Page 3 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

Sophia balls her fists by her side. “I think the time to protect my feelings is long gone. I need to know the truth, Alex. I’ve had enough of lies.”

She’s right. I don’t want to be another person in her life who keeps lying to her.

“I think you know part of it.” I tuck my hands in my pockets, watching her expression. “Robert Black sent you to Oakrest to isolate you. Shifters don’t take well to isolation.”

“I know that already,” Sophia cuts me off, blinking rapidly. “Noah told me a while back. The whole purpose was to punish me through isolation. It would have worked, too, if Elsa, Rita, and Drew hadn’t been there for me. Drew let me maintain some physical contact to prevent my wolf from going mad. Of course, he probably didn’t know that my wolf wasn’t latent at that point. Or maybe even that much was under Alpha Black’s instructions.”

There is a heaviness in her voice, a thrumming listlessness, and I know where it’s coming from. She’s going to be analyzing every relationship she’s had with anyone over the past nine years. She will pick them apart and try to see which interactions were real and which were fake.

“Don’t.” I wrap my hand around her wrist. “Don’t drive yourself insane thinking about what happened and who did what to you.It’s all in the past now. You need to move forward and leave the past behind—”

She yanks her hand away from me, her eyes sparking with anger. “The past? It must be so easy for you to say that. It’s not in the past for me, Alex. My whole identity has been taken from me. I grew up around these people. I became who I am because of these people. And now I have to ask myself who really cared for me and who just used me for their own purposes. I have to reconsider every single person in my life. You have no idea what it feels like.” Under the rage that I can see, there is pain. My heart aches as her voice cracks. “Don’t you get it? I’ve never actually had anyone in my life. Everything has been a lie. It is messing with my head. Even if I want to, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

I realize I made a mistake. I can’t force her to stop reliving what she has been through. The truth has just come out for her. Sure, it would be convenient for me if she could forget it all, but that’s not possible. And I shouldn’t expect it to be.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. This isn’t going to be easy for you. But I don’t think that nobody cared for you, Sophia. Rita may have gone to Oakrest to spy on you, but you won her heart. You changed her mind. She died protecting you and your secret. Drew chose you over his safety and his Alpha. He put his life and his child at risk to keep you safe. I know you can’t see all this right now, but it’s true. Over time, you’ll probably understand.”

Her expression falls. “I didn’t mean to snap at you…”

Her voice is small now, and I take her hands in mine. “You can snap at me as much as you want. Your whole world fell apart,Sophia, and that’s a lot for you to deal with. But I will help you through it. I promise you that.”

Her eyes fill up, and she looks away, not wanting me to see her cry. Her voice is rough as she whispers, “It’ll take time, but I’ll be fine.”

“Are you just saying that for the sake of saying it?” I tilt her chin back toward my face with my finger. Her lashes are glistening with tears, and she gives me a weak smile.

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“You do have a choice, Sophia. And you are not alone anymore. You have me by your side. If you’re not happy in my pack, I’ll take you somewhere far away. I will travel the world with you if you want me to. If it makes you happy.”

“You make big promises, Alex.” Her smile wobbles.

“I will keep every promise I ever make to you.” I tuck the loose strands of her hair behind her ear, my eyes meeting hers. I can read the lack of faith in them.

“It’s been six days. Six days is nothing in the grand scheme of things. You have to give yourself time and space to heal. Yes, I would like you to leave the past behind, and yes, I know it’s not easy. So, you take your time. But Sophia, you should also look forward to what the future holds. Your mother is alive. You have me by your side. I’m sure life isn’t as bad as it seems right now.”

The corner of her lips curls up, and I glimpse the tiny spark of hope in those gray eyes. She doesn’t say anything, though.

“Come on.” I wrap my hand around hers as we resume walking again. “The stream is up ahead.”

Sophia says, “You didn’t finish telling me what I asked about.”

She’s referring to our conversation from a few minutes ago.

“He wanted to isolate you, Sophia, and he also wanted to wake up your wolf. For whatever reason, your beast was sealed away. Robert must’ve known it was not latent. And when you joined the boxing gym, it wasn’t a coincidence. Robert wanted to make sure that all your escape routes were cut off. If you’d been implicated in the cage fighting ring, he would have had reason to lock you up. He fully intended to take you as his mate under pressure. If he had offered to save you in exchange for you being with him, you might not have had a choice. I have a feeling that Noah was planning the same sort of thing. That’s why he had men watching your place all the time. He was waiting for one slip up so he could use your mistake against you.”

Sophia’s hand tightens around mine.

“Are you saying that Mathew was working with Robert?” Her question is simple, but her voice is quiet, and I cast a concerned look toward her. She’s staring straight ahead with a death grip on my hand.

“That is what Robert said,” I admit. “Robert was already on his way here, and when Mathew told him of his plan to trap you into work for him, Robert realized that he was losing control of Mathew. Of course, I don’t know how Robert arrived so early. There’s a chance that he was already near the town. But when I entered Mathew’s room, he was on the phone with Robert. I heard his voice, and when I was in the forest, I heard his voice again, and I recognized it as the caller’s. I was initially going to make sure that whoever the person was wasn’t there to go afteryou, but when I saw Drew talking to him and referring to him as Alpha Black, it only took me a second to recognize him.”

I let out a long breath. “But it was more than just that, Sophia. Robert also mentioned that the townspeople had one job, and that was to break your spirit completely. From the way he was talking, it seemed like they were all in on it. I overheard Drew say that everybody had been careful not to push you completely over the edge because they didn’t want to break you and diminish your use for Robert. It didn’t take me long to put two and two together. My gut tells me that every single person in that town was put near you very deliberately. They knew what you were all along.”

Sophia laughs bitterly. “I really shouldn’t have asked. Now I just feel worse.”

“You’re reclaiming your life, Sophia,” I tell her gently. “Don’t forget that.”

She looks at me and asks, “What if I can’t save the pups in your pack, Alex? I won’t be useful to you then.”

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