Page 6 of The Alpha King's Mate

“Yeah. You’ve been shifting a lot, your beast is really close to the surface all the time, and you’re quiet—like you’re keeping a big secret inside.”

Why did he have to see me? Why did he have to see me so completely?

“I don’t like talking about it.” I wasn’t going to lie to him. He’d been far too good to me for that.

“I know.” He took the seat beside me. “I know you don’t, and I also know you’ve been going to extra therapy sessions. Are they helping?”

“No because I don’t like talking about it.” I’d only gone to those sessions because I thought maybe it was a magical cure, but admitting the sickness—I wasn’t ready for that—or at least I hadn’t been.

“Please, Ryan, let me in. I can’t help you if I don’t…if you don’t.”

I wasn’t sure what he said that made it suddenly feel okay to share. Maybe it was because I knew his life had been pretty shitty for a while too. Or maybe it was because I could no longer hold it in. But I told him everything—about my omega father, my alpha father, my grandmother, and how I got captured. All of it.

When I was done, cheeks wet with tears, he wrapped his arms around me and held me close. “Oh, my sweet boy, you’ve been holding this in for so long.”

I nodded into his chest.

“But it’s good news.”

I pulled back. Surely I’d heard him wrong. “What do you mean, it’s good news?”

“Did you ever wonder why your omega father left?”

I had—a thousand times—but I was pretty sure he meant something specific here, so I shook my head.

“The sickness—the one your grandmother talked about—that was a mate pull gone wrong.”

I’d heard about that. It didn’t happen to everyone, but some beasts couldn’t handle scenting but not mating their fated.

“Your father scented his mate, and it drove his beast mad. I don’t know why he didn’t find his mate or how that happened, but your omega dad left because the bond they had no longerexisted. True mates always top matings of convenience or love, or whatever had them getting together. Your father lost control of his beast because he scented his true mate and never found him again. He might not have even known what was going on.”

Looking back, I was pretty sure he hadn’t. If he had, he wouldn’t have stayed with me. He’d have hunted them down and left the family himself.

“How is this good news?”

“Because that means what you’re feeling—that’s the mating pull.”

“But I haven’t gone anywhere, and there have been no new alphas. That doesn’t make any sense.” You need to scent an alpha to feel the bond. That much I knew.

“You just had a birthday,” he said as if that answered everything.

I nodded. “Yeah, but only people I know came.”

“You. Just. Had. A. Birthday.” Enunciating every word.

“Oh shit.” It wasn’t just any birthday; it was an important one. “You mean, I just became old enough to scent my mate.”

Fate was tricky like that—not letting us scent our mates until we were of age. But who? Who could it be? My mind wandered straight to King.

King was my mate. It wasn’t a crush. He was mine.

Did he know? Did he care?

He was technically old enough to be my father. He saw me as a kid. Crap. Maybe the sickness was better after all. Rejection had to be worse.

Chapter Six

King