Denied by Destiny: Trapped in the Shadows of the Mate Bond

- Jace -

This place feels different to me now.

I feel less connected with it, which is odd because I hadn't ever taken on the alpha title from Mum, and neither has Josie yet.

Technically nothing has changed, I meant the same to the Clear Waters pack as I did a few days ago...but now as the alpha of the Amber Desert pack, being here...there is no doubt in my mind that I have made thre right decision.

That I wasn't meant to rule this place, Josie was.

I'm going to miss these damn views though.

Even in the darkness of night time, as the moonlight cascades upon the gentle sea waters ahead...offering a fluorescent beam for miles, you can still make out just how beautiful it was here.

This place truly was picturesque. An unmatched landscape that I'll need to go out of my way to find in the Amber Desert lands to try and compete with.

Try, and fail.

"Congratulations, you are a marked man!" Jaxon pulls my eyes away from the gentle waters.

"That I am." I smile back at my brother who slowly approaches me, it would seem he also was struggling with sleep at the moment.

I don't think I will be able to rest properly until our auntie is laid to rest and Medea

is caught. No matter how long it takes I will find her, I will kill her.

"You did right not to wait." Jaxon claps me on the back, pure happiness for me buzzing through the triplet bond. I wish I could see him with a mate, with a child

on the way.

"Yeah well, we've already wasted too much time, I wasn't going to wait for a ceremony. Also, the pack needed to know from the outset who was in control, and that is now Cleo and I."

That sensation of happiness fizzles out and is replaced with a level of sadness. He crouches down, collecting a stone from the ground only to throw it into the waters below.

"You're just so far away." He sighs out.

"I've been far away for a year Jaxon, at least you know where I am now."

"That's true, just... things keep changing. First Josie, now you."

"Hmmm." He was right, things were changing...things had changed.

"Now a baby..." He blows his cheeks out, yes...the biggest change of all. "A baby."

"You are going to be a father."

"Fuck, I'm going to be a father." I chuckle out, I was still trying to get my head around that, I need to let that sink in a little longer.

There was a time I had given up on the prospect of having children myself.

Something I was certain I wanted at the time but now I know my first child is already cooking, I can't believe how excited I am.

"Can't sleep?" Jaxon asks, looking behind to the area he had just come from.

"Might as well push through, I'll catch up tomorrow. Ezra's not in the right mindset to keep on track of the borders, and I didn't want to put Mum on that tonight." I respond.

Alora was part of this pack for a long time, they...like her family were in mourning.

She was their alpha's sister...she was their beta.

Tonight a soft border cover was being run, and I didn't mind being available to watch the borders whilst here.

Fuck, I'm alive because I dodged that bullet.

Sleep deprivation was the last thing on my mind right now.

The rest of the night is quiet, Jaxon and I remaining on border patrol meeting up again every hour to check in on one another.

Breaking up that thinking time with conversation when coffee wasn't available out here.

By the time the next shift arrives it is already 6am. We both return to the

alpha house to find only Callie up,noveldrama

sitting by herself in the living

room...looking as if she hadn't

gotten any sleep.

en

"If you didn't sleep, you should have joined me on the borders." I move next to

her, my body melting into the comfort of the sofa.

"Not only am I imposing, now you trust me to watch the borders?" She tuts back at

me, clearly still reeling from her parent's last night.

"Callie, like Mum said, you are part of the family now."

"You say that now." She groans out to me.

"I'll say that always."

"You might want to check in on Cleo before you invite me over for the holidays." "Why?"

"Why? You are kidding right?" She turns to face me, her eyebrows raised.

"Cleo is fine, you don't need to worry

about her. She just needs time to let the last couple of days sink in that's all. Both of us do. I don't even exactly know the size of what I have just taken on." Something else l needed to add on to my list of things todo upon our return.