Alpha Isaiah ✔️

FORTY

Word Count: 1771

~Avia

I find Isaiah standing outside the compound, staring off into the small woods that flank it.

He wears the shadows like a cloak, not looking my way as I approach. My heart pounds wildly, stomach fluttering. I'm frightened he will tell me he won't forgive me, that he doesn't want anything to do with me.

But I'm also frightened he will tell me he does want to be with me, and everything will go back to being complicated.

He continues to stare straight ahead into the darkness as I lean my back against the wall of the building next him. "I don't even know your name."

"It's Avia," I whisper.

"Avia," he mouths, testing my name out on his lips.

I've become so accustomed to hearing him call me Kenna that my stomach flips hearing my true name. I never thought we would get to this part, where he knew my name before his reign as Alpha has been taken down. But it feels right, as if the last puzzle piece has been slotted in to confirm we truly are mates, because the feeling that overcomes me hearing him say it is like nothing else.

"I didn't even know my own mates name, and I've known your for months," he says, summoning a deep breath. "Or I thought I knew you, at least."

He looks down at me, and there is nothing familiar about the look in his eyes. It's cold, vacant. He feels betrayed, let down by me, after everything we have been through. I want to comfort him, but I'm not sure what else to say other than blatant honesty.

"Trust me, I didn't want to hurt you," I assure him. I decided very shortly into moving in with him that I wanted to spare him from the worst of what the rebellion would do.

He frowns. "And when did you figure that out?"

"Early, actually," I murmur, shuddering at the cold breeze that billows past. Isaiah seems unaffected by it, too busy in his own head. "Within the first week I knew I didn't want you dead, like I had before."

He digs his hands into his hair, looking wild. "Why? Why lie to me, when you knew I was falling in love with you."

Love. I don't when I fell in love with Isaiah, but I know I am. I think the entire time I was falling in love with him, but I refused to acknowledge it. Even when I found out we were mates, I didn't want to think about what that meant about the feelings I had for him.

"Because I hated you. I had to do this mission, and in the beginning I wanted to, so bad," I admit, shrugging my shoulders sheepishly.

He exhales through his nose, surprise gleaming in his eyes. "You hated me."

"Your father killed my parents. Both of them, in a horrible fire I barely survived. I hated you for being his son, for being the Alpha," I explain. I used to see my dying parents in Isaiah, but now I only see it in Kit, who is the true monster who took many lives that night with no mercy whatsoever.

Isaiah's eyes crease gently, the look of regret in his eyes something I want to see in Kit, not him.

"Avia..." he breathes softly, turning to face me.

"It's okay, I know now that it was wrong to put my anger on you, when it's your father's fault," I mutter.

After my parents died, I was so angry I could have burned the whole world down. Nothing could sate me, until I met Malin, and she gave me the idea for the rebellion. Having thrown myself into it, I didn't believe there was any other fate to follow than the one that would bring me revenge. Even if I had to die for it.