Page 38 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

Baer smirked then and patted my back hard. “I always knew you had a soft spot for her back then. I wasn’t even surprised when you two turned out to be mates. It just made sense.”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged his arm off my shoulder.

Across the camp, the girls reappeared.

Aurora gave me another glare as Sasha pretended that I didn’t even exist at all. I watched her make her way to her tent without so much as a glance in my direction. She disappeared inside and that is where she stayed. She didn’t even come out for dinner as the rest of us sat and ate in awkward silence.

Aurora continued to give me haughty looks, her glares shifting every so often to her mate, as he must have been telling her to calm down through their link. When they went to bed, I could see her smacking his hands away as she hissed something to me.

“Don’t be like that,” the large alpha king groaned to the sky before following her into the tent.

I found myself alone. The fire was dying out slowly as I stared into the glowing embers of the log.

‘When will we talk to mate?’my wolf asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the camp.

I looked over at her tent again and let out a sigh.‘Give her a few days to cool off. If we try to apologize too soon, it will only have the opposite effect on her.’

He let out a gruff breath in my head, but didn’t disagree with me. ‘Never make her mad at us like this again,’ he growled.

I chuckled and stood up from my seat. I kicked dirt over the embers to smother them the rest of the way out.

‘No promises,’I said to him.‘I don’t know a man alive who doesn’t make his mate angry more times than he can count. Just look at how Dad ends up in trouble with Mom at least once a month if not more.’

The thought made both of us chuckle, but it also brought a slight ache in my heart as I imagined my family.

‘They will be proud of you when this is all over,’my wolf said.‘Even more so when you bring home your mate as well as Uncle Atlas’s magic.’

I smiled and nodded.‘Thanks. But let’s just get Atlas’s magic back first and worry about the introduction of a mate later.’

If at all.

Chapter Eighteen

Sasha

Theskywasbrightabove us. Hot even. I shaded my eyes with my hand as I squinted ahead along the path, a sense of foreboding clutching my heart.

We had been continuing down this path for so long now, I was beginning to lose track of time. Had it been months now since we entered the realm? Or simply weeks?

The path just went on and on. There were no forks in any of the roads. Not a single path breaking away from the main strip we traveled. There wasn’t even any reason for us to actually believe we were going the right way.

Except for this feeling of dread that we were.

A shiver ran through my body then, my teeth grinding together at how weak it all made me feel.

The feeling of being on the right path should have pleased me. I should be filled with excitement. I should be ready for the fight that I had prepared so much for. The completion of a quest that my family couldn’t complete.

Instead, I felt this icy grip around my heart at the thought that maybe Ayden was right and the only reason my elders couldn’t complete this mission was simply because I hadn’t yet been the threat they saw coming.

“Sasha, earth to Sasha. Come in, Sasha,” Rory’s voice sang in my ear.

I turned to look at her with a frown. The fear and dread pushed to the back of my mind as I peered back at my cousin.

“What?”

“There you are,” she chuckled. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while now. Where’s your head at?”

I looked down at my feet on the path, wondering if I should even try to tell her.

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