My mate has been dead for 10 years

Chapter Six: The Second Watcher

Ava didn't sleep that night either.

She lay awake replaying every second of it — the sharp lines of Elias's face in the moonlight, the rough honesty in his voice, the way his whole body had gone rigid at the sound of a single snapping branch. And beneath all of it, the image that wouldn't leave her alone no matter how many times she blinked it away: a second pair of eyes, gleaming in the dark behind him, watching them both.

She told Serena everything the next morning, the two of them huddled in the corner booth of the pack diner where the noise of the breakfast crowd gave them cover to speak freely.

"So he's real," Serena breathed, eyes wide over her coffee. "You actually talked to him."

"He's real. He's guarded, and he's scared, and somebody's still hunting him ten years later." Ava wrapped both hands around her own mug, more for something to hold onto than any real desire for coffee. "And somebody was watching us. I don't know who. I didn't get a good enough look."

"Could it have been your dad? He followed the shape into the trees earlier that night—"

"No. This was different. Colder, somehow. My dad's scared for Elias. This felt like someone scared of him. Or hunting him." Ava shook her head. "I need to find out who else knew he was still alive. My dad clearly did. Maybe still does. But he's not the only one keeping this quiet."

"What about the Alpha?" Serena's voice dropped lower. "He looked more shaken than anyone at the ceremony. And that order not to speak Elias's name — that wasn't grief, Ava. That was damage control."

Ava had been turning the same thought over for days, unable to fully commit to it, because Alpha Marcus Blackwood had been a fixture of her entire life — stern but fair, the man who'd sat at the head of every pack gathering since before she was born. The idea that he might have played some role in faking a man's death, in hunting down his own former Alpha heir for a decade, sat wrong in her stomach like spoiled food.

And yet.

"I need to see the official record of what happened to Elias," she said. "The story everyone tells — rogue attack, northern border. If it's a lie, there has to be a version of it written down somewhere. Something that doesn't quite match up."

"The pack archive," Serena said immediately. "I can get us back in. Marta trusts me."

"Marta got pale just talking about him."

"Marta also likes me, and people who like me tend to look the other way when I ask a favor." Serena's grin was sharp, determined. "Leave it to me."

Damien Cross found Ava on her way back from the diner, falling into step beside her with the easy, familiar confidence of someone who'd known her since childhood.

"Rumor has it you got yourself cornered by rogues," he said, studying the fading scratch along her jaw with a frown that looked almost like actual worry beneath the casual tone. "You could have called me. I'd have come."

"It happened fast," Ava said, which was true enough without being the whole truth. Damien was Beta's-second-in-command's son, sharp-eyed and quick-witted, and she'd known him long enough to know exactly how good he was at reading the things people didn't say out loud.

"You've been different since the ceremony," he said, more careful now, dropping the teasing edge from his voice. "Distracted. Disappearing at odd hours. Your dad's been walking around like the sky's about to fall." He paused, and when he spoke again, something rawer had crept into his tone. "I heard the name. Everyone did, whether we were supposed to or not. Elias Thorn."

Ava's steps faltered slightly. "You knew him?"

"Not well. I was fourteen when he — when it happened. But I remember him." Damien's jaw tightened. "Alpha heir. Sharp as anything, from what my dad used to say. Everyone assumed he'd take over from Marcus one day. And then he was just... gone. One week he's training with the enforcers, the next there's a funeral and nobody's allowed to ask questions."

"Did your dad ever say anything else about it? Anything strange?"

Damien studied her for a long moment, something complicated moving behind his eyes. "You really think he's alive, don't you. That's why you're asking."

Ava chose her words with care. "I think there's more to the story than a rogue attack."

"Ava." Damien stopped walking, turning to face her fully, and for a moment the careless charm dropped away entirely, leaving something raw and unguarded in its place. "Whatever you're digging into — be careful. I've known you a long time. I know that look on your face, and I know it means you're not going to stop no matter what anyone tells you. Just... don't do it alone. All right?"

There was something underneath the words that Ava didn't have the bandwidth to examine too closely — a warmth in the way Damien looked at her that had always been there, quietly, at the edges of their friendship, something she'd never quite let herself name. She didn't have room for it now, not with a dead man's eyes still burned into her memory, not with a bond in her chest that had already chosen someone else.

"I won't be alone," she said instead, gently. "I have Serena. And I have you, if you're offering."

Something flickered across Damien's face — pleasure, quickly masked — before he nodded. "I'm offering. Whatever you need."

She didn't tell him about Elias. Not yet. Some instinct she couldn't quite explain told her to keep that part close, guarded, the same way Elias himself had guarded it for ten long years.

That night, Ava returned to the cemetery, drawn by the same insistent pull that had never once let up since the ceremony.

He was there again, half-hidden in the shadow of an old oak near his own grave, and this time he didn't send her away.

"You came back," Elias said, something unreadable in his voice.

"You didn't run."

"I thought about it." A ghost of something almost like a smile crossed his face, gone as quickly as it appeared. "I've had ten years of practice at running. It's a hard habit to break."

Ava approached slowly, giving him every chance to bolt, but he held his ground, watching her with those same guarded gold eyes. Up close, in better light than their last meeting, she could see the toll the years had taken — a thin scar along his jaw, the wary tension that lived permanently in his shoulders, the eyes of a man who had learned never to fully relax.

"Someone was watching us," she said. "Last time. I saw eyes in the trees behind you."

Elias went very still. "You're certain."

"Yes."

He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand through his hair, and for a moment the exhaustion of an entire decade seemed to settle visibly over him. "Then they know I've made contact with you. That changes things faster than I wanted."

"Who are they, Elias?"

"I don't know exactly who watches for them. That's rather the point of them." His voice had gone flat, careful, the tone of a man choosing every word like he was defusing something live. "But I know who sent them, ten years ago. I know who wanted me gone."

Ava's heart pounded. "Tell me."

He looked at her for a long moment, gold eyes searching her face with an intensity that made her breath catch, and something in his expression softened, just slightly, into something that looked almost like grief.

"Not here," he said finally. "Not tonight. If they're already watching, this is the last place either of us should be standing still." He took a step closer, close enough now that she could feel the warmth radiating off him, close enough that the pull in her chest sang so loud it was almost painful. "There's an old cabin, two miles north of the border, past where you were attacked. Nobody's used it in years. Meet me there tomorrow night, after moonrise. I'll tell you everything."

"Why not tell me now?"

"Because right now," Elias said quietly, gold eyes flicking once more toward the dark tree line, "we're not alone, and I would very much like to keep you alive long enough to hear the whole story."

Then, before she could respond, his expression shifted — sharpened into something urgent and afraid, and he caught her hand in his, quick and sure, the first time they had ever touched. The bond exploded between them like a struck match, heat and certainty flooding up her arm, and for one dizzying second neither of them moved, both of them staring at their joined hands as though the universe had just rearranged itself.

"Go," he breathed, releasing her hand as quickly as he'd taken it. "Now. Please."

She went, because she trusted the raw fear in his voice more than she trusted her own desire to stay, and it wasn't until she was halfway back to the lodge that she let herself feel the lingering warmth of his hand against hers, the ghost of a touch that had just confirmed, beyond any doubt, that the bond between them was very much alive.

Behind her, deep in the cemetery, she heard the low growl of something large moving through the trees — and Elias's answering snarl, sharp and furious, before the night went silent once more.