The Alpha’s Fatal Devotion

Chapter2

Adrian

For several seconds, I didn’t move.

Neither did she.

The cemetery had gone quiet in the way places did after something terrible happened. Not silent. People were still talking near the entrance, footsteps moved through the wet grass, and somewhere behind us, one of my warriors was giving orders.

But my attention stayed on the woman standing a few feet away.

Lena.

My wolf had gone completely still.

Then—

Mate.

The word came with such certainty that something inside me tightened.

I pushed it aside.

Not now.

There were too many unanswered questions.

Elias Rowan was dead.

He had been dead before the coffin opened. I knew that much.

But what had happened to his body afterward?

I looked toward where he had fallen.

Two of my men were already securing the area around him.

“Alpha.”

I turned.

One of the warriors approached, stopping a few feet away.

“We’ve cleared most of the cemetery. The humans are being kept near the entrance while we sort out what happened.”

“Keep them there for now.”

He nodded.

“And Elias?”

“Don’t let anyone near him.”

“Understood.”

He turned to leave.

“Amira,” I said.

He stopped.

“The woman who was with Lena. Has anyone found her?”

“Not yet.”

Lena heard that.

Her head lifted.

“My aunt wouldn’t just leave.”

I looked at her.

“Did she say anything before the attack?”

Lena hesitated.

“She was acting strange.”

“How?”

“She kept looking toward the trees.”

I waited.

“She wouldn’t tell me why. She just kept telling me to stay close to her.”

That was new information.

I glanced toward the trees.

“Did she seem afraid?”

“Yes.”

Lena wrapped her arms around herself.

“I asked her if she was expecting someone. She said no.”

“And you believed her?”

“No.”

There was something almost dry about the answer despite everything that had happened.

I looked back toward the cemetery.

Amira had known something.

At least, that was what Lena’s account suggested.

And if she had known something was coming, the question became what she’d known, and why she’d brought Lena here anyway.

My attention shifted to the pendant around Lena’s neck.

I’d seen that symbol before.

Not recently.

Years ago.

A photograph in my father’s study.

I had been fourteen. Old enough to know that my father hated being questioned, young enough not to understand why.

I’d found the photograph in a drawer I wasn’t supposed to open.

There had been several people in it. Men standing in front of an old stone building. At the center was a symbol almost identical to the one hanging around Lena’s neck.

I’d asked what it meant.

My father had taken the photograph from my hand.

His expression had changed.

Not anger.

Something colder.

“Forget you saw this.”

I had.

Or thought I had.

Until tonight.

Lena caught me looking at the pendant.

“You recognize it.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I’ve seen the symbol before.”

“Where?”

“An old photograph.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“No.”

That was the truth.

At least, the only truth I had.

She looked down at the pendant, her fingers moving over the silver.

“My aunt said it belonged to my mother.”

I looked at her.

“My parents died when I was a baby,” she added.

There was no bitterness in her voice.

Just a quiet acceptance of something she’d grown up with.

I didn’t ask how.

Something told me she’d been asked that question enough times already.

Instead, I looked at the pendant again.

My wolf stirred.

Mate.

I ignored him.

He didn’t care.

The bond wasn’t something I could reason away. It wasn’t attraction. It wasn’t curiosity.

It was recognition.

Absolute and immediate.

My wolf had known her before I had.

And that should have been impossible.

I’d spent years believing that if I ever met my mate, I’d know exactly what to do.

Now that it had happened, all I could think about was how badly timed it was.

I had a dead council member in a coffin, a missing woman, a supernatural attack in front of witnesses, and a symbol I hadn’t seen since I was a boy.

And my wolf had chosen tonight to find his mate.

I looked away from Lena.

Not because I wanted to.

Because I needed to.

A car door slammed somewhere behind us.

Lena flinched.

Before I could think about it, I had stepped between her and the sound.

I stopped myself.

One of my warriors was loading equipment into a vehicle.

Nothing was wrong.

Lena looked past my shoulder.

Then at me.

“You do that a lot?”

“What?”

“Get in front of me.”

I glanced at where I’d positioned myself.

“I wasn’t thinking.”

She looked at me for a second, then turned back toward the cemetery.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then she looked at me again.

“You never told me your name.”

She was right.

We’d been standing here long enough for her to know what I was capable of, what rank I held, and probably several things she hadn’t asked about.

She didn’t know my name.

“Adrian.”

I paused.

“Blackthorne.”

Her expression shifted slightly.

Not recognition.

Just the normal reaction to being given a full name.

“Adrian Blackthorne.”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

Then she looked away.

Nothing in her face told me she knew what that name meant.

Good.

I wasn’t ready to explain it.

Not when I couldn’t explain half of what had happened myself.

A warrior approached from the direction of the parking area.

“Alpha.”

I turned.

“We found Amira’s vehicle.”

Lena immediately looked at him.

“Where?”

He pointed toward the far side of the parking lot.

Lena started walking.

I followed.

The car was a dark sedan.

She stopped beside it.

“My aunt’s.”

She opened the driver’s door.

The inside was untouched.

A handbag sat on the passenger seat.

Lena stared at it.

“She wouldn’t leave without this.”

I looked through the vehicle without touching anything.

No broken glass.

No blood.

No obvious signs of a struggle.

The rain had done its best to erase the ground around the car.

There were too many footprints now to make sense of any of them.

Lena leaned into the car and reached for the bag.

Something underneath the driver’s seat caught her attention.

She crouched.

Then pulled out an envelope.

She stared at it.

I looked away.

There was no reason for me to read something addressed to her.

Whatever Amira had left behind was hers.

Lena turned the envelope over once.

Then again.

Her fingers tightened around the edges.

I glanced at her.

She looked different.

Not frightened.

Not exactly.

More like someone who had just found a door where there hadn’t been one before.

“What is it?”

She didn’t answer.

Her eyes stayed on the envelope.

I didn’t press.

After everything that had happened tonight, I had learned one thing about Lena.

She wasn’t going to break simply because the world had given her another reason to.

She would look at the thing in front of her.

She would decide what to do with it.

Even if she was terrified.

I understood that better than I wanted to.

Behind us, someone called my name.

I turned.

One of my warriors was standing near the cemetery, waiting for me.

I looked back at Lena.

She was still holding the envelope.

Whatever was written inside it had nothing to do with me.

At least, that was what I told myself.

I walked away.

And behind me, I heard the faint sound of the envelope being opened.

I stopped.

I didn’t turn around.

I already knew I wasn’t going to like what she found.