Bonded To The Dysfunctional Alpha

Chapter 19: His release.

Tyler’s POV

The morning was cool and quiet, most of the pack not yet fully moving, and I wanted it done early and clean with no audience beyond the people who needed to be there, Brandon on my left, two senior pack members standing slightly back, and Dylan coming through the door still carrying last night in his face, the stiffness of someone who had not slept well and was not going to admit it.

He stopped in front of me and straightened up and looked at me with those same eyes from yesterday, hard and measuring, and I looked back at him and kept everything in my expression completely level.

“You’re free to go,” I said, “but before you walk out of this pack I want you to hear something clearly, Sophie stays, the mate bond stands, and those two things are not up for discussion today or any other day, they are simply what is, and if you come back to this land again it had better be with respect in your hands because if it isn’t, I promise you the next time you leave here it will not be as comfortable as this morning.”

Dylan held my gaze for a long moment and said nothing, and I watched everything he wanted to say move through his face without finding a way out, the pride and the anger and the frustration all sitting there contained behind a jaw he was keeping deliberately tight, and then he looked past me briefly, just once, like he was looking for Sophie, and then he looked back at me and turned and walked toward the door.

Ryan was waiting just outside and fell into step beside him without a word, and I watched them cross the yard and get into the car and pull out through the pack gates and disappear down the road, and the pack around me seemed to exhale all at once, a quiet collective settling, like a pressure that had been building for days had finally found somewhere to go.

Brandon came to stand beside me, “you handled that well Alpha.”

I said nothing, just watched the empty road for a moment longer and then turned and went back inside.

Sophie found me in the hallway almost immediately, coming toward me with that look that meant she had things to say and had been waiting for the right moment to say them, and I could see the relief on her face from Dylan leaving sitting alongside everything else she was carrying, and I wanted to stop and give her the conversation she deserved, I genuinely did.

“Tyler,” she started.

“I can’t right now,” I said, and I kept my voice gentle because she hadn’t done anything wrong, “pack matters, it’s urgent, I’ll find you later.”

She looked at me for a second, the words she had prepared sitting behind her eyes unused, and then she nodded slowly and stepped back and I kept moving because if I stopped and looked at her properly I was going to stand there and forget about everything else and I couldn’t afford that this morning.

Brandon closed the office door behind us and I was already moving toward the desk when he spoke.

“Naomi arrives tomorrow,” he said, “at the pack house.”

I stopped moving and turned around slowly.

“Whose order,” I said.

Brandon’s expression hardened slowly, “the elders confirmed it this morning Alpha, after the meeting yesterday they took the decision forward and….”

“No,” I said.

“Alpha if you’ll just let me….”

“I said no Brandon,” and my voice came out flat and final, not raised, not aggressive, just completely without room for negotiation, “Naomi does not set foot in this pack house, I don’t care what the elders confirmed, I don’t care what was decided while I was dealing with Dylan, that decision does not stand.”

“The elders have already…..”

“Then we are having a meeting,” I said, moving to the desk and pulling open the drawer, “today, this morning, gather every elder, every single one, because I am not granting my ex an approval to come to my pack, not through the elders, not through you, not through anyone, it is not happening.”

“Tyler,” Brandon said, and the use of my name instead of Alpha told me he was speaking to me as something closer to a friend right now than a Beta, “I understand, believe me I understand better than anyone what Naomi being here would mean for you, but the elders made this call and pushing back on it the way you’re pushing back is going to raise questions you don’t want raised, questions about why, questions about what happened between the two of you, questions that are going to drag everything back up to the surface and….”

“Gather the elders Brandon,” I said, and I looked at him steadily until he understood that this conversation was done, “today.”

He held my gaze for a moment and then exhaled slowly and nodded and reached for his phone, and I turned to the window and stood there and pressed my hand flat against the frame and stared at the yard below and told myself to breathe evenly.

Naomi.

After everything, after all of it, she was going to walk back into this pack like the past had not happened, like she had not left, like she had not said what she said on her way out, and I was supposed to stand here and accept it because the elders thought she was useful.