Alpha King Rejected Mate

33

I opened my eyes and shot him my own scathing look. "Shut up or I'll gag you."

Jordan fell silent, but I could still see he wanted to taunt me more. I wanted to get out of here before I did something stupid.

“Now can we kill him?” Kaden asked. “That would get rid of it for sure.”

“No. We need him alive, and we need a Sun Witch to help break the bond." I sighed and forced myself to calm down. "I don't know how we're going to swing this, but we'll get it done. We always do.”

Kaden looked at me, and I saw the acceptance there. He was willing to go along with this plan for now. I wondered how far his patience would run, and when it ran out, how catastrophic the ramifications would be. Jordan was the epitome of everything Kaden hated about the Leos. It wasn't completely about the mate bond, not entirely. There were older, deeper wounds that Kaden still had to heal. I just hoped we could find a viable alternative before Kaden got to the end of that particular rope. I didn't want to be there to see the fallout otherwise.

Breaking the mate bond seemed impossible, but I had to keep trying. We'd find a way—somehow.

By sunset, everyone was packed up and ready to go. It was amazing how quickly the Ophiuchus pack could get everything together and ready to leave. But they'd all had a lot of practice moving around in the last few months. They practically had it down to a science by now.

“It'll take about a full day of nonstop driving,” Stella told me as we helped load the bags into our car. Stella, Kaden, Larkin, and I were all in one van, along with Harper, Mira, and Aiden in the back with a couple more bags taking up the eighth seat. I shoved my bag into the tight space and looked at her.

“We have enough people to take short shifts,” I said.

Stella hummed in agreement and then narrowed her eyes at the arrangement. “Do you think we need to leave a space for seeing out of the back?”

“I don't think we can,” I said and sighed. “I guess we'll have to hope for the best.”

Kaden and Clayton dragged an unconscious Jordan between them toward one of the vans that had been converted into a makeshift prison cell. After the failed spell, I'd watched Kaden sink his teeth into Jordan's shoulder once more. He seemed to be enjoying the whole process a bit too much, but I understood it completely. Even now, Jordan's limbs were bound and two guards were accompanying him. Kaden wasn't taking any chances. Jordan was going to be our prisoner until we were done with him. Escape wasn't an option.

I rubbed at my stomach, where the mate bond still sat. It had faded, like someone had put layers of wool blankets between Jordan and me, which made it easier to ignore now. If I was focused on something else, it was almost as if it wasn't there at all.

We got on the road, and I stopped thinking about Jordan at all as I talked with Stella and Larkin while Kaden took the first shift at the wheel. We only stopped for gas and food, and we were in Toronto by sunset the next day.

Stella nudged me awake as we entered the city limits, and I stared out of the window, mouth open wide at the sight of the huge city. There were so many buildings of all different shapes and sizes, with millions of people all going about their daily business. The thought of coexisting among so many different humans was amazing to me. I'd never spent much time in big cities, and now we'd be here for the foreseeable future. It was also hard for me to imagine shifters living so close to humans too. I'd never heard of it being done, but if anyone was capable of it, it was the peace-keeping Libra pack.

When we arrived at the hotel that the Libra pack alpha owned, we all piled out of the van, and I looked up at the huge, shining building. “This is where we're staying?”

From the looks on everyone else's faces, they'd been expecting something rustic, like what we were used to. This looked like a five-star hotel, and I doubted I'd ever stay somewhere as nice again in my life.

Another car pulled up and Ethan got out and adjusted his suit, looking impeccable once more. He was smiling as he approached us. “Welcome,” he said, and Kaden dipped his head.

"Is this where we'll be staying?" Kaden asked, his voice skeptical.

“Yes, this is it. I own a lot of hotels in Toronto and other parts of Ontario. This one is finishing up renovations, so it hasn't officially reopened yet. There's tons of space available for your use, so feel free to spread out.”

“What do you do when you need to be a wolf?” Kaden asked. The dry tone in his voice seemed to be completely lost on Ethan.

“High Park is nearby for short nightly runs, although we always need to be cautious of humans spotting us, of course. For full moons, we have a large portion of the Algonquin Provincial Park reserved for our use. It's just a three-hour drive away.” He paused and grinned. “Sometimes humans go on wolf howling expeditions there to listen to us." I frowned. That sounded… odd, to say the least. “You let humans join you?”

"Not exactly. They get a presentation about wolves, and then they go a little into the forest to howl at us. They think real wolves are howling back at them, but it's actually just us. They're never any the wiser, and we get to entertain the tourists and teach them a bit about wolves along the way. They're quite popular too—last time we had over a thousand people attend.”