The Other Alpha's Mate✔

Catching up and patching up (30)

"Why are we stopping?" I looked up at Ryder and he smirked at me before sitting down and leaning his back against the big oak tree's trunk. He silently patted the leafy floor beside him and I sighed before sitting down next to him. 

"I know how much you enjoy having deep conversations in forests" he said and my heart skipped a beat. 

"But what about your pack-"

"They'll be fine and besides they know about you and as soon as you show up I won't have any privacy with you because they'll be gushing over you" He said and I blushed. 

"They won't-"

"Yes, they will they've been waiting to meet you, but that's not important now, we need to talk love"

"I know" I nodded and turned my body so that I could face him.

"Where should we start?" he asked and I gave him a lazy smile. 

"I think we should start from where everything went downhill"

"And where would that be?" he asked taking hold of my hand and intertwining our fingers. "The hospital room?" he said finally and I nodded. 

"Yeah, that's when everything changed" I whispered. 

"I know. I'll go first since I'm the one who totally screwed up"

"You didn-"

"I did and we both know it, please let me explain love" he asked and I nodded. 

"Dakota, the first thing you need to understand is that I am an idiot. I was an arrogant prick who thought I was untouchable. I ate up all of my uncle's lies and I never, not for a second thought for myself and about what I was doing. Yes, when Tessa made contact with me and told me she found her mate and I had to come for the ceremony I saw that as an opportunity. An opportunity to kill the Lycan.  You see my uncle was the man who killed your pack, no, slaughtered them, and he also knew you had escaped. And thus he was hellbent on finding you and getting rid of you, but as you were a child and he couldn't see you clearly he didn't know what you looked like. Only that you had blonde hair and that you were a girl. For years he looked for you but never found you. Then he got ill, I wasn't lying about that, yes, I over exaggerated a lot, but he was ill. Being Alpha and having a very unhealthy obsession was taking a toll on him, so one had to go. That's where I came in. He visited us one summer and he saw how my parents treated me, how my family treated me, like I was some- disease. That's when he made the offer. For me to be the Alpha while he can concentrate on finding you."

"I was in heaven, finally someone saw the potential in me, the true Alpha. Finally I was going to become the Alpha I should've been. And I know that I shouldn't make up excuses for what I did and for allowing to manipulated but at the time I didn't know he was manipulating me. I was young, I was gullible and I was dependent on him, he was he only person who ever showed me any kind of affection, the affection a parent gives. But as I grew up there was this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was always this question burning in my heart. Why? How can we hate people because they're genetically better? But I ignored those feelings, those questions. Because- because I didn't want to loose my pack, I didn't want to loose my position. I finally had a family and I didn't want to give it up. But one day I stumbled across the dungeons and then those feelings and questions came back much stronger. Dakota I was never involved in any of the things they did to them, I never laid a hand on any of them, yes, I turned a blind eye but I never hurt them. I was barely in that building and I'm sorry, I'm sorry I never had the guts to do something. I'm sorry I ignored it."

He took in a deep breath and looked away from me and towards the canopy of the trees. 

"That's when I started doubting and questioning Seth. The more unwilling I was to watch him hurt them, the more unwilling I was to join in on his rants about them, the more- the more he forced me to hate you. Verbal abuse became mental abuse and soon enough he had totally and utterly fucked my brain up into believing Lycans were evil, were monsters. That Lycans were the reason I was outcast-ed, thinking back that made absolutely no sense. So Seth broke me mentally, but he never broke my spiritually and still those feelings and questions lurked, they were just deeply locked away in the depths of my heart. I was unaware of them but they soon made a reappearance. Then Seth's scout had found you, my uncle was so fucking happy he had a mini-heart attack at that moment I actually hoped he died, but alas he didn't. And so the task to kill you was forced into my hands, oh, how I refused, over and over again. Yes, I hated the Lycans but I wasn't a murder, I wasn't going to kill anyone. The scout told us that the Lycan was the Alpha's mate, or rather Bradley's mate. That's when I blew, yes, I didn't like Bradley but I would never kill my brother's mate, never. Seth realized this and out of pure rage he injected me with a mixture he used on the Lycans. It was wolvesbane mixed with some plant that's highly poisonous for people but gave wolves severe hallucinations."