pain I would rather have.

The pain of seeing my Alpha break down from losing her when he truly loves her more than himself?

Or.

The pain of me losing June and breaking down as I watched her with him?

The choice is obvious. Back then and now. I would always choose my own suffering because my Alpha has never had anyone and for the first time in his life, he had June. Sweet June.

Beautiful June.

The June that could light up the room with just one smile.

As I watched my Alpha walk away, his posture was too straight and too stiff, too angry at the world. He's so devastated. He's not even trying to hide it anymore.

And then I saw him reaching for his neck, his hands clamped on June's mark on him, stopping for a second to look up at the moon. I do not know what he was thinking at that moment but I can only guess he was trying to call out for her.

He took the news of what June and I are far too well. I half expected to be a dead body on the floor already. The fact that I wasn't d e a d yet makes me more uneasy.

I know him. I know my Alpha well. He didn't like problems and threats, especially towards June.

And I was the biggest threat of them all.

The Alpha starts walking again, heading for June's home. He's sending commands everywhere, calling for his Delta, calling for all his available warriors. It hurt a little that he was keeping me out of the plans, his own Beta had been given no orders but to follow. Did he not trust me anymore?

Was I not his Beta?

Shouldn't I be helping him?

The Alpha was planning a full blown attack, gathering everyone, but the city pack was expecting this reaction from him. They knew this would be his counter and they wanted that.

We shouldn't underestimate a man that thrives in people's agony. My uncle had years to master what hurts most.

And he surely has something planned to keep my Alpha away.

"Where's my daughter?"

Both the Alpha and I turned to find June's father by the door, his lips quivering as he asked us again.

"Where's June?"

Something happened as the Alpha and June's father stared at each other. And something tells me they've spoken before... that the reason the Alpha couldn't answer, looking ashamed, was because of whatever they spoke of before. "We're getting her back." I find myself saying to this man who started to cry.

He and June looked nothing alike. Physically, they shared no traits, but I think I know where June got her kind temperament from, where she got her smile, her understanding and patience. "She was taken by the city pack wasn't she?" "Yes." The Alpha answers. "I'm sorry."

His apology was so sincere and so out of character that I pulled back from surprise. My Alpha rarely spoke and apologized to no one, but here he was now, staring at his mate's father and asking for forgiveness.

"Whatever you're planning, I want to come." June's father suddenly said, stepping forward. "Bring me with you."

I spoke first, walking towards him in comfort and because I knew my Alpha wouldn't want anyone close to him at that moment. "It's dangerous. It's not a good idea."

"That doesn't change anything." He argues, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. "She's my daughter. I have the right to help get her back and the right to fight against the people that mean her harm."

My eyes glanced at the Alpha who was frowning, contemplating. A second later he nodded. "I will not stop a father from looking for his child."

But this was a bad idea.

We were giving more ammunition to the city pack by bringing one of the only people June loves. The city pack thrives when weaknesses are exposed and he was a walking weakness.

He was a farm pack, untrained and inexperienced with the way others fight. This was going to be suicide but my Alpha seems to have made up his mind.

For how can he stop a father from saving his child?

Maybe I didn't understand. Maybe I am far too corrupted by the city pack to know what family is like or what it means. Maybe all I see are weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I have never had a family. At least, no family that would ever love me the way June is loved by her father. Maybe my Alpha had a good family before. Maybe he knew what it is like to want to fight for your loved ones.

Family.

What did that even mean? Shared blood?

The three of us, with the rest of our pack that was on the farm lands, board the plane with the Alpha wordlessly giving them instructions. For the remainder of the night, while the plane flies over the lands, my Alpha has set a plan in motion, not once asking for my opinion, which he always does. He didn't even look at me. And I know why.

Because the sight of me reminded him that June wasn't made for him.

That I was the living reminder that June had a fated mate and it wasn't him.

"How is she?" He finally asks, still not looking at me.

"She's still passed out." I answered, eyes closing to pull at the invisible tether between June and I. "But she's really far."

"What are you saying?" June's father asked, looking at both of us. "How would you know that?"

This man could have been my father in law. He could have been my family in another life. And we got along so well too. The life that we could have had.

And now he was asking why.

My Alpha won't answer this.

I know he won't.

"I'm... June and I are," I sucked in a breath, knowing there was no other way to hide this any longer. "We're fated mates."

His eyes were the size of golf balls. And it took a few minutes for him to gather himself. "You're sure?"

"Yes." From my peripheral, I saw the Alpha flinch like I had punched him.

Thankfully, June's father reads the room, sees the horror in my face and the devastation in my Alpha's. He doesn't continue asking questions even when I know he wants to.

"Let's go," The Alpha announces, turning away, the plane landing on a long strip of land. "I've caught the scent of the guards that took her. Once we have more information, we'll break through the borders."

This time, I couldn't help myself anymore and spoke up. "We can't just storm in, Alpha. I know the man we're facing and what he's like. He'll hurt June. I'm sure he will if he sees us coming. If your suspicions are true and they brought her inside the pack, then he means to use June to repel you. And I am not lying when I say I have seen him do horrible things to the girls he has."

The Alpha begins to shake, his skin blurring at the edges as he realizes what I mean.

But it was the truth. At twelve, the Alpha would have Konstantin and I watched as he used girls... younger than what was appropriate. We weren't allowed to look away, weren't allowed to close our eyes. We were there, as he said, to learn. And the things I've seen, the things I never thought I would ever see, especially at twelve, haunt me until this day.

It still burns in my memory and I think it was the first and only time Konstantin and I held each other's hand, seeking comfort with even an enemy as it happened in front of us.

We were kids. We didn't know anything.

But we knew that was wrong and all we could do was hold each other.

And I would die if what he does to those girls happens to June. I would die before I allowed that to happen.

"Please, Alpha. Please believe me when I say I know what he will do." I begged, my fists balled up. I was determined for him to listen and wouldn't allow this to be ignored. "We have to go there quietly. I know the sewers there better than anyone else. No one can smell us from under there. The smell is so intense that it'll mask our scents and we can go unnoticed."

The Alpha sees the desperation and nods. "No one patrols the sewers?"

Relief washes over me. "No. They're too disgusted to do so. That's why I loved the sewers as a kid. No one could get me."

"Very well. Give the orders to the pack." He tells me, gesturing to the sun. "Let's go."

With the timing perfect, the plane lands completely on the ground and as we all disembark with military precision, the pack members that we flew with separate from us without another word, heading for the direction where I told them to go.

No one but us knew the plan, so if ever we still have potential betrayers, they would only reveal what the city pack had already predicted.

'They're coming to the borders. Prepare for their attack.'

All of this without knowing we had a different plan altogether. The Alpha, June's father and I had shifted into our wolves and ran towards a different direction, on the hunt for the guards that took June.

I am still surprised by the betrayal. Those guards were men we've trained, we've kept safe, we've given new lives to live. I did not expect us to lose the loyalty of our people so easily, but I should have known better. The city pack has their ways and they have a specialty for sniffing out the weak links.

We ran for hours, longer, much longer. I kept myself busy by closely monitoring every single person in the pack. All of them, even the ones in the mountains, were arriving.

'We're close.' The Alpha says after some time.

I looked up at the sky, spotting a fire in the distance. We were a few hours away from the city pack, confirming that June was most likely brought inside pack lines. My worst nightmare is that my uncle would already have her in his bed but he wouldn't use that card so easily. He plays his cards well, a master at keeping them close but never using them unless needed, and that's all that June was to him.

A pawn.

An insurance.

The Alpha skids to a stop, crouching low and stalking the trees like the predator that he is. June's father and I do the same, keeping our paws silent and circling around a small clearing. I caught their scent easily and saw them not a few seconds later. They were huddled by the fire, eyes on the flames.

My eyes flickered at the Alpha but he was too fast and he had the two guards by their necks before they could even see him coming. The two guards automatically shift into their wolves to protect themselves, but the Alpha, with the confidence of a man who has kil led too many in his life, shifts back into his human form, grabbing both wolves by their muzzles and dragging them to the fire.

June's father and I watched from the trees.

The Alpha did not need our help. He needed to do this on his own.

The two wolves flail around helplessly, but this doesn't even move the Alpha, taking them to the fire and bringing their faces to the roaring flames. Without caring for his own hands that burned, the Alpha kept their heads on the fire as the wolves lit up. They screa me d, howling, and crying and making sounds that I never knew were possible.

"Shift." The Alpha merely commands, holding them to the fire as they all burned. He didn't even flinch. He didn't even cry out as his skin turned black from the hot fire.

One of the guards quickly shifts back to their human form and with this, the Alpha brings him out of the flames, but not before tossing the guard, the one still in his wolf form, into the fire, burning him fully.

The smell of burning flesh and fur wafted through the air like poison and the whimpering of the wolf stops as he becomes one with the flames that raged on.

The Alpha turns to the one he kept alive, hovering over the shaking man. "Speak."

But he was too frightened, his skin tearing off his body from the burn marks he got.

But the Alpha had already lost all his patience and quickly stomps on the guard's ankles, the snap of bone cracking through the air.

For a long time I wondered why the Alpha's punishments mirrored the city packs. The burning. The beating. At first I thought it was because he really was some hidden bastard of the Alpha, but I realized as I watched him that he had seen this before... experienced it before. These punishments I also endured at the hands of the city pack, but he knows this for a different reason. They were done to him too.

Because they attacked him.

He was from a farm pack, possibly attacked and pillaged by the city.

And he was inflicting the same pain that he was shown and endured by the city pack.

The Alpha didn't have to say it again, the guard crawling to his knees with his head on the ground, bowing and begging for mercy.

"Alpha," The man pleaded, shuddering and shaking. "I'm sorry, Alpha. Please. We had no choice. You have to believe me."

The Alpha lifted his hands, making the guard flinch back. "That's not what I want. Tell me where she is and what you've done to her."

A shaking mess of blood and snot, the guard was unrecognizable with fear. "The city pack, they said they had my sister from the days our pack was attacked and their Alpha said if I gave up the Luna I could still save her again, but when we brought the Luna to them, they only gave us bones! My sister's bones!"

Unblinking and unmoved, the Alpha stomps on the guard's knees. The cracking sound of shattering bone going through the woods again. "That's not what I asked for. Where is she?"

"Alpha, I beg of you," He didn't get to finish his sentence as the Alpha grabbed him by the neck and took him to the flames again where his feet caught fire, the blood that dripped from him fueling the flames until they consumed all of the guard's legs. The crying was so intense, the loud shouts from him making my stomach turn. "We brought her to the Beta. We left her in his bedroom. The Alpha said they wanted her broken in... raped by the Beta!"

That was enough for the Alpha as he drops the guard into the flames, right on top of the bones and ashes of his fellow betrayer.

"Do you know the way to Konstantin's home?" The Alpha asked, without turning to look at me.

I shifted back to my human form, bowing my head low. "Yes. It's right at the center of the city. If we use the sewers, we'll be able to get inside his building. But..."

He continued to stare at the flames, an expression I couldn't identify on his face. The Alpha looked to be remembering things, lost in his thoughts. "What?"

"His home is right under the Alpha's." I informed him, seeing the haunted expression on his face.

The Alpha shakes this off. "Good."

Suddenly, something in my neck threw me down on the ground. I let out a gasp as June's fear came crashing down on me like waves and waves of water coming to drown me. "Jeremy!"

I could hear the Alpha, could see him standing over me, but I couldn't focus, all my attention on my neck and the beating of my heart that increased.

June was scared.

Something was happening.

Somehow, my neck burns even more and tears spring up to my eyes. And then... something. A wetness that wasn't really there.

A voice.

My uncle.

He's with June.

And he's frightening her, doing something-

But it was gone before I could panic fully and I could suddenly breathe again. My vision clearing, my thoughts my own once more.

"What happened?!" The Alpha demanded, helping me to sit up.

June's father took my hand, patting it gently like a father would. "What did you see? Is it your connection to June?"

I couldn't think straight, my panic raising with every second that went by. "Yes. My uncle... he visited her and all I could feel was this overwhelming fear. He did something to her mark,"

The Alpha was upon me, his eyes wide and black with rage. "What? What did he do? Is June safe?"

"She's not hurt but I think he licked her mark. I could feel the wetness on me." But my neck was dry and it was all from the tether that connected me to June.

The Alpha growls so loudly that it literally shook the ground. He couldn't get a word out because of how loudly he growled. He was shaking but I also saw the worry, the fright, the horror.

It was killing to know this was happening to June and he couldn't do anything about it.

"My older brother was killed by the Alpha," June's father revealed quietly to me.

"I think my uncle took the lives of everyone's family at this point." I said, still feeling haunted by the feeling of June's emotions inside me. It was gone but the ghost of it crept up my spine. "He's cruel and vicious."

"No. You don't understand." He says, staring into my eyes. "Your uncle took the life of my brother because his beloved sister mated with him in the Games. And my brother got her pregnant."

With me.

She got pregnant with me.

June's father didn't finish his words but I knew what he was saying.

I knew what he was telling me.

His brother... the one the Alpha killed was my father.