Chapter 158: Cracks in his armor
Chapter 159
The air in the Alpha’s study was thick with the scent of old parchment, cedarwood, and the suffocating weight of expectations.
Alaric stood by the polished desk, his hands shoved deep into his pockets to hide the slight tremor in his fingers.
Every second he waited for his father felt like a slow crawl over broken glass. He adjusted the collar of his shirt, feeling an itch where a mate’s mark should have been—a mark that was conspicuously absent, hidden only by the assumption of an entire pack.
The silence in his head was what truly haunted him. His wolf was a restless, grieving shadow, pacing the confines of his mind with a low, mournful whine that hadn’t stopped for a year.
Since he turned eighteen, the void where a soul-bond should be had felt like a wound.
Now, with Selena having turned eighteen as well, that void had become a screaming silence.
Everyone—from the elders to the lowest-ranking omega—had whispered for years that the Alpha’s son and the golden twin, Selena, were a match ordained by the moon.
They had built a pedestal for a bond that simply didn’t exist. The heavy doors groaned open, and Alpha Silas stepped in, his presence alone enough to make the air in the room feel pressurized.
He moved inside, the floorboards barely creaking under the weight of a man who carried the strength of the entire Blood-Moon pack on his shoulders.
Alaric straightened his posture instinctively, his chin lifting as he felt the overwhelming aura of his father wash over him.
The air was sucked out by the sheer authority Silas radiated. "Alpha," Alaric said, his voice clipped and steady—a practiced mask of the soldier he had been trained to be.
It was a formal acknowledgment, a submission to the rank before the father, and he kept his gaze focused on the level of his father’s shoulder.
Silas didn’t respond immediately. He walked around the massive oak desk and sank into the leather chair that hissed under his weight.
He didn’t offer a seat. Instead, he leaned back, his fingers interlacing over his stomach, and began a slow scan of his son.
His eyes, sharp as a hawk’s and darkened by years of hard-won command, traveled from Alaric’s boots to his heaving chest, before finally lingering on the side of his neck.
The gaze was heavy, weighing the empty skin where a goddess blessed mark should have been proudly displayed.
Alaric felt his skin crawl. The heat of his father’s scrutiny felt like a brand on his bare neck, exposing the lie he was wearing like a second skin.
He felt the desperate urge to reach up and tug at his collar, but he forced his hands to remain at his sides, though his fingers curled into tight balls in his pockets.
A small, dry cough escaped Alaric’s throat as he shifted his weight, his eyes darting to a stack of reports on the desk just to avoid the piercing intensity of his father’s stare.
The silence in the room stretched until the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner sounded like a hammer against a nail.
"I believe you might have an idea as to why I summoned you here, Alaric," Silas finally broke the silence. He didn’t wait for an answer, his eyes never leaving the unmarred skin of Alaric’s throat.
"Alaric," Silas began, his voice dropping into a deeper, more ominous register. "The pack is restless. They are not blind, nor are they deaf to the whispers that follow you. They see you and Rohan’s daughter—Selena—always together. They see the strength of your union in public, the way you lead, the way she stands at your side. They have been told for years that the Moon had chosen her for you."
Silas leaned forward, the light from the window catching the silver in his beard. "But the ceremony hasn’t been mentioned. The elders are growing impatient; they are asking when the official mating will be announced to the Lunar Council. They expect a celebration, a confirmation that the power of this pack is rooted in a fated bond."
Alaric felt a cold, prickling sweat break out along his spine, the moisture turning icy against his skin. ’Official mating.’ The words didn’t sound like a celebration; they felt like a noose tightening around his throat, cutting off his ability to scream the truth.
If the pack knew—if they realized that he was heading into his second year without a true mate and that Selena was just a girl he was ’making work’ to satisfy a prophecy that had failed to manifest—the fallout would be catastrophic.
An Alpha’s line was supposed to be blessed, a direct conduit to the Moon Goddess’s will. To be a ’choice’ rather than a "mate" made the lineage feel shallow tree that would snap under the first sign of a storm.
"Selena just turned eighteen, Father," Alaric’s voice sounded hollow and thin to his own ears. He forced a level of confidence into his tone that he didn’t feel, trying to mimic the Alpha’s own gravity.
"We wanted to ensure the transition was smooth. She has only just come into her own as a woman of the pack. The bond is... private. We are navigating it in our own way."
It was a lie that tasted like ash on his tongue, bitter and dry. In reality, every time he touched Selena, every time he pulled her close for the benefit of an audience, he felt nothing.
There was no shattering of the soul when their skin met, no glow that illuminated the dark corners of his mind, no primal roar of recognition from his wolf.
Inside, his wolf was mournful or sometimes worse, silent. He could feel the beast pacing behind his ribs, a restless, grieving shadow that turned away whenever Selena was near.
The wolf didn’t want the golden girl; it wanted the missing half of its soul, a ghost that Alaric was beginning to fear would never appear.
"Private?" Silas repeated, the word coming out with a sharp, dangerous hiss. He stood up, the chair skidding back against the floorboards with a screech that made Alaric flinch.
"There is no ’private’ for an Alpha, Alaric. You are the pack’s future. Your blood is their blood. If the Moon has blessed this union, the pack must feel that blessing. They need to see the mark. They need to know that their future Alpha isn’t standing on a foundation of sand."
Silas walked to the window, turning his back on his son, his silhouette framed by the dying light of the afternoon.
"A leader without a true Luna is a leader with a target on his back. Other packs smell weakness like blood in the water. If Selena is the one, prove it. If she isn’t..." He trailed off, the implication hanging in the air like a death sentence.
Alaric stared at his father’s back. His wolf let out a whine of frustration, a sound of pure agony that only Alaric could hear.
He wasn’t just lying to his father or the pack; he was starving himself, pretending that a flickering candle was a wildfire while the true mate he was destined for was somewhere out there, perhaps even now finding someone else, while he was tied to a beautiful lie.
"I understand, Alpha," Alaric whispered, the word ’Alpha’ feeling heavier than ’Father.’ He turned to leave, his boots heavy on the rug, knowing that every step he took back toward Selena was a step further away from the truth his wolf was dying to find.
He was an Alpha in waiting, built on a foundation of secrets and high expectations, praying to a Goddess who seemed to have turned her back on him that no one would notice the cracks in his armor.