All Chapters of Mated in the Shadow of Betrayal: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

(Piper POV)“H-hi, Axel. I am Piper. Why are you in my room?”Or more importantly, why was he in my room —while I was naked— and Leo wasn’t?“I am looking for my daddy.”“Why would he be looking for Ellis in here?” Penelope asked me in our link. “I am pretty sure Ellis hasn’t lived at the packhouse or at Bloodstone Pack for a long time.”I had the same question.“Why are you looking for him in my room?”“Because he wasn’t in his room, so Mommy said to check in yours.”I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “Sweetheart, I don’t think your daddy lives in the packhouse,” I told Axel gently. “If you want, I can see if someone else can help you find him…”Axel giggled. “Of course my daddy lives in the packhouse, Pwetty Lady!! He is the alpha.”I raised an eyebrow. “But the alpha is Leo….”“Yes!!! My daddy is Leo!!!” Axel said excitedly. “Do you know where he is?”I looked around again, hoping for some sign of him that I had overlooked. Unfortunately, the bathroom door was open, so

(Piper POV)The packhouse alarms were blaring and we had been told to head to our panic rooms.Thankfully, Leo warned me about these security features on my first day here, so I knew what the alarms meant and what I was supposed to do. It was a blessing that I paid attention and remembered his warnings; I don’t think either of us actually expected that anything would happen. Especially not so soon. I mean, this was Bloodstone Pack. Who would attack them? This pack attacked other packs; not the other way around. Even rogues knew better than to attack here; doing so was a guaranteed death sentence.And yet, it was already clear that this was no ordinary attack.The alarms meant that enemies had breached the border and were infiltrating the pack. Meanwhile, the directive to head to the panic rooms meant that enemy forces were closing in on the packhouse itself.I did not know how much Axel knew about the security features —at his young age, I would hope he knew very little— but I c

(Piper POV)“Back off, Ingrid,” I warned as I stood up. “This is not about you.”“Oh, it is about me, Blondie. And I’m about to prove it to you.”I had no idea what she meant, and at that point, I didn’t want to know. I needed to de-escalate the situation and fast.“You need to stop being so boring. You are only 20 years old,” Penelope complained. “Let your hair down and let me kick some brunette a&&.”Honestly, I wanted to. Believe me, I did.But — again— I had been around she-wolves like Ingrid in the past. Playing their games had never worked out well for me. Xander and I rarely fought, but when we did, it was always because of one of his “girlfriends” (term used loosely). Even when Xander believed that I had not been the aggressor —which he didn’t always believe— he typically blamed me for things getting out of hand:“You should have been the bigger wolf.”“You knew she was just jealous. Why not just walk away?”“I am disappointed in you. You should have been more respo

(Xander POV)There are a lot of things to tell you, and a lot of things I am sure that you want to know, so I will just dive right on in.How long have I known that Leo and Piper were fated mates?Since shortly after my father agreed to the arranged marriage between Leo and Piper.How did I find out?After I failed to convince my father to back out of the arranged marriage bullsh&t, I visited a seer. I needed to know what Leo’s interest was in Piper, and why he was going to such great lengths to get her, and my trusted investigators were coming up empty.Did my father know?He knew that I was going to see a seer, but I never told him what the seer told me. He had been adamantly opposed to me going. He warned me that it was dangerous to know the future, especially without any context for it. He also warned me that the quality of the information yielded from a seer not only depended on the seer, but also on the quality of the questions themselves. It was not something a novice shoul

(Xander POV)Spoiler alert: the final wave of the attack did not go as planned. Or at least not the way that I planned.Before I explain what happened, I need to back up a little bit and explain some more about how Ellis factored into all of this. Fully understanding Ellis’s motives and his role will become important later.Admittedly, looking back on it, it is a little tough for even me to understand what I was thinking back then. Was it my desperation that caused me to trust Ellis so much? Was it my immaturity? Was it my love for Piper?I don’t know. But I suppose the best place to start is this simple cliché:“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”I think this saying comes the closest to explaining why —despite knowing Ellis for such a short period of time— he and I became very close very quickly. Indeed, from our initial conversations, it became obvious that Ellis hated Leo Bloodstone even more than I did. And because of his hatred, rules did not matter to him. Nor did et