Fated to the Warrior Wolf (The Hunted Omegas #3)

40. Leigh

FORTY

Leigh

“ C an you believe those assholes knew about Gael’s engagement and kept it from us? We should put them all on an iceberg. Back to Alaska!” Brielle slammed the suite door behind the rest of the males with a little too much vigor and then slumped back on the chaise lounge closest to me, pale faced with fury.

“They’re loyal assholes,” I mumbled, not really invested in the conversation. I wanted to forget this day had ever happened.

Shay sat on the floor next to my plush chair, playing an invisible piano, with Olivia hovering attentively between, periodically checking one of our pulses or offering water or a snack.

Oli was a healer through and through. And while at any other time I’d be annoyed by someone hovering over me, I really, really didn’t want to be alone right now. I felt lonely enough being essentially rejected by my mate. The girls were keeping me afloat with their presence.

Even if I was worried about Bri using too much power and how not great she looked right at the moment, she’d waved off Shay’s offer of a power-up. I was pretty sure fury was keeping her afloat.

It was bad enough everything that had gone down with Gael, but I’d thought Brielle’s head was going to blow off when she’d found out that Kane also knew about the fiancée and hadn’t said anything. She’d kicked everyone with a penis out of the room and told Shay to put on, and I quote, “angry chick music.”

Shay had delivered, but frankly, I hadn’t made it to angry yet. I was numb with shock and, if anything, sad. I’d finally opened up and shared everything with Gael, and it hurt to know he’d been holding back something so big of his own.

A demanding knock at the door had Brielle growling, but Olivia shot her a stern look. “I’ll see who it is. You don’t move a muscle.”

I bit back a grin at the quiet order, even as I dreaded seeing who was at the door.

Olivia only opened it a crack, but I knew as soon as I saw her tightly pressed lips as she turned around and looked at me that it was Gael.

“Gael would like to speak with you, Leigh. Are you feeling up for it, or do you want me to tell him to come back in a few hours?”

Did I want to talk to him? No. But was it reasonable to shut him out without a conversation when he was the father of my child? No.

I had been replaying the moment in my head ever since he walked out of sight. He hadn’t looked happy to see her, and he’d apologized to me before anything else. There was a small part of me that was holding out hope that he wasn’t a dirty, lying cheater, but that part was small and fragile.

Whatever he had to say could shatter the last bit of faith I was hanging on to.

Or you could find out that he is the man you thought he was .

That kind of hope was dangerous, and I shut it off quickly. Time wasn’t going to help.

No, I had to woman up and hear him out. I owed that to Petal, even if I didn’t owe it to him.

I dragged in a deep breath through my nose and nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Not alone, you won’t.” Shay lifted her lip in a snarl, eyes flashing gold with her wolf.

I shook my head and smiled at her. Crazy, perfect bitch.

Olivia didn’t argue, just opened the door and waved him in.

Goddess, it hurt to look at him. He was the perfect specimen of a male, and that only pissed me off. I wanted to hate him, to rage at him, to pound on his chest and tell him exactly what I thought about him leading me on while he was engaged.

But I also wanted to climb his ripped body like an oak tree and drown him in kisses until he remembered what we were to each other. Brand him with my bite, so he sent away any other female who even thought she could touch what was between us.

There was everything between us, and that just made it worse. More confusing.

“Leigh.”

My name on his lips sent a shudder of feeling through me. Sadness, fury, and the overwhelming desire to bite him filled me. So, I said nothing—letting him come to me.

And come to me he did. He crossed the room with lightning speed and shocked the hell out of me when he slowly sank to his knees in front of my seat. His eyes never left mine, and my breath caught in my throat at the obvious humility.

He was no man with something to hide, and something inside me settled at the sight of this powerful alpha on his knees for me . Gael looked desperate, and in the months I’d known him, whether we were on the run or under attack—or even just going toe to toe in an argument—I’d never once seen him look like that.

“Gael.” I whispered his name, and his eyes fell closed like I’d punched him.

When they flickered back open, they were burning with intensity and the glow of his wolf. Everything inside me balanced on the edge as he spoke, leaning forward but not touching, not crossing that invisible boundary.

“I owe you a thousand apologies, but I’ll start with this one. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about Celeste. You should never have been blindsided, but I promise you with every fiber of my soul, she is and always has been a family obligation and nothing more to me. If you’ll let me, I’ll tell you everything. Anything you want to know, nothing held back.”

I sucked in a breath through my nose, hope trying to rear its ugly head. For once, though, my wolf was the one not letting him off the hook. He’d touched someone else. Someone who had laid claim to him, a claim that was ours .

She was alpha enough that she wanted revenge.

Retribution, she growled, surprising me with an actual word. Most of what I got from her was pure feeling, instinct. We coexisted mostly without conscious words, which meant she was dead serious now.

But what about Petal?

I dropped my hand to my belly, trying to sort through my very muddled feelings. Pregnancy hormones were not helping this situation, not even a little. Goddess, when had my life gotten so damn complicated? I just wanted to move, to get the restless, jangling energy out of me and clear my mind.

“Will you take a walk with me?” I blurted, hating the frantic sound of my voice. I wanted to be someone who was cool, calm, and collected—but that had never been me. I’d always been too much.

Maybe it was time to stop apologizing for that. I was who I was, and if we were perfect for each other, shouldn’t he be okay with that?

“Hell yes,” he answered without hesitation, and that tiny spark of hope in my chest flickered happily before I could squash it back out.

He stood with lithe grace and offered me his hand. I didn’t take it. My wolf was not letting him off the hook that easily.

“We’ll be right here if you need us when you get back,” Olivia surprised me by interjecting. Her chin was up, and the glare she was aiming at Gael was hard enough to peel paint.

“Thanks,” I murmured.

We walked in silence out of the room, past the cluster of agitated males, most of whom nodded at us. Dirge was the only one to step forward, holding up a palm to stop us.

“Do you need company?” he asked, ignoring the sudden tension in Gael’s shoulders as he zeroed in on me.

“No, I’m okay. Thank you, though, Dirge,” I said, leaning forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek before stepping past. Gael and I walked in silence as we wound through the castle.

Had it been barely an hour ago that we’d walked these same halls, twined together and talking about forever?

It felt like a year.

We stepped out a small door onto the rear grounds, and I gratefully sucked in a lungful of cool, damp air. My head instantly felt clearer.

“There’s a footpath this way,” Gael said, pointing out not a sidewalk, but a narrow trail cut right through the grass along the back of the castle. I nodded, and he headed that way.

We walked for a while, at least ten or fifteen minutes, before he started to talk.

“My family is from Spain,” he started, and I looked at him in surprise. The simplest detail, and I hadn’t known. I’d assumed he was from Romania, like Kane and the twins. “My father is the Alpha of Pack Espa?a, but he’s also the first cousin of the king, second in line to the throne and named grand duke.”

“Of the whole country ?” I asked, making no effort to hide my shock.

He nodded with a sad twist of his lips. “Yes, the whole country.”

“So when Celeste called you prince, she meant…”

“Literally. I’m third in line to the throne of Spain.”

“Holy hell,” I muttered, scrubbing the heel of my hand over my eyes. “So you left out a lot more than just the fiancée, then?”

“It never came up?” He cast me a pensive glance, but quickly fixed his eyes back on the castle grounds. “It’s a shitty excuse, but it’s true. I don’t live in that world anymore, and that’s by choice. I chose to leave Pack Espa?a, chose to become Kane’s head enforcer. Our life in Alaska was pretty damn close to perfect. I hate all the politics, and I have no desire to be treated differently because of who my family is.”

I blinked at the uncharacteristic word vomit, but didn’t interrupt.

“I never planned to come back, at least not for a few hundred years, when one of my cousins would likely already be on the throne. But Kane’s father dying accelerated that timeline. Significantly.”

There was so much to unpack, I wasn’t sure where to start. “You plan to abdicate your role in the royal family?”

“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation.

“Okay,” I said, pausing. “But what does any of that have to do with Celeste showing up here and you keeping her and your engagement a secret?”

“It’s related. Celeste was an arranged match. Her family is from Portugal. Her father is the Alpha of the only pack in the whole country and is very closely allied with my father. But it wasn’t always that way. There has been a treaty in place between the packs for over two hundred years that the eldest son of Pack Espa?a would wed the eldest daughter of Pack Belém. Things got tricky when my father was unable to have a son in a timely fashion. He and his fated mate had a daughter eventually, but they needed a son. Celeste had been waiting nearly a hundred fifty years for the promised son to marry.”

My wolf growled, my own chest rumbling with her vehement dislike of even him saying the other female’s name. “So that’s it? If you don’t marry her, you’re going to cause an international incident?”

He snorted. “Not… quite.”

“Wait, too many questions. You said, ‘his fated mate.’ Isn’t that your mom?”

“No, it’s not.”

The admission was quiet. Pained . And I could see why. His father had cheated on his fated mate to get a son? Or had he mated after he was born? That timeline didn’t add up if the sister was older than him.

“Just to have a son?” I asked to confirm.

“Just for me,” he said with a dark chuckle. “She was the fifth woman in the pack who volunteered to spend her heat with him in hopes of getting pregnant with a son, and when she gave birth to me, she was awarded land and received a minor title.”

“Holy shit.” I slapped a hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry, that just all seems like some long-ago old-world insanity. His mate was just… okay with this plan? How?”

“Not exactly. When her last heat was once again unproductive, he had her taken out of the country and kept under guard in a separate residence in France. After enough time apart, the bond weakened enough that his wolf was tempted by the scent of other females in heat.”

“Goddess, that’s awful.”

“He’s not a nice man.”

“No shit,” I mumbled, feeling a lot more empathetic for him. But not letting him off the hook. There were things you might keep from a mate—birthday surprises, the fact that you did the laundry, hell, that you’d gone and gotten a spontaneous tattoo if you were feeling wild—but being engaged and royal weren’t two of them.

He sighed, raking a palm over the back of his close-cropped hair. It wasn’t fair that he was so damn attractive, even when I was mad at him. Even the scar on his cheek made him look rugged and dangerous in the best possible way.

My wolf snarled, not appreciating that train of thought.

“So, you have an older sister, a stepmother locked away in a tower, and an arranged marriage. Do you also have a magical sword or a talking horse, by chance? Just so we’ve got everything out on the table.”

He laughed at that, shooting me an incredulous look. “Nope, no talking horses or magic swords. Unless you count?—”

“No, I do not count your dick, you dirty bird.” I smacked him on the arm, the little bit of contact sending an unwelcome zing of lust through me.

“Can’t hurt to ask.”

I snorted at that, but then another question struck me as we wound our way into the forest. “If she’s been waiting all this time to mate with you, why were you allowed to run off to Alaska without bonding first? I also want to know how your father—who’s going to live to be a thousand—isn’t going to get found out for what he is in the modern day as a royal.”

“The treaty states that both the son and daughter have until age fifty to find a fated mate. If no fated mate—with both mate marks and a sealed bite—is present when I turn fifty, I’m expected to fly back to Spain and go through the bonding ceremony with Celeste. I have fifteen years left of freedom before my family obligations kick in and the engagement contract is enforceable.”

A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t even know why, other than the fact that he sounded so utterly glum about it all .

“So you weren’t cheating on her with me,” I said, needing the clarification more than I wanted to admit.

“No, Goddess!” He stopped in his tracks, turning to face me. “I’m not that kind of man, Leigh, I promise you. My father… He’s not a good person. I want nothing to do with his power hunger or the way he uses others to meet his own ends. Celeste and I have never even really kissed, and she knows I’m not interested in bonding with her. Unfortunately, though, she’s as stuck as I am, and after so many years… I don’t like her, not at all , but I understand why she’s the way she is. Sometimes.”

Damn. I did not want to be sympathetic to the haughty, unlikeable bitch. But she had to be over a hundred and fifty, stuck under her father’s roof and unable to move on until Gael either mated or turned fifty. I’d be pretty pissed in her shoes too.

I still didn’t like her, though.

Hell naw.

Instead of befriending Gael, she’d played right into the politics. And the fact that she had any claim on my mate didn’t sit well with me. Something else he said struck me.

“Wait, rewind. What do you mean never really kissed? Spell that out for me.”

“It’s a long story and not one I’m in a hurry to relive.” His pained wince made me drop it, though one of these days, I was going to pry it out of him.

“So what now?” I asked, running my fingertips over a flowering bush we passed, seeking something tactile other than him, because if I grabbed him, I wasn’t going to let go. And I was determined to give myself time to process all the information he was giving me before jumping back into how things were.

“Now, we let our bond progress, and once we have marks, we’re free to have the full moon ceremony. I promise you it’s on the up and up, but I can give you a copy of the treaty if you’d like to read it for yourself.”

“I would like that, actually.”

He nodded. “Consider it done as soon as we’re back to the castle.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I should have told you before. I’m still sorry that I didn’t. I had honestly just hoped you’d never have to know about any of it. If we’d bonded first, I could have sent the paperwork home, and I’d have been released from the treaty obligation, and I could have abdicated before any of this ever came up.”

“You don’t see a problem with that, though? You were just going to upend your entire life, your family’s legacy, your royal title, and never say a word to me? We’re supposed to be mates, Gael. Mates don’t make decisions that huge without talking to each other. You’ve told me a whole lot about the history of all this, but none of it about you and why you chose to keep this from me. We spent all morning having sex. Did it ever occur to you during that time to tell me even a tiny bit about yourself?”

His scent was sour with regret. “No, it didn’t.”

The words were sharper than fangs, and my wolf didn’t like them any more than I did. “That’s not okay, Gael. If we’re going to be bonded, we need to be equals. Partners . You can’t run off and make life-altering decisions like that without even talking to me. That’s not… that’s not what being mates is about.”

“I’m so sorry, princess. I?—”

I flinched back at the nickname as sudden realization struck me.

Princess.

He’d been telling me all along, hadn’t he? Somehow, that made it so much worse.

“I think I’m ready to be done talking now, prince . I’m going to head back,” I said, keeping my chin lifted high .

“I’ll walk you,” he said, stepping forward, but I waved him off.

“I think I’d like some time alone to think. We’ve been moving really fast, but maybe we aren’t ready to move forward yet. A little time to process would be a good thing. For all three of us,” I added the last in a whisper, covering my belly with my hand. “You need to decide what you really want, Gael, and whether that’s just a mother for your child, or a real partner.”

His sorrow-laden scent was heavy in the air as I walked away, but I forced myself to keep going. I was done accepting less than I deserved, even if every single step I took away from him was killing me just a little bit more inside.