Chapter 139: Go back to your mate

Alyssa felt like she had been punhced in the stomach.

She stood frozen on the driveway, staring at the blonde woman as if looking at a ghostly phantom back from the dead.

She didn’t need anyone to introduce her. She knew it was Elvira. She had seen the portrait in the basement, and Elvira’s delicate features had been permanently branded into her memory ever since.

But didn’t everyone say she was dead? That Dorian had shoved her and her newborn over a cliff years ago? How was she standing here, breathing? What in the hell was happening?

Beside her, Pandora reached out nervously, trying to take her hand and guide her away. "Alyssa, come inside with me. You don’t need to see this..."

But Alyssa violently wrenched her arm away. Her eyes followed Elvira as she sprinted across the driveway and threw herself into Dorian’s arms. She was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She clung to Dorian as if he were a lifeline, as if letting go would kill her.

And Dorian? He just stood there, paralyzed. His handsome face was carved into a blend of shock, disbelief, denial, and a whole other emotion Alyssa couldn’t name.

She waited for him to tear himself away, to shove Elvira back and demand how a dead woman was standing on his driveway. She waited for him to beckon her to his side the way he always did.

But to her horror, he lifted his arms and embraced Elvira.

He held her tightly. One hand gripped her waist, while the other slid deep into her blonde hair, pressing her head into his chest.

Alyssa watched her husband, the very man who had confessed his eternal devotion into her ear while making love to her just hours ago, hold another woman in his arms.

It shouldn’t have hurt this much. But it did. It hurt like hell. Her heart felt as if it were being ripped open. Seeing the man she loved with all her soul hold his first true mate like she still meant the entire world to him broke her completely. Her hands began to tremble, and tears burned behind her eyes.

She turned suddenly and walked away without uttering a single word, ignoring both Pandora and Henna as they called out her name behind her.

She forced her spine into a rigid line, squared her shoulders, and held her chin high all the way up the stairs to the bedroom.

But the second the door clicked shut, her composure shattered. She collapsed onto her knees on the cold floor and wept bitterly into her hands.

Back in the driveway, Dorian felt as though he were being controlled.

When Elvira had thrown herself into his arms, he hadn’t been prepared for the sudden jolt of the mate bond flaring to life across his skin.

Against his will, his instincts had forced him to wrap his arms around her, holding her tight as his mind tried to make sense of the impossibility. He kept touching her hair, her back, trying to convince himself that he was actually feeling the sparks of the mate bond.

Even after all these years, the bond was still alive between them. But how? He had felt it shatter the day she died. How was she alive? Why had he never sensed her?

Then, through the haze of shock, his eyes snapped over Elvira’s shoulder and landed on Alyssa.

He watched her turn her back on him, walking away in dead silence while ignoring Pandora’s desperate calls. That snapped his mind back into reality.

He grabbed Elvira’s shoulders and pushed her away, taking a step backward. His eyes were bloodshot, staring at her as if she were a ghost.

He snapped his head toward his beta and gamma, who stood stiffly beside Anthony.

Elvira took a small step toward him, her hands reaching out. "Dorian... it’s me..."

"Stay back, Elvira," he warned, baring his fangs instinctively. "How are you still alive? You died! I watched you die!"

He trailed off, his gaze darting between the grim faces of everyone standing around. He had never felt this confused and flustered in his entire life.

"Alpha, please, calm yourself," Jake said gently, stepping forward with his hands held out. "We are just as stunned as you are. We don’t know how..."

Dorian cut him off with a raised hand, his jaw clenched tight. He needed to think. Inside his head, it was pure chaos.

Shadow was thrashing violently, agitated and hopelessly pulled toward the sparks of the mate bond with Elvira, while Soren was raging with fury that Dorian held another woman while Alyssa watched.

He had to get to Alyssa. He had to apologize, to explain. What kind of fool was he? Hugging his first love right in front of his wife?

"I can’t deal with this right now," he muttered, backing away. "I have to find my wife."

"Wife?" Elvira repeated, her voice breaking as a look of devastation washed over her face. "Dorian... you’re... you’re married?"

Dorian took another step away from her. The urge to pull her back into his arms and soothe her tears was fighting him, a cruel side effect of the mate bond. But he forced his body into obedience. He could not, would not, inflict another second of pain on Alyssa.

He tore his gaze away from her face and looked straight at Jake.

"Take her to my study and wait with her," he ordered sharply. "I want answers, and I want you three in that room when I get them. But I am finding my wife first."

Casting one last strained glance at Elvira, he turned and strode into the mansiom, leaving a deafening silence behind.

He took the stairs two at a time, following the sweet scent of lavender to the bedroom. To his immense relief, the door wasn’t locked.

He stopped at the threshold, a sudden wave of terror gripping his heart. How would he face her after what he had just done?

He spotted her standing near the window, staring quietly into the distance. She had taken off his shirt and shorts, and changed into a pretty sundress. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her teddy bear, her body swaying gently from side to side in a self-soothing motion.

"Alyssa?" he called out softly.

She turned her head slowly, her blue eyes locking onto his from across the room. She had been crying; he could see the reddened swelling around her eyes and the dampness on her cheeks.

But the gaze she leveled at him wasn’t filled with the warmth he was used to. It was hollow; distant and cold.

She turned her face back toward the window without saying a word.

Dorian stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him. His hand fiddled restlessly. He didn’t even know where to begin.

"My love," he ventured out, taking cautious steps toward her. "What happened out there was a mistake..."

"Do you still love her?" she asked suddenly, her voice eerie in its quiet composure.

Dorian stopped dead in his tracks. "What? No! I don’t love her. You are the only woman I love. You know that."

"Do I?" she questioned quietly, not bothering to look back at him. "Because it certainly didn’t look that way with how tightly you held her."

"Alyssa, baby, please don’t do this to me," he pleaded, his composure shattering as he closed the remaining distance between them. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, burying his face into her hair. "Don’t push me away. I didn’t mean to hold her. It was the mate bond."

The second the words left his mouth, Alyssa stiffened. "The mate bond?" she asked.

Fuck! Dorian cursed in his head. He shouldn’t have said that. He had just made everything worse.

"Yes," he admitted rasply, squeezing her tightly. "I felt the sparks when she touched me. But it doesn’t mean anything to me, I swear it. I’m so sorry I hugged her. I was in shock... I wasn’t thinking straight."

He dropped his head lower, pressing a desperate kiss to her shoulder. "Please, baby, I’m so sorry."

Alyssa wanted to let it go. Her heart screamed at her that it was just a hug, that it shouldn’t mean anything. But her mind refused to stop replaying the image of his hands wrapping around Elvira; the same hands that had been worshipping her own body just hours before.

A wave of jealousy flooded her chest, completely clouding her rational mind with cold fury.

"Take your hands off me, and go back to your mate," she muttered.