Chapter b247 /b

E & Alexander

E

My blood turned to ice in my veins as I turned to see Liam standing in front of me, saying my name. My real

name.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said, shaking his head and rubbing his temples. “I thought you were… Goddess, I must be losing my mind.”

My throat bobbed. “I… I’m sorry, do we know each other?”

The lie tasted bitter on my tongue. Of course we knew each other. I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around him and hold him close, but I couldn’t. And that was even more painful than I expected.

“No, we don’t,” Liam replied, but his eyes never left my face. He studied me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. “It’s just… you look exactly like someone I used to know. Someone who…” His face crumpled slightly. “Someone who died recently.”

My heart shattered into a thousand pieces right there in my chest.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I managed to choke out.

“Thank you.” Liam’s shoulders sagged, and for a moment, he looked so lost that I wanted nothing more than to tell him everything. Tell him that I was right here, that I wasn’t really dead, that he didn’t have to grieve for me.

But I couldn’t. The curse wouldn’t let me.

The very thought of what might happen to Liam if I revealed the truth made my stomach clench with fear. I’d already put one innocent person at risk–the farmer who’d helped me get home. I couldn’t bear the thought of Liam facing the same consequences.

“She was… she was my closest friend growing up,” Liam continued. “I should have seen her more, but you always think you have more time than you have…” He shook his head again. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear about my problems.”

“No, please,” I said quickly. “I… I understand what it’s like to lose someone important to you.”

That much was true, even if he didn’t know I was talking about myself.

Liam managed a sad smile. “You’re very kind. What did you say your name was?”

“Ste,” I replied. “Ste Night.”

“Ste.” He repeated my fake name slowly, as if testing it on his tongue. “You really do look remarkably like her. Even your voice… You’re not rted to E, are you?”

“No,” I said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. Then, on a whim, I added, “But I did know her when we were children.”

Liam’s eyes widened. “You knew E?”

This was dangerous territory, but there was no going back now. “I did,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. We yed together sometimes when our… packs had gatherings.”

“Really?” Liam stepped closer, his face lighting up with a smile. “Did she ever mention me?”

My heart cracked all over again at the desperate hope in his eyes. I shouldn’t have said anything, but seeing him like this made me want to say something. Anything.

“She did,” I said softly. “She talked about you often, actually.”

“Really?”

I nodded, blinking back tears. “She always said you were her closest friend. That you were the one person who truly understood her, who saw her for who she really was instead of what others expected her to be.”

Liam’s breath caught. “She said that?”

“More than once.” I bounced Lucien gently as he began to fuss, but my eyes never left Liam’s face. “She told me she never stopped thinking about you, not for even a single day. That she wished things could have been different.”

The tears in Liam’s eyes finally spilled over. He wiped them away quickly, but not before I saw them.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “You have no idea how much it means to hear that.”

Liam reached out as if to hug me, then seemed to remember himself and stepped back. “I should let you get back to your duties. Thank you, Ste. Truly. You’ve given me a gift tonight.”

I watched him walk away, my vision blurring with unshed tears. Letting him go like that might have been the hardest part of all of this.

But then Lucien began fussing more, pulling me back to the present. He was hungry, and I’d been standing here far too long already.

“Alright, little one,” I murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Let’s get you fed.”

Alexander

“The contracts should be finalized by the end of the week. The new trade agreements will benefit both our packs significantly.” fn2a82 ?????? ???? fin?novel/fn2a82

I nodded absently, only half–listening to the conversation between the two Alphas in front of me. My mind kept drifting to other matters–Lucien, the uing heir ceremony, the mountain of paperwork waiting for me back in my office.

And… her.

E. And the nanny who looked eerily like her.

Ste had E’s face. Her build. Even her voice. There were small differences, like the hair and eye color, but she could have been E’s twin otherwise. It was weird and unsettling and filled my chest with a hope that shouldn’t have been there.

“Alexander?” A nudge on my shoulder pulled me out of my thoughts. “Did you hear what I said about the shipping routes?”

“Of course. That sounds-

Suddenly, a sharp tug in my chest cut off my words mid–sentence.

I froze, my hand instinctively moving to press against my sternum where the sensation had originated. It felt like someone had grabbed an invisible rope tied around my heart and yanked it hard.

Like the mate bond.

But that was impossible. E was dead. I’d watched them lower her casket into the ground just over a week ago. I’d thrown dirt on top of it with my own hands.

And yet…

I couldn’t ignore it. The sensation felt so familiar and tantalizing that I had to follow it, even if I logically knew that it would lead me nowhere except to a freshly covered grave that was still warm with my mate’s body.

“I… excuse me,” I managed, stepping away from the conversation. “I need to check on something.”

I didn’t wait for anyone to respond before I turned and followed the pull. To my surprise, it wasn’t leading me outside, but rather away from the banquet hall, and down the corridor toward the back of the house.

My heart pounded as I walked, each step bringing another flutter of sensation through what should have been a severed bond. It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.

But Goddess help me, for a moment, just a moment, I let myself hope that I wasn’t crazy with grief. As if that would bring her back or change a damn thing.

What if E wasn’t really dead? What if somehow, by some miracle, she was alive? What if there had been some terrible mistake and she was here, in this house, looking for me?

The bond pulled me onward, past the library, past the sitting rooms, toward the kitchen. My pace quickened with each step, my stupid, naive heart fluttering with excitement.

But then I pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen and immediately froze when I spotted the source of the disturbance.

The nanny was sitting in the chair by the woodstove, tears streaming down her face as she fed my son.