His mother stood in the open doorway, eyes moving from his face to the cracked wall and back.
He had not heard her open the door.
"You were gone too long." Her voice was steady, but her hands were not, fingers working the fringe of her scarf in small, restless pulls.. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He got to his feet. Picked up a chair and set it down.
"You don't seem fine." She stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her. Her eyes stayed on him. "What's going on?"
"Nothing, mom." He set another chair upright.
She stepped closer. "I saw Ronan corner you tonight." Her voice dropped low. "What does he want?"
"Nothing." Another chair.
"Alaric." The way she said his name made him stop. "I saw you holding the coordinator in the hall." She paused. "I saw the look in your eyes." Her voice thinned.
Alaric said nothing. He added the chair he had just picked carefully to the stack and waited. He already knew what came next.
"She is human, son."
"I know." He forced his voice steady.
"You know what Jax does. What his father did before him."
"I know and you're worrying for nothing, mom." He continued with the chairs.
"He will kill us. All of us. Your brother, me, and you. He's merciless and executes people for less." Her voice was anything but steady now.
"I know, mom. You don't have to—"
"I have to. I have to. I am your mother." Her voice broke. "Why are you giving him a reason to watch you? A reason to come for us?" Tears glistened in her eyes. She stepped close and held his hands. "Alaric, please. Whatever is going on with the human coordinator, you have to end it. Promise me you'll end it. Promise me."
He looked at her with the truth at the tip of his tongue. That she wasn't just the human coordinator. That she was his mate. That the pull was tearing him apart piece by piece and his wolf wouldn't listen to reason. Then he looked at her hands. Small and calloused. The hands that had fed him and held him and stood between him and every threat that had ever come for him and his little brother. He looked at her face and saw fear—not tonight's fear. Old fear. The kind that had been living in her for a very long time.
He closed his eyes. His wolf snarled, loud enough that he felt it in his teeth.
"I will," he said quietly. "I promise."
She pulled him in, arms tight around his ribs, her body trembling against his chest. He stood rigid at first, then wrapped his arms around her and held on until he felt the tremor in her body settle.
She held on a moment longer before pulling away. Touched his face once and walked out.
He waited until he could no longer hear her footsteps, then dropped onto one of the chairs.
The silence pressed in. On one side, his mother's shaky voice, begging him to end what had yet to begin. On the other, the mate bond, pulling at him like a current with no shore. And somewhere above all of it, Ronan's watching eyes and Jax's reach, long and patient and utterly without mercy.
His mother had held this family together with nothing but fear and love and the careful hope that if they stayed small enough, stayed quiet enough, nothing would come for them. For years she had managed it. And in one evening, in one corridor, in one unguarded moment, he had nearly undone all of it.
For her. For a mate whose name he didn't even know.
His wolf didn't see the consequences lined up behind this like graves. It saw her. Only her. And it would burn everything down to get to her without a second thought.
Alaric stood. The chairs he had just stacked went over with a single sweep of his arm, clattering across the floor in a cascade of noise that swallowed the silence whole. He stood in the wreckage of them, chest heaving.
Then he felt it.
She was moving. The pull of the bond shifting direction, tracking her through the estate toward the car park.
He looked at the chairs on the floor.
He had made a promise ten minutes ago. And he'll make sure to keep it.