The Alpha Can’t Sense His Mate

ZADOK’S POV

“Zadok…” I heard her voice, pained and needy. “I need you.”

I jolted awake, covered in sweat and panicked. It wasn’t the first time I’d been awakened by such dreams. Dreams of Ithra calling out to me, asking for help and waking up to reality.

I got up from my bed with clenched teeth. My eyes drifted to the time and it was midnight. Which meant I’d managed to get in a total of ten minutes of sleep. Just great.

This has been the case since I returned from Cole’s birthday party. Or should I say his mating event? I have been a shadow of myself, relegated to toxic patterns of digesting Shilhi’s poison to evade Kir and my mind.

It was doing a poor job of it. I still couldn’t get her off my mind. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was in danger and I was making a big mistake by giving up on her.

Azriel was right. I was one selfish prick who didn’t know how to be anything else. I couldn’t live a life without her. My every waking moment was filled with thoughts, desires and dreams of her.

She has ruined me.

I was barely scraping through with my wits intact. They said it would get better with time. They said I just had to live through it and a day would come when I wouldn’t feel this gut-wrenching pain in my heart that threatened to tear me apart.

They lied. They lied because it’s been three days and every coming day was worse than the last. I lost taste, and will to live. Surely, a dead man was better off than myself. What exactly was I living for?

I needed air. I pushed to my windows, throwing it open and natural air breezed into my chambers. The moon glow lit my face and I felt angry. The Moon Goddess had played me.

She had given me the best gift and snatched it right back.

If I saw her, I promised to give her a long and torturous death. Who was she to design such a cruel fate for me? What right did she have to design such fate and make me live perpetually in agony?

My life flashed before my eyes and I cursed the day I was born.

Why did I have to be born to suffer such heartache? Why did it have to be me? What sin did I commit to be charged with such a gruesome penalty? I had many questions but there was not a single answer.

“Zadok…”

My ears perked and my heart skipped a bit. I’d heard it again. Her voice. That was the most recent development with me. I was hearing the voice of my dead mate. How pathetic was that?

I stepped away from my window and dug through the drawers at the side of my bed. I needed to shut it out. I needed an end to this madness. Or an escape.

Shilhi’s potions gave me that. A moment’s relief from the darkness of my mind in exchange for a step closer to hell. My mind was messed up, but even I knew the potions were not doing me any favour.

They were drawing me back to the depths of death for so little reward and I was okay with it. What was life without her? What was life without my mate? What was life without my Ithra?

I blinked, refusing to proceed with that thought. She was dead. I grained it in my head, muttering it for the nth time. Ithra was dead and I needed to move forward. I walked out of my room and headed to my office.

If I couldn’t sleep, then I might as well get some work done. It always proved more efficient than the potions anyway. I entered my office and got to work. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do.

I ended up finishing with more hours than I needed. I returned to my bed and woke up in ten minutes. She was still calling out for me.

Deciding to take a run, I went out of my chambers and Azriel was right in the hallways.

“Alpha.” He greeted me with a bow, eyeing me warily.

“Azriel.” My reply is curt, this has been our trajectory for the past few days.

I jogged ahead, hoping he’d get the memo and stay away but he followed – getting to pace with me.

Azriel was a good jog partner if he wasn’t trying to eat my ears on why I was wrong with my assumptions – as he so fondly called it.

“I heard some news from my spies at the Moon Light pack.” He started and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

“You seem to be very interested in them,” I said flatly, uninterested in whatever he had to say.

Azriel was undeterred by my lack of sport. He continued his gist without missing a beat. “A dragon showed up at the events bare minutes after we left.”

That got my attention. I hated that my first instinct was to know if she was fine. That lookalike. I swallowed my words and opted for something else. “I can’t understand how that is your concern.” I picked up my pace. “Cole is more than capable of handling his darned pack.” My eyes sliced through him, “I hope you invest this strength in the pack entrusted to you. My pack.” I stopped in my tracks, facing him. “Enough of the pointless research, beta.” My jaws clenched. “Focus on the business that pays you.”

With that, I left him, standing in the cold. A part of me felt I had been harsh with my words but I silenced that part of me with the urgency of a woman in travail. The last thing I needed was something else on my conscience.

Azriel could handle himself.

I returned to my chambers with more time than I’d liked before the day and I was forced to wait it out. Sleep took me up in the process of waiting and I was taken in another dream involving her.

This time around, it wasn’t her voice. Neither did the dream feature her beautiful self. It was someone more precious. Someone I had the pleasure of seeing once before she was cruelly taken away from me.

It was her wolf. Adira.