Page 90 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

The man’s face is pale.

Drew told me that my mother ran away from the Central Alliance to be with her lover, my father. Has this person recognized my mother?

Technically, my mother is also the Silver Wolf. There are currently two silver wolves in existence, but I have a feeling all my mother’s powers were drained by Robert. And even if they weren’t, she’s not in a position to start any form of rebellion. I guess that falls to me, then.

“Even if what you say is true,” somebody says, “we don’t want to have you as our leader. We’ve seen how you treat the packs under you. Why would we willingly subject ourselves to the same?”

I commend the man’s bravery in speaking like this to Karina and calling her out. It is obvious that Karina does not like his words.

“And pray tell,” she demands sweetly, “how exactly have I been treating the packs under me? They are thriving.”

My eyes swivel to the right, and I see the man from the Central Alliance approaching us. He stops next to us and says, “Grace?”

My mother’s head lifts.

At the exact same time, the main doors of the ballroom are thrown open. I hear a familiar voice boom, “Why don’t I tell you how you’ve been treating us, Karina?”

My heart sinks and soars at the same time as I look at my mate’s hard, unyielding face.

Alex!

Chapter 20

Sophia

The tension in the ballroom is palpable.

I feel stark relief upon seeing Alex in the doorway, even if he doesn’t know I’m here. I still need a little bit more time to work on my mother’s collar. I focus my attention on it, grateful that Alex’s appearance has distracted the man from the Central Alliance standing next to us. I would not put it past Lily to kill my mother to prevent her from slipping from her grasp. As it stands, my mother is the biggest leverage they have on me.

“Where do I begin?” Alex drawls. “You threatened the lives of our children. Let’s start with that.”

Karina does not look phased in the least. “How nice that you showed up here, Alex. Now I don’t have to send a search party after you. And I did nothing of the sort.”

“Linking the lives of our most vulnerable pack members to those of your soldiers and nannies isn’t endangering their lives?” Alex demands. “Restricting parents, especially mothers, from bonding with their children? Killing parents who raised a fuss because they wanted their children with them? How are we supposed to react to that?”

“Each Alliance has different rules,” Karina shoots back. “These are mine. I am simply protecting the next generation. If the packs don’t harm my people, the children are absolutely safe.”

“How do you explain murdering the parents who wanted their children with them?”

“Unfortunate decisions on their parts.” Karina shrugs. “Those who break my rules are not allowed to live. And they tried to attack my people, thereby endangering the lives of the other children. Did you expect my people to sit still and do nothing? They were protecting the rest of your young ones.”

“Bullshit,” Alex says with barely restrained anger. “You annihilated an entire pack because it did not want their children under your control. You wanted to have power over the lives, decisions, and resources of everyone in the North Alliance, and to achieve that, you leveraged the lives of our young ones. Do you think the other Alliances will let you do the same to them?”

My eyes widen when I see the entire ballroom filling with soldiers coming through every entrance. Alex did say he had trained soldiers who were waiting to be summoned, but I didn’t know about the sheer number of them.

Clearly, neither did Lily or Noah. The latter’s jaw is tense, and I hear him mutter, “You said there weren’t many fighters.”

Lily’s fingers dig into her dress. “There weren’t. There should have been no more than a hundred soldiers. These are in the thousands.”

“With the Silver Wolf in my control,” Karina begins in response to Alex’s query, “I don’t think anybody will have much of a choice—”

“In your control?” Alex sneers. “And where exactly is this Silver Wolf?”

Karina gives him an angry look. “I’m very disappointed in you, Alex—”

He doesn’t let her finish her thought. “You were right about one thing, Karina. The Silver Wolf does exist. I know this because she is my fated mate.”

I see Katrina’s face turns red with anger as Alex’s words register on her. Clearly, she didn’t know that little detail. But she did know where I was; I recall Lily telling me that it was Hilda who contacted Karina. She must not have told the Queen about Alex and me being fated mates.

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