Chapter 04

QUADE

"Don't you just hate it when the parents fight?" Enzo mocked, eyes twinkling in amusement, "those two seriously need to fuck already. There's not enough holy water in the world to cleanse my eyes after watching them."

Zen rolled his eyes. They were opposites in every way, looks and personality. It was something I barely noticed before but nowadays, strange things caught my attention. Like the way Enzo had dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and a fucking pretty boy face with a mauled chest — thanks to me — and Zen with his dark eyes that were close to obsidian and his jet black hair. The brains and the brawn. It was obvious which was which.

"Shut the fuck up," I warned him, "I may not hold my title anymore but that doesn't mean I can't decapitate you if I wanted."

"All that sexual frustration has you grumpy as hell," Enzo shook his head, laying his back against the headboard and placing his hands behind his head.

Zen sat on one of the two vintage chairs in the room and I sat on the other, a small, round cherry wood coffee table between us with an antique vase as a centerpiece, "Are you going to tell her the truth?" Zen rose a brow in question. He was fucking pushing my limits.

"I think I did enough sharing for the next bloody century so piss off," I gritted, clenching the velvet hand rests, "it's not like she believes me. If I tell her the truth about that day she'd definitely not believe me."

"You've never given her much to believe so you can't blame her if she doesn't believe you," if Zen pointed another one of my plenty flaws he would be developing the power of flight really soon.

"That's the least of my fucking problems right now," I growled in frustration. I was much more agitated these days. It wasn't just because of everything that happened with my father. My body was exhausted from absorbing all the fucking emotional pain Sydney kept projecting onto me. I found myself watching her dreams — or nightmares — with her every night.

I tried my best not to pay attention to her thoughts, to give her her needed privacy but she made it so fucking arduous when she was practically shouting her thoughts at me. They were giving me a headache and with every thought, a sharp pain struck every chord in my body. She was thinking of him. The moment she woke till she slept, her every thought revolved around him. Her dreams were no different. A constant loop of torturous agony.

It was one thing feeling her love for him and another thing feeling the pain he had caused her. She seemed shattered, almost broken without repair. In her head, she may have thought that everything was fine, that no one noticed because she had been hiding behind her study doors, burying herself with the pack affairs. But what she hadn't realized was that they could feel her pain and it was affecting them. She wasn't interacting with her pack the way an Alpha should, she wasn't making certain they had the love of an Alpha.

I may not have known what love was growing up. The last person that loved me had been stolen away from me. But when it came to my pack, I could say I loved them. It was a different type of love. Protective, loyal, unbreakable. She had that, but she was failing to show it. If she let the pain of heartbreak consume her the way I had, she would never be able to be the Alpha they needed again. It would be a job, a mere formality to her. She needed to feel true pain. Pain that could break her completely and rebuild her so that the force of nature I saw blazing in her eyes would spark again. She couldn't be broken because of a man, not even if that man was as monstrous as me. And I saw it again earlier this morning, that savage personality that challenged me.

"You shouldn't have done what you did," Zen mused, running a hand through his jet black hair, "it wasn't right."

"Does it look like I give a shit if it was right or not?" I shot in retaliation, "Have I ever given a fuck if something was right? As long as it got what I needed to be done, I couldn't give two shits."

"If you care about her you need to stop thinking that way," Zen was calm as he said this, paying no heed to my anger. It wasn't him I was angry at, it was the emotions I felt that didn't belong to me that angered me.

Stupid fucking mark!

"I don't care about her," I seethed, "if she stops thinking about him it can only benefit the both of us," my jaw hurt from the constant grating of my molars. Bringing two fingers up to my temple, I began massaging the throbbing headache that was forming, "I have bigger problems to deal with anyway. This mate bond shit can wait."

"About that," Enzo perked up at the change of topic, "we can't just storm into the pack and order your father to give you the title again."

"Yeah, I know," I sighed in disdain, "but I can duel him for it. There are only two ways someone can become an Alpha. It's either passed on, or you duel for it."

"You're going to duel your father? He doesn't exactly play fair," Enzo scratched the scruff coating his jaw, looking at me with what I could only guess was worry contorting his face.

Either that or he was constipated.

"I don't need him to play fair, I just need to win and get my pack back," a pang of pain enveloped my heart as an errand thought of my sister came to mind, "My sister deserves some redemption. The fucker took her life and ruined mine. It's time to pay what's due to him."

"There is another way," Zen piped, lacing his fingers together, "she's the Alpha of Alphas. She could simply order him to return the title and then leave the council to judge his actions. We all know they would sentence him to death, your mother as well."

"I still have some self-dignity left," I growled, my wolf feeling offended by the idea. I wouldn't let her do my job for me. This had to be done by me because the pack would automatically fall into the hands of the person who killed the Alpha. As much as Sydney was my mate, as much as my pack was hers, I wanted the Alpha title to it. I deserved that much.

"You can't leave now, her heat will start in a few days. She's going to need you here," Zen was so certain that I'd give in to the mate bond.

"She wouldn't want me to help and completing the bond will tie us together for a lifetime. At least I can walk away now, I won't be able to then," I'd admit, the thought didn't sound half bad but I couldn't give her what she wanted or what she needed. She would never look at me the way she looked at him and I was fine with that. I was never meant to love or be loved.

Zen stood to his feet and patted me twice on the back, "Whatever you say. Remember, just because I'm helping you it doesn't mean we're all good. You can thank Heather for my compliance."

"I'll pass on my gratitude," I grumbled under my breath turning to Enzo with a hard glare, "Leave."

"You don't have to tell me twice," he leaped up from the bed, holding two hands up in mock surrender, "Trust me, you'll feel so much better once you fuck her already." Was his last words before running out of the room so I couldn't punch him in the face.

That was exactly what I was worried about. If she let me in, if she let me close, if she allowed it, what if I enjoyed it too much? What if fucking her once wasn't enough for me? The mate bond would be stronger once we completed the process, it definitely wouldn't be enough for me but looking at her, I couldn't do it. I didn't want to hurt her, physically or in any other way. Neither did I want to raise her hopes.

Letting out a groan, I made my way to the bed and pulled out the duffle bag I had stuffed underneath. Once I was finally released from the cells, Enzo and I managed to backtrack to where we had been staying when we first arrived here. It was a dingy motel but it served its purpose. Once we were caught, my men moved to another location. Luckily, my belongings were still there when I went back. It was a shot in the dark but considering the old couple that owned the place barely saw customers, I guess it was to be expected.

When I returned, I had heard that the foolish twat had left. I refused to see Sydney because he was at her side but then he left — for what felt like good — without a fucking goodbye. I could be a piece of shit, a really fucking awful person who'd make you think I was the Devil reincarnate but I would have never left her without any form of goodbye.

I placed the duffle bag carefully onto the bed and then searched every compartment for my journal. My journal was the only materialistic item I had ever cared about. Poetry was my way of expressing the emotions I didn't understand. The first page of my journal was what meant the most. It was why I needed to find it. I finally found what I had been looking for right at the bottom of the bag, protectively wrapped in an off-cut piece of leather. The royal purple leather-clad book was thick and held multiple poems within its hardcover.

I traced my thumb over the gold crest stamped on the front. It was our family crest and what our pack was known as. The crest was a mountain with a rising sun. Two wolves stood in front, facing one another and howling upward. It was something similar to the mate bond marks Sydney and I had. I opened to the first page and took a seat and the edge of the bed. There, I found a picture of my sister and me.

The image had been taken a few days before her sixteenth birthday. Her brown hair flowed in waves and her smile was as bright as the lights that lit up times square. She had an arm slung around my shoulder, ruffling my hair with her free hand. She could be a pain at times, but I loved her for it. Sometimes, I would sit and wonder what things would have turned out like if she were still alive. Would she have really taken the Alpha title? If so, then I needed to do this for her. She would have never wanted the pack in our father's incapable hands.

Pulling out a pen from my bag, I leaned my back against the headboard and opened to a new page of the book.

'If she is the sun, then I am the moon.

We could never co-exist in the same sky.

But there are times that the sun and moon align.

Those are the times that would live with me till I die.

But we could never stay together for too long because one would have to leave.

Heartbreak would follow, she'd feel true pain and I'd finally be at ease.

Because, I was that monster they warned her about, ready to devour her soul.

And if she'd let me have it, I'd count myself lucky.

For what's a moon without its brightest star?

And what's love without a little war?'

—Q. Holt

What was love without war? What was love to begin with? What was the point of even thinking about it when I wouldn't need it and couldn't have it? We couldn't co-exist. It was foolish of me to think we ever could. We were destined by fate and cursed by life. Two souls that were so alike and yet so different. I slammed the book shut with a grunt and wrapped it in its leather cover before setting it back in my bag. Deep down, I knew I had to distance myself but I also knew that fate wouldn't let me. I had two problems I needed to be solved in that case:

One: how to beat a man that never played fair to regain my title once again?

Two: how to defeat fate so it wouldn't ruin Sydney's or my life more than it already had?