Fighting for her Alpha Mate

Chapter 9 - The Awakening

Selena

I left before the sun had fully risen.

The sky hadn’t decided yet what kind of day it wanted to be. The color was that bruised shade of gray-blue, like the sky itself was holding its breath.

My fingers trembled as I shut the door behind me, not daring to look back. Not because I didn’t want to. But because I knew if I did, I might want to stay longer.

Phil hadn’t stopped me too. And as I stepped out I saw a feeling of longing in his eyes.

The journal stayed pressed against my chest the whole drive home. It felt heavier now, like it had soaked up the weight of everything I couldn’t name. Letting go of it felt impossible, like if I loosened my grip for even a second, the truth would spill out and I wouldn’t know how to catch it.

The town was still asleep when I pulled into the driveway. The silence felt too wrong. There were no early joggers. No soft bark of the neighbor’s dog. Not even a birdsong. Just that eerie stillness that comes after something big has shifted in the air, but the world hasn’t caught up with it yet.

I opened the front door softly. The floorboards creaked in the hallway, same as they always did, but even that sound felt distant. I tiptoed inside like a stranger, like I was walking into a memory, not my own home.

Mikey was still asleep, curled beneath his superhero blanket with his hand tucked beneath his cheek. My chest squeezed the second I saw him. I kissed his forehead gently and pulled the blanket higher around his shoulders. He looked so small, so untouched by everything I had just gone through.

I crouched beside him and tucked the blanket higher around his shoulders as I brushed a curl from his forehead.

“I love you,” I whispered.

He didn’t move. He didn’t stir. But I said it again anyway. “I love you so much, Mickey.”

Because I needed something real to hold on to.

I slipped out of his room and shut the door behind me.

Back in my room, my hands trembled as I dropped the journal on to the bed. My hands were damp with sweat. My whole body felt like it had been set on fire and then left out in the cold. I kept replaying Phil’s voice in my head.

‘’You’re mine.’’

What the hell did that mean?

I sat down in front of the mirror. My reflection stared back at me like it really didn’t know me anymore. My skin was pale. My hair was a mess. My eyes looked tired. I touched my cheeks and do it felt warm.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

Then it happened again.

That heat.

It rose from deep in my chest like a second heartbeat. My fingertips tingled. My pulse slammed in my ears. The air shimmered. And then the lamp on my nightstand flickered. Once then twice.

And then it blew out.

I jumped back with a sharp gasp, knocking over the chair.

“No,” I whispered, scrambling up from the floor. “Not again.”

I grabbed the edge of the dresser like it could hold me still, like wood and mirror could make me human again. My breath came short. The walls pulsed. The shadows deepened.

“What the f**k is happening to me?” I whispered.

Later that morning, Dalia found me standing barefoot in the hallway, staring into nothing.

I didn’t know how long I’d been there like that.

“Selena?” she asked, stepping forward slowly. “Hey. What’s going on? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I didn’t answer. My voice felt too far away.

“Where were you last night?”

“I had to go see someone,” I said eventually. “Phil.”

Dalia raised an eyebrow. “The guy from the street?”

I nodded.

She stepped closer. “Is he dangerous?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But he knows something. About my grandmother. About all of this.”

Dalia folded her arms. “And what do you know?”

I looked down at my hands. They looked normal again. No heat. No spark. But the memory of that burn still lived under my skin like a warning.

“I know that I’m changing,” I said softly. “And I don’t know what that means for me. Or for Mikey.”

Dalia went quiet. Her expression softened.

Then she said the one thing I was afraid of hearing.

“Maybe it’s time you told him.”

I stared at her.

“Told who?” I asked.

Her eyes held mine.

“Phil.”

That night, the house was silent again.

Mikey was asleep. Dalia had already gone to bed.

I sat by the window, watching the street, my fingers still wrapped around the journal on my lap, my fingers tracing the edges of the cover like it was a map I hadn’t learned to read.

Then the lights flickered.

Just once. Then it happened again.

And I felt it before I saw it.

The air in the room shifted. The hair on my arms rose.

I turned to the doorway.

Phil was standing there.

He just stood there, inside the room. He didn’t knock and he didn’t speak..

He just looked at me like he had been standing there forever.

“Phil?” I said, my breath caught in my throat.

His eyes weren’t brown anymore.

They were silver.

And they were glowing.