Bonded To The Dysfunctional Alpha

Chapter 18: His Lap

Sophie’s POV

The pack was quiet by the time I found him.

Most of the lights in the house were off and the hallways had that particular stillness that only came late at night when everyone had finally stopped moving, and I followed the thin line of light coming from under his office door and stopped outside it and stood there for a moment deciding how I wanted to do this.

Not angry, I was done with angry, I had spent the whole day carrying it and it hadn’t gotten me anywhere and I was too tired to pick it back up again, so I pushed the door open quietly and went in and closed it behind me.

Tyler was at his desk, some papers in front of him, but he wasn’t really looking at them, just sitting there in the lamplight with his jaw resting in his hand and his eyes somewhere else entirely, and he looked up when I came in and watched me cross the room and sit down in the chair across from him without saying anything.

I didn’t come in with a list this time, no arguments lined up, no angle I was trying to work, I just sat there and looked at him and let the quiet settle for a moment before I spoke.

“I understand why you did it,” I said, and I meant it, every word of it, “Dylan pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and then he lunged at me in front of the elders and that was a line he should never have crossed, I’m not asking you to pretend it didn’t happen, I’m not asking you to apologize for protecting me or protecting your pack, I know why you made that call and I’m not here to argue with it.”

Tyler looked at me and said nothing, just listening, and I appreciated that more than I could explain right then.

“But he’s still my brother,” I said, and my voice came out quieter than I intended, “he’s all I have when it comes to family, whatever he has done, whatever impossible thing he has made himself, he is still mine and I cannot sleep knowing he is sitting in that cell, I have tried and I cannot do it, so I am asking you, quietly, simply, just let him go in the morning, that’s all I’m asking.”

Tyler looked at me for a long time after I finished, not the cold look he used when he was shutting something down, just looking, steady and unhurried, and then he reached across the desk and took my hand and held it and said, “I already planned to.”

I blinked, “what?”

“In the morning,” he said, “I was always going to release him in the morning, I just needed him to sit with it long enough for the lesson to land, Dylan needed to understand that walking onto my land and threatening my mate comes with a consequence, one night in a cell is that consequence, it was never going to be more than that.”

I sat there and looked at him and felt something loosen in my chest that had been pulled tight all day, the particular relief of a weight you have been carrying finally being put down, and I exhaled slowly and squeezed his hand before I let it go.

Then I got up from the chair and went around the desk and sat down in his lap.

I felt the sharp breath he pulled in the moment I settled there, quick and involuntary, and I hid the small satisfaction of it and leaned back slightly and looked at him, his face close now, those blue eyes slightly wide and doing that thing where they were trying very hard to be unreadable and not quite managing it.

“You like me,” I said simply but he said nothing.

“Tyler,” I said, and my voice was soft, not teasing, just honest, “you can stop fighting it, I can feel it every time you’re near me, I can see it even when you’re trying your hardest not to show it, and I am sitting here telling you that I am not going anywhere, I am not scared of your dysfunction, I am not confused about what I want, I know what I feel and I know what I have chosen so you can stop building walls against something that has already happened.”

He looked at me for a long moment and something moved across his face that he didn’t lock away fast enough this time, something open and a little undone underneath all the composure, and his hand came up slowly and settled on my waist, warm and certain, like it belonged there, like some part of him had stopped arguing about it even if the rest of him was still catching up.