Page 37 of The Alpha’s Chosen Mate

I link my arm through hers, leading her back to the kitchen so we can help Brad and Harrison clean up. “You’re going to be an amazing mom. I—”

Stephanie stops and holds her hand up to silence me. I frown. Even with all my training, my senses are still less developed compared to hers, so I’m not sure what she’s hearing. She jerks her head towards the kitchen, then presses her finger to her lips, commanding me to stay quiet. “They’re talking about you,” she mindlinks me.

I widen my eyes and lean closer, listening to the guys talking around the corner in the kitchen.

“Emily’s birthday is soon, right?” Brad asks.

“Fifteen days.” The countdown to my birthday leaves Harrison’s mouth way too quickly. He seems to realize it too, because he adds, “Not that I’m counting,” trying but failing to gloss over his eager response.

“Do you—” Brad lowers his voice. “Do you think she’s your mate?”

“I do.”

I cover my mouth so I don’t gasp and give us away.

He can’t really mean that. Can he? It’s everything I’ve been hoping to hear, yet instead of soothing my fears about how I’ll feel when this inevitably ends, it only raises more questions. Why hasn’t he said this to me? Why did I have to hear it by eavesdropping on him and his best friend? Is he lying? Does he know I’m listening and is only saying what he thinks I want to hear to protect me?

I curl my hand into a fist. Of course, that’s it. He’s always trying to protect me. He protected me from my alpha by asking his dad to bring me into their pack. Even when we were kids, when my imagination ran too wild, he protected me from the troll under the bridge.

Well, no more. I can take it. I can take the truth, even if it’s a truth I don’t want to hear. It may end our relationship sooner than I anticipated, but I don’t care. I’d rather have the truth than drag this out because of a lie.

“Brad?” Stephanie calls his name, breaking the silence that’s been haunting my apartment since Harrison’s confession.

Brad immediately appears in the kitchen archway, frown lines marring his forehead. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby? Are you okay?”

“I’m just tired.” She exaggerates a yawn and leans into Brad’s chest.

“Looks like it’s bedtime for us too,” Brad says with a chuckle, rubbing Stephanie’s back.

I swallow against the tightening of my throat, panic setting in as they walk to the door.

“Talk to him,” Stephanie mindlinks me, as if she can sense my troubled, spiraling thoughts. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

My best friend knows me too well. But it’s too late. I’ve already jumped.

After they’re gone, Harrison and I clean the kitchen in silence. The quiet is usually comfortable, but tonight, it’s fraught with tension and the unspoken. For me, at least. If Harrison notices or feels the same way, he doesn’t let on.

“I heard you talking to Brad,” I finally blurt as he takes a seat on my couch. “Did you mean what you said? About thinking we’re mates?” The questions tumble out of me.

Harrison freezes, staring at me with no emotion, no visible reaction or confirmation.

“Because I don’t think my heart can take it if it’s a lie, Harrison.” I sound pathetic, I’m sure, but I didn’t realize how much I wanted him to want me as his mate until I heard him speaking to Brad. I thought knowing he desired me physically was enough, that I could live with that and be okay with that for as long as I had him in my life. But now that the words are out in the open and planted in my brain, I ache for them to be true. For him to be as in love with me as I am with him. “I’ve spent too much of my life feeling unwanted and unvalued. So if you’re lying, I need to know now so I can let you go and protect myself.”

“Shit.” His head drops into his hands, and Goddess help me, my heart drops into my feet.

“Oh.” The word is nothing more than a whimper. The disappointment is too heavy for me to say anything else.

I stare at my feet, unsure what to do. I can’t run like my body is telling me to, because this is my apartment.

“Em.”

I wince at the nickname, the one he gave me, the one no one but him uses. “I can’t—”

“Look at me.”

His voice carries a dominant edge. It’s not a command—he can’t command me anyway since he’s not the alpha yet. It’s just power. Pure, protective, possessive power that has my wolf rolling around on her back with the safety it promises and has my pussy clenching with the raw sensuality it adds to his tone.

I can’t resist it. I can’t resist him, try as I might. Even without it being a true command, even knowing that this may be the end of us, my eyes betray me and lift to meet his.