Alpha Noah

¬Abella

At first, I don’t believe him.

“There is no other realm Cian. I know you hate people like me, but that doesn’t mean you can taint my view of Noah,” I tell him firmly. The sound of another realm sounds vaguely familiar, which I likely heard from Stace. But I refuse to believe that anything other than the world I’ve known actually exists. Especially no other place where there are people like me.

Cian looks frustrated, beginning a steady pace back in forth from where I sit. He looks like he is trying to figure out the best way to explain this to me, but I’ve already decided Cian is on a desperate sabotage mission, wanting to split Noah and I up as mates, to have me for himself.

“But there is. Me and a lot of other immortals have tried to ensure that was exists there, never comes out here. Now, Noah wants to take you there, away from me,” Cian tells me.

“I would have assumed that’s what you want.”

Cian pauses his persistent pacing, looking at me with a vacant expression for a moment. Then, he walks a few steps toward me, kneeling down on one leg in front of me. Seeing Cian serious is always an unnerving sight, but the way he is looking at me now sends a shiver down my spine, all of Noah and Stace’s words about the Sin’s and Deamon’s floods back.

“Do you really think I want to kill you?” he ask, tone softening to the point it’s like honey. The concern in his eyes is real, and I know for sure that he doesn’t have any intention to kill me. Yet the tense feeling in my stomach doesn’t subside.

“You may not kill me, but your siblings will,” I tell him.

He grabs my leg. “Don’t you think I can protect you? They won’t find out, and even if they did, I could protect you from them better than Noah can.”

Just the thought of the other Sins sends my mind into dark places. Cian only acts the way he does around me because I’m his mate. Sin’s are meant to be terrible, horrid people. Getting to know his siblings would be hard enough, even if I wasn’t one of there biggest enemies. They would kill me the instant they had the opportunity, with no remorse.

“No one can protect me better than people who are actually like me,” I tell him. I’ve never been around anyone like me, so I don’t know how I would act with them, or if it would make me different from how I am now. “People you would kill, if I weren’t tied to them.”

Cian closes his eyes briefly. “Eradicating the Daemon’s was necessary for the survival of this realm. But you were raised here, you’re nothing like them. You have a chance to be normal, I can give you that.”

I feel like that should offend me, but not knowing who I was for so long has numbed me.

“Being normal is being who I am,” I explain. Trying to accept Cian for being a Sin has been difficult enough. Now maybe I’m starting to think we aren’t compatible, even as mates. “And your version of normal is different to mine. You want me to be by your side, while you party, and gamble, and do any other thing Greed would do.”

“I can change. I will change for you. Just don’t go with Noah,” he begs. He’s turned from being convincing to being desperate. This is a sign I should believe him, that Stace is going to take me to the realm he rules, to separate me from Cian. If that’s the plan, I don’t know what to feel about it.

All I know for sure, is that I’m sick of no one telling me their plans. Noah and Cian lied to me for a long time, and now Cian wants me to himself, and Noah and Stace are plotting to take me elsewhere.

“I don’t know what to do, Cian.”

Moving up from where he was kneeling on the floor, he sits next to me, grabbing my hands in his. “You feel the bond between us. That won’t go away until you choose who you want. If you chose me, we can be happy together, you can forget what you are.”

I’m not ready to chose. I’m conflicted on what’s best for me, and as much as I want to run away again, I have to face this. Cian needs answers, and so does Noah. But how can I choose? Both are my mates, even though having two mates is rare. Yet there is no way I can be with both; neither of them would allow that.

“I feel the bond, Cian,” I assure him, the sparks flowing between out hands right now is evidence of that enough. “But you want a version of me that I’m not.”

You would kill me, if you could.

“You’re everything I want. I want nothing else but you, Abella,” he says softly. Touching my face gently, Cian leans forward, eyes focusing on my lips. “Let me prove it to you.”

As he leans in, his intent clear, I can’t bring myself to pull away. His lips touch mine, gently at first. Shivering at the feeling of the sparks that streak through me, I let him deepen the kiss, his hands coming up to cradle the sides of my face. It feels good, for a brief moment, to be whisked away in the feeling of the matebond.

If only it was that simple.

“Kissing me isn’t going to convince me of anything,” I breathe, as I pull away, resting my forehead against his. He looks at me, dark gaze filled with pain… as if he knows that if he doesn’t convince me, that might be the last time we share a moment like that.

“I’m trying to make you realise that we are mates. We are meant to be together,” he murmurs, warm breath brushing up against my lips.

I’m not going to pretend like I’m not attracted to Cian. Appearance wise, he’s close to perfection, with sweeping cheekbones and a straight-cut jawline. Not to mention to uniqueness of his appearance, with his endless dark gaze that shows his emotions so openly, and the golden roots in his hair that shimmer under the light, growing up into the tips, which are pitch black.

“Then help me get through this. Help me talk to Stace and learn more about myself. I’ll make sure Noah doesn’t take me to any other realm,” I bargain. Who knows how long Cian is going to keep me here, so at least if he involves himself with this issue, maybe we could make this work.

“I don’t know-”

All of a sudden, my leg burst into pain, like a flame licking up my inner thigh, threatening to melt my skin. Looking downward, a purple stain grows through the fabric of my pants, making me grit my teeth. This bond with Stace hits at the most random times, since I managed to be away from it for all those weeks, but the moment I’m with Cian, it strikes in full force.

“It’s happening again. I need to get to Stace,” I growl at Cian, gripping my leg painfully, as I try to breath through excruciating feeling of my blood boiling beneath my skin. Cian jumps up, looking at the increasing blood coming through my pants with an expression of horror.

His fingers touch my leg, but immediately pull away as I wince at the pain. “Isn’t there something else you can do?”

“No Cian,” I mutter through rushed breathes. “I’m not just connected to you and Noah, but also Stace. Whatever he is, and whatever he wants with me.”

Despite the clear unease on his face, he nods, picking me up in his arms, before he transports me away.

***

We arrive in a rush of wind, colour and Noah and Cian’s scent mixed.

The moment it all fades, I open my eyes and see Noah standing in front of us, looking panicked. Behind him, Stance lounges back on the couch, looking at me without a care in the world. He clearly isn’t threatened by the immortal Sin that has suddenly appeared in this room, making me wonder what a fight between the two would look like. A pureblood immortal versus an immortal daemon.

“Abella… are you okay?” Noah immediately asks, going to reach for me, as Cian gently lowers me to my feet, but the immortal brushes the Alpha’s hand off.Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

“Uh uh, Alpha, no touching,” Cian comments slyly.

He’s back to being the ever amused immortal for the sake of Noah and Stace. It’s his way of not appearing vulnerable, but I see right through it, knowing how nervous he would be considering both men in this room are Daemon’s, and one if a King.

Cian helps me over to the couch, as I sit next to Stace. He’s still so strange, with those tattoos, which almost seem to shift under the light, appearing in different patterns each time I see him. But it’s not nearly as frightening as his eyes. Pitch black, eeriee, they are like and endless hole, full of mystery and unanswered questions. I see this, because I sitll have so many.

“Back already?” he says with that foregin lilt, looking me up and down with the faintest smile painted across his face. I roll my eyes, but pull my pants off anyway, making sure to cover myself enough so no one can see anything. Finally, the places his hand by the wound, and is begins to disappear. “Feeling better?”

“I don’t need you being smug. I’m here for you to get rid of this bond, and to tell me everything you know,” I snap, tugging my shirt over my knees, clearly at him.

He leans back into the couch, nodding. “Well, what do you want to know? You belong to me now, don’t you?”