Page 30 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

“You think she’s trying to reach out to you?” I ask her gently.

“It’s possible, right?”

“I wish I could say yes,” I say slowly. “I can tell that you want it to be true. But I can’t say anything without proof, Sophia. I simply don’t know.”

My words have her grip on my arm loosening. There’s a defeated look in her eyes, and her voice turns dull. “You’re right. I’m just…It can’t be her.”

“That’s not what I said.” I take her hands in mine. “What I’m saying is I don’t know for sure. I can’t give you a definite answer. But we will look for your mother, Sophia.”

Her voice is faint as she looks toward the window. “I have a feeling it will be too late.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot.” Sophia twists her fingers together. “What if Robert never told anybody where she was? What if he was the only one feeding her? Now that he’s dead, there’s going to be nobody to keep her alive. I know it’s a stupid thought. It just keeps revolving in my head over and over again.”

It’s not stupid. I cannot see Alpha Black telling anybody about the existence of Sophia’s mother. If that’s the case, we are going to be working on a time crunch.

“Don’t worry,” I try to placate my mate, the gears in my head turning. “I’m going to start looking into Robert’s finances and his activities over the past years. See if we can track where he might be keeping her.”

But my words are meaningless. Of course she will worry. Of course she will think about her mother possibly starving to death. I wish there were something I could do for her right now, but at the moment, I don’t even know where to begin looking.

“Why don’t you lie down for now?” I help her back into the bed, covering her with the blanket. “I’ll have my people start looking into your mother’s whereabouts in the morning. Do you know anything about her? Her name?”

She looks at me, and there’s a hollow grief in her voice. “I don’t even know what she looks like, Alex. I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even know what her voice sounds like.”

She turns onto her side and pulls the blanket over her head as if to escape from the world. Hatred flickers in my heart for the cruel Alpha who separated mother and child out of sheer greed.

I lie down next to Sophia, cradling her form in my arms. I remove the blanket from her face and just hold her. After a while, I hear her breathing even out, indicating that she has fallen asleep.

We all have our own tragedies that we’ve faced. I lost my parents to Karina. Within a single day two decades ago, I lost my whole world. I was forced to endure the mercy of a monster. In the meantime, Sophia suffered a different sort of tragedy, separated from her mother at birth and groomed to become the broodmare of her pack’s Alpha simply because she was the Silver Wolf.

She was isolated in a small town, and every attempt was made to break her spirit so that she would be grateful for any scrap of affection Alpha Black would throw her way. However, the man never accounted for her personality. Sophia is a survivor, like me. But like all survivors, she is a little broken inside, too.

It’s ironic that the two of us were decreed for each other. It’s as if the Goddess thought that we would be able to fill the gaps in each other’s lives that our circumstances created.

I stroke Sophia’s hair. She doesn’t ask for anything. She makes no demands. Even now, I wonder if she’s running on survival mode. I’ve never seen Sophia relax around me. It always feels like she’s waiting for the other shoe to fall.

I want her to realize that the hard part is over now. She’s with me. And I fully intend to try to make her life as easy as I possibly can. It’s going to take time. Time for her to trust me. Time for me to understand my own responsibilities and stop royally fucking up.

She makes a sound of discontent and then rolls over, burrowing herself in my chest. I smile, wrapping my arms around her.

There are still a few hours until sunrise, so I decide to get some shuteye as well. Holding Sophia, I let myself drift off, leaving my worries behind for the next day.

Chapter 7

Sophia

This morning, Alex explained his plan to me in vivid detail. When he laid out the cover story he’d prepared for Lily and me, I didn’t think it would work. But to my surprise, not only is it working, his pack is actually buying into the whole charade.

Alex is really playing the part of a concerned Alpha, trying to convince us to open up a shop in his village. It’s quite impressive. I kind of feel bad for deceiving his pack members because I can tell how excited they are at the prospect of having a special clothing store here. I feel worse when Alex takes us to an empty building under the guise of showing us our “new store location” and a few of the nearby shop owners show up to offer us free food and drinks.

They’re trying really hard to get us to stay here. I shared my reservations with Alex, but he told me not to think too much about it.

“I feel like a monster,” I admit to Lily.

The witch looks at me as she munches on the meat bun in her hand. “Why?”

“Do you ever stop eating, Lily?”

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