Page 27 of Alpha's Hated Mate

“Hey. Grab a chair.” She nods toward the other chair closest to me. I grab it and place it next to her, sitting down.

“Didn’t see you in class today.” She doesn’t respond. “Thinking about Dad, huh?”

She nods. “It’s been a year already. Why does it still feel like it just happened?”

I follow her gaze across the campus below us. We can see as far beyond the front gates from here and into the haze of the school’s illusion magic. I can even see the tops of the trees of the forbidden woods.

And that’s when I notice that she’s looking in that direction. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that whatever’s on her mind lies beyond those trees.

“I miss him so much,” she says. “He wasn’t supposed to die yet. He had so much left to do.”

I should have worn a jacket. It’s starting to get chilly, and we’re sitting up here in our uniforms. She doesn’t seem to be getting cold at all, though. She looks over at me and says, “Did you know that Dad had at least three experiments going on at the same time when he died?”

“No,” I reply. “I didn’t know that.”

She nods, a little spark of pride in her eyes. “He was improving the well water quality in Claymore and was planning on taking it to Alpha King Leon for an expansion throughout Clarion.”

“That’s pretty cool. You were always in the know about what he was working on. Kind of wish I’d had more of an interest.”

She chuckles. “He was always working on something.”

“Maybe you could continue one of those experiments,” I say softly. “You know, carry on his legacy?”

She opens her mouth to speak, then chuckles and says, “Dad’s legacy is your job, not mine. Besides, I only know the details of one experiment. The others he kept locked away. I only know they exist because I stumbled on some of his notes once.”

I tilt my head a little. The wrinkle in her nose as she speaks, the way she looks down at her hands . . . Nadia’s lying.

“You were pretty close to Dad,” I press. “He never bothered to tell you everything he was working on?”

She looks at me, her eyes reading my face for a moment. Then she smiles warmly and says, “No, he didn’t. Sometimes he’d start telling me things. Then, stop and say, ‘Oh, you don’t have time to listen to your old man rattle on. Go back to your studying.’ He said it like he thought he was bothering me. I wish I told him Iwantedto hear more. Now, I’ll never have the chance.”

That part sounds genuine and that kind of makes me doubt the knot in my stomach. I remember what Saffron said abouther. I know they don’t like each other, but Saffron randomly lying about Nadia doesn’t track either.

“So, what were you doing in the woods last night?”

Her head whips around to me, and her eyes widen. “What? What are you talking about?”

“I saw you.” That lie’s on me. No sense in bringing Saffron into this. “I had to study late at the library, and I saw you walking into the woods on my way back to the dorm.” She looks away from me with a slight wince, her expression giving her away. “Nadia, you know that place is off limits.”

“I know,” she admits. “I was hoping nobody saw me. I was just trying to get away for a little. Away from the school, from all this . . . responsibility, I guess. This has been a hard year for us, you know? I needed a break.”

I frown. “In the middle of the night? Nadia, you could have just texted me. Those woods are dangerous.”

“I didn’t think about it,” she says with a shrug. “Dad and I . . . we used to love walking in the woods at night. I guess I wanted to be a little closer to him.”

It makes sense . . . no. No, it doesn’t. But why would she lie tome,of all people, about wanting to be nearer to Dad?

“Nadia,” I start, putting my hand on her knee. “If there’s something going on that I should know about, you’d tell me, right?”

She throws me a disarming smile, then chuckles. “Aydan, come on. There’s nothing going on, okay?”

“Would you tell me if there were?”

She pauses, and the faltering of her smile shows that she realizes I’m not going to let this go. She sighs and says, “You’re going to think it’s stupid . . . maybe a little crazy.”

“Try me.”

She takes a deep breath. “Fine. I’m working on an extra credit assignment, okay?”

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