Alpha Aiden's Protection Program | ✓

Chapter 19: A Silent Threat

All too soon, we pulled away from each other, already going further than was necessary.

My eyes opened to met the piercing gaze of Aiden's that held a trust that I'd never seen there before. I jolted against him as I felt my heart lurched in my chest. The building pain was constructing itself to a massive explosion since Aiden left.

Right now, that explosive force of anguish tore through me with an intense ferocity that threatened to bring me to my knees.

Aiden's jaw clenched and the trust in his eyes was lost to the hardened worry that commandeered his features. He kept his arms firmly latched around my waist and I appreciated the support because without it, I'd be curled on the floor already.

He saved my pride by not asking if I was alright in front of our enemies. However, his rigid posture and coiled muscles suggested that he was fighting his very nature not to scoop me up and take me to the infirmary for Dr. Nazra to make me better.

Not she could either way.

Before we stepped away from the sirens, Aiden turned to the blonde siren with a thunderous expression.

"You ever do that again and the sirens will have fish guts to clean up," He admonished. "That goes to all of you."

Blonde's features shifted to something akin to a night terror to scare little children into bed. Her skin became a few shades more bleak, her cat-like eyes thinned and her lips curled over sharp, elongated teeth.

Aiden was already running on a high line and his anger was about to snap. But before he could turn the siren into shark food, the elder siren who I was speaking to before, stepped in front of the siren and sent blonde a stern narrow of her eyes.

"Pitera," The older mermaid commanded, "put your claws away. You should have known better than to lure the Alpha."

The blonde, a.k.a Pitera, sneered at the older siren with disbelief in her eyes.

And I knew exactly what that look conveyed.

"You set it up, though," I called out the older one. "You assumed Aiden hadn't found his mate yet which is why you had Pitera sang to him."

There wasn't an ounce of guilt or shame on her face. Not because she was guilt-less but because she neither felt guilty nor held shame for her actions.

"At least he got himself a smart one," She sent a chilling smirk my way as Aiden pulled me away from their presence.

As we retreated back to the werewolf side of the stand off, Aiden kept one of his arms plastered around my back while he took Tourmaline into his other arm.

I heard her sniffle of relief as she hugged him close.

"Now that you've scared my niece and threaten my mate, what exactly could I do for you?" Aiden asked rhetorically.

"We ask nothing from your kind, we simply take," The older siren said as she brushed her wild red hair behind her ear.

"Then you've forgotten our last meeting. Tourmaline won't leave this pack until the vampires are taken care off."

She snapped her sinister eyes to him, "And when exactly will that be? A month? A year? A decade? You get to sit in this fancy castle like a king while our seas are collapsing because of the humans. You don't get to decide when the Queen of the ocean returns wolf, the sea does."

"Sura," Aiden addressed her by name, "the Queen does not take orders from you either."

Tourmaline and the mermaids shrieked in pain again when Sura opened her mouth and began whispering ancient words that weren't my common tongue.