Alpha Raphael’s Second Chance Mate

Chapter 14

NORA

I was on my back staring up at the ceiling with too many things running through my head at the same time.

Isolde walked through that door. The look she gave me,was direct and cold and decided before she even knew my name.

The twins were different. Wren and Caden moved through rooms like people who had never been told they were too much.

Nothing heavy around them.

Nothing cold.

Raphael was the complete opposite of both of them.

He did not even turn to look at me when Isolde brought up Iris. He just answered. Straight and easy.

Yes,soon.

Like I was a piece of furniture on those stairs. Like the mate bond was something he could switch off whenever it suited him.

A man who drags you out of a forest and then acts like you are an inconvenience. Funny how that works.

I was still deep in all of it when someone knocked on my door.

"Come in," I called, sitting up.

It was one of the pack members. She kept her eyes down when she spoke.

"The alpha is asking for you in his study, ma'am."

I looked at her for a second. "Now?"

"Yes ma'am."

I got up, straightened my clothes and followed her out.

---

His study was at the far end of the corridor on the upper floor. She stopped at the door and I knocked and his voice came through flat and direct.

"Come in."

I pushed the door open and walked in. The room was big and organised.

Papers spread across the desk in a way that said he actually used them. A window on the side letting in grey light. He was behind the desk and he looked up when I came in and gestured to the chair across from him without standing.

I sat down.

He looked at me for a moment without saying anything. His eyes were on me the way they always were. Flat. Caramel. Reading everything and giving nothing back. This extremely cold man with a face like that and eyes like those was genuinely wasted on being this impossible.

"The men in the forest," he said. "I am going to find out who sent them."

He said it the way he said most things. No warmth behind it. No drama. Just a statement of something that was already decided.

I looked back at him. "I already know who sent them."

He did not move. “Who are they?"

"Kael." I held his gaze when I said it. I wanted to see what his reaction would look like.

He did not react the way most people reacted when something big landed in front of them. He just gave one slow nod and something settled across his face that was quiet and very cold.

The kind of look that made me genuinely believe I was not talking to Kael right now.

The room was very still for a moment.

Then he pushed back slightly from the desk without taking his eyes off me. "Damon."

The door opened almost immediately. Damon stepped in and stopped near the entrance.

Raphael began speaking. His voice was low and specific and each word was a proof of who he is and what he is capable of.

“Find everything. Every detail. Every connection. Every name, attached to the order.”He told Damon sternly.

He wanted to know how far back it went and who else knew about it. He wanted it fast and he wanted it complete.

Damon listened without writing anything down. He did not need to. When Raphael finished Damon nodded once and left. The door closed behind him and the room went quiet again.

Raphael turned back to me.

He looked at me across that desk and for a second neither of us said anything. The silence between us was not uncomfortable exactly. It was just full. Heavy with everything that had been said.

"Your pup," he said. "Tell me about the child."

I pressed my lips together. Damn it. Every time that word came up it hit me harder and it also bring the memories of the past, that has become part of me.

"I do not know if it is a boy or a girl," I said. My voice came out steady but it cost me. "They took the baby before I could see him or her. I never got to hold my pup. Not even once." I paused. "I do not know the name either. I never got to choose one."

He stayed completely still while I was talking,his face did not change and he did not rush to fill the silence after I stopped talking. He just looked at me with those unreadable eyes.

"How old would the child be now," he said.

I calculated quickly in my head. "Close to two months. Maybe a little over."

He nodded slowly. His jaw was tight. Not angry at me. At something else entirely.

"You will get the child back," he said.

I looked at him. "You keep saying things like that."

"Because they are true," he said simply. No decoration on it. No promise wrapped in warmth. Just a fact stated plainly by someone who clearly did not say things he did not mean.

I wanted to believe it.

Part of me did believe it and that scared me more than not believing it. Trusting things felt dangerous. Trusting people felt more dangerous.

I had built a whole life on the back of trusting someone who was counting my trust like currency and spending it on things I never agreed to.

My wolf had been quiet through most of the conversation. She pushed at me gently when I went silent.

"He means it," she said.

"Stop," I told her.

"You know he does."

"I said stop."

She went quiet but she did not go far.

Raphael was still looking at me. He had not looked away once since I sat down and it was the kind of attention that was hard to receive from someone who moved through the world the way he did. Cold and closed and not given to giving people more than they needed from him.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me," he said.

I thought about it.

There was a whole history I had not touched yet.

The orphan part.

The years before Kael.

The part of my life that had nothing to do with anyone and everything to do with just surviving being alive in a pack that never fully claimed me.

"Not tonight," I said.

He held my gaze for one more second then looked back down at the papers on his desk. The conversation was done.

He had closed it the way he closed everything. Clean. Without ceremony.

I stood up and pushed the chair back.

"Nora."

I stopped.

His eyes were still on the papers. "Eat before you sleep. You skipped the evening meal."

I stared at the back of his head for a second. "How do you know that?"

"Damon told me."

I turned and walked out and pulled the door shut behind me and stood in the corridor for a moment not moving.

My wolf started immediately.

"He pays attention," she said.

"That is not what that is," I told her.

"Then what is it?"

I started walking and did not answer her because I did not have one and she knew it and she stayed quiet for the rest of the walk back to my room which was the most considerate thing she had done all week.