UNTAMED: THE ALPHA

Chaos obliged when she asked him to bend his body so she could kiss him. He pressed his lips to hers gently. "In a way, he is still me."

Eros was his shattered soul, he was part of him and would return to him sooner or later. They just needed to keep their eyes on him and be done with it when the time was right.

When the time was right for Zuri.

At that being said, Zuri stopped and then freed herself from him. She looked at him fiercely. "In a way, you remind me of Knox and I despise him for what he had done to July."

Zuri hated it when she learned that Knox gave up on July and let her go. She couldn't understand why he was willing to let her go with another man.

If each shattered soul represented Chaos to some degree, she didn't want to face that side of him at all.

Zuri didn't want him to give up on them. She didn't want him to give up on her, especially when there was a time when he was close to do so.

"You are not going to give up on me, are you?" Zuri eyed him. She was very nervous with what kind of answer that he would give her.

"I will not give up on you." Chaos stepped closer and then hugged her again.

What he said and the way he held her appeased her anger slightly, but it didn't mean she would be at ease completely.

Something didn't feel right and Zuri still feared what the future had in store for them.

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"Do you know that girl?" Emily asked Eros on their way to get samples from the two carcasses of the beasts that attacked them two nights before.

Because Eros told her there was something wrong with the beasts, Colton urged her to take a sample from them, since he also felt the same. They were ridiculously strong and knew no pain, which was very unlikely, no matter how strong a shifter was.

For now, they needed to postpone their return until at least Colton could be a bit better. It could be three to four days before he fully recovered, he almost lost his life after all, if it was not for Emily, who helped him right in time.

The wound was so close to his heart and almost destroyed his lungs.

"Who?" Eros asked her back, his expression was hard to read, as if he didn't have any idea who Emily was talking about.

Emily glanced at Eros briefly, before she focused on the monster in front of her and took a few samples of its blood and flesh, which made her want to vomit, thus she needed something to distract and she thought asking about another woman would be a great help.

"Zuri. If I am not mistaken, her name is Zuri," Emily asked without averting her eyes from the job before her.

"I know her. We met with her that night, right?" Eros leaned his body against the wall. This room was the storage room that Gael lent to them to keep the dead beasts, before they would burn them down.

"I thought you went out of our bedroom because you wanted to see her, am I wrong?" Probably this was what you called a woman's intuition, because she got it right, though she didn't know every detail of it. "Am I wrong?" she tilted her head and stared at Eros until he responded to her.

"No, you are not." Eros finally gave in and told her who Zuri was. "She is my mate."

The tweezers slipped from her hand when she turned her body to look at Eros, trying to see whether he was lying to her or not.

But, from the look on his face and the way he looked at her, she knew that was not a lie. That was the truth. But then, when exactly had he ever lied to her before this?

Realizing that fact, Emily could feel her chest cave in as her throat went dry. She watched as Eros came to her and bent his body to pick the tweezers up before handing the tool to her.

"You don't need to worry, she too has his own man." Eros caressed her cheek, but when he saw that didn't help to ease her anxiety, he kissed her forehead. "Let's be done here, so we can go back to our room and you can check Colton's condition."

Emily cleared her throat, but her hands were trembling, it was hard for her to do her job.

At this point, she really got what she wished for. Her conversation with Eros managed to distract her from the grotesque dead monsters before her eyes and now, they looked so adorable in comparison to her unsettling feeling at the moment.

"Why did you look for her that night?" Emily lowered her head and focused on the beast's flesh, but it was hard to do so because her mind swirled with all kinds of possibilities. "Did you mark her?" It sounded like an accusation.

Emily could feel her heart sink when she mentioned that. She didn't mean to talk that way, but she couldn't help it when Eros didn't give her any answer immediately.

"No. I didn't." Eros watched her expression from the side, while she was fumbling with the flesh. She poked the dead monster here and there, as if to vent out her frustration. After all, Eros didn't understand what she was doing.

"So, why did you go to see her?" Emily was still stubborn not to look Eros in the eyes when she asked about this. "Was it she who wanted to see you?" Jealousy coursed through her veins when she heard her own words.

Emily was right, it was Zuri who wanted to see Eros first, but if he admitted it right now, it would sound very wrong.

"We met because we want to reject each other." Eros danced around the question. He didn't answer the specific question that she asked, but he gave the answer that she wanted to hear. "We are not compatible and this bond is very wrong in the first place."

Emily stopped torturing the dead beast. "The bond is wrong?" She lifted her head and then looked at him. "From what I know, the mate bond is for lifetime."

"Not for me." Eros stared at her ever so gently.

Emily was not a shifter, but she lived among them, it was not something that she didn't know and if one could say, she had better knowledge than a shifter about how the bond worked for shifters, as well as the consequences of the rejection.

There was a time when Emily hoped she was Eros's mate and they could be together. There was a time when she stared at Ariana's mark that peeked through her collar and wished she could get the same thing from Eros.

Yet, when Eros came of age and he didn't feel the bond between them, she gave up on that idea and buried it in the back of her mind.

"But, you are not in pain. If the rejection worked, you would be in pain right now." Emily felt bitter with the harsh reality that Eros was completely fine. There was no way that the rejection didn't affect him. "Did you not reject her?"

Eros reciprocated her harsh glare with his calm one. "The beasts attacked before it could happen." That was not completely true, they had their own promise to each other and before the attack, there was about thirty minutes for them to reject each other, but they didn't do it.

"Will you reject her?" Emily felt her emotions were all over the place. She didn't want to be angry at him, but at the same time, she wanted to cry for a reason that she didn't know. Was it fear? The fear of losing him, the fear that there was a possibility that Eros would cast her aside and then choose his mate?

"I will." It sounded like he promised her that, but it was not enough to put her at ease.

"Even though that will hurt you?" Emily blinked her eyes to push her tears back, she didn't want to cry and let Eros think of her less. "Even though the pain is unbearable?"

"You don't know whether it is unbearable or not." Some shifters could die when the mate bond snapped, but it was a rare case, yet it didn't mean the pain would disappear in a few years ahead. The pain would always be with you.

And sometimes, you would crave for your mate and the bond would still be there, just like the case with Liam and Jasmine. They shouldn't meet and be together again, in order to maintain the broken bond.

"Okay." Emily nodded, which made Eros tilt his head, he didn't know what she was thinking right now. What did she agree with? "I will change the question. Who will you choose? Her or me?"

"I am here," Eros said.

"That's not the answer." Emily shook her head. That was not the answer she wanted to hear. It was not a matter of where he was, but who his heart was with.

"I will choose you." Eros came closer to her.

"You will choose me over her?" Emily lit up. She wiped away the tears that escaped her eyes without her knowing it. "Prove it."

"How?"

Emily knew she was overstepping the boundaries, but she needed this.

"Mark me."

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*Read my new book: KISSED BY THE DARK ALPHA*

Alpha Micah Donovan's second chance mate.