The Exiled Alpha's Human Male Mate.[BL]

Dave was not in the living room when Vincent and Bryce got there, so Bryce waited while Vincent went to the bedroom Dave had apparently been using to find him and tell him what they intended to do before taking any action.

The living room looked exactly as Bryce remembered it.

His gaze travelled across the familiar surroundings, moving from one part of the room to another while intentionally avoiding a particular place.

He managed to keep his eyes away from it for several moments before finally swallowing and allowing himself to look.

It was the exact place where he had gotten pregnant.

The sight brought the memory back with startling clarity.

He could still recall the intensity of that moment almost as though the experience had been preserved somewhere beneath his skin.

His thoughts began to drift toward it before he could stop them.

"He’s not in there, nor is he in the bathroom."

Vincent’s voice broke through his thoughts, pulling him back before his mind could travel any further.

Bryce turned toward him as Vincent stepped back into the living room.

He could feel Dave’s presence somewhere nearby, and his scent was faintly detectable in the air. If Bryce could sense him, he could not understand how Dave could be nowhere inside the house.

"Perhaps he’s in another room or just somewhere around. I can feel him and smell his scent, although it’s faint."

"I can smell him too. I’ll look around."

He disappeared with such speed that Bryce barely registered the movement. Left staring toward the direction Vincent had taken, Bryce found himself caught on the meaning of those words.

Vincent could smell Dave too. What was that supposed to mean? Had he already become familiar enough with Dave’s natural scent to recognize it?

"Can’t find him anywhere around the house either. His scent is drifting away with every second."

"He must be walking away."

The realization brought immediate alarm. They both moved toward the opening leading outside and into the compound.

Bryce crossed the distance with almost teleporting speed, reaching Dave while he was still struggling forward on the crutches, while Vincent arrived moments later.

"Dave?" Bryce called, stepping into his path.

"Leave me alone."

Dave’s words came out barely above a whisper as he pushed past Bryce, continuing down the path with the support of his crutches. Vincent stepped in front of him before he could get any farther.

"Where do you think you’re going?" he asked, a trace of frustration entering his voice.

"I said leave me alone."

Dave tried to move past him as well, but Vincent blocked him again.

"Well, you’re being very stubborn right now, and I’m not in the position to accommodate it, so... no other option."

He barely finished before striking Dave at the neck. The crutches slipped from Dave’s hands as his body lost its strength, but Bryce caught him before he could hit the ground and lifted him as though he weighed nothing.

The path ahead toward the house had grown clearer beneath the morning light that was gradually replacing the darkness.

Vincent opened the broken door, allowing Bryce to carry Dave inside, and led him toward the room Dave had been using. Once there, Bryce lowered him onto the bed while Vincent pulled the covers over him.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Their attention settled on Dave, whose lashes were wet with unmistakable tear stains. Even unconscious, his face carried the unmistakable strain of someone still troubled by whatever tormented him.

Bryce turned away. He could not bear the sight because he knew Dave was hurting, and there was little ambiguity in the evidence of it.

His decision to leave without an argument after hearing Bryce’s words had said more than any protest could have.

Dave was no longer trying to force himself upon him. It was almost as though he had accepted that Bryce wanted Vincent and had chosen to walk away.

For some reason, that mattered to Bryce more than anything else. Dave was no longer behaving as though he owned him, and that should have made things easier. Instead, it came with an uneasy feeling.

What if Dave had simply stopped caring about him and what he chose to do? What if he no longer loved him, assuming he had ever genuinely loved him at all?

Bryce felt Vincent watching him and instinctively turned toward him.

Their eyes met, and for several seconds, neither looked away nor spoke. The silence eventually gave way to a question Bryce had not intended to ask.

"Why are you being so nice to him?"

Vincent did not hesitate.

"I’m not being nice to him. He needs help, and I just don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t give it to him when I’m capable of doing so, simply because we dislike each other for loving the same person."

The answer left Bryce momentarily breathless. He had not expected Vincent to say that, and for a moment, he could only look at him, unable to think of anything to say.

He moved to the couch positioned beside the bed and sat down, while Vincent remained standing, his gaze following Bryce’s every movement.

"Are you actually pregnant?"

Bryce could hardly believe Vincent was asking the same question again.

"Yes," he answered, wishing he had some kind of evidence with him.

Perhaps if he could show Vincent something that proved it, he would finally stop asking whether the pregnancy was real.

Vincent looked as though he had a multitude of questions crowding his mind. His mouth opened, then closed again, but no words emerged.

"I encountered someone. Agatha. Do you know her?" Bryce decided to explain.

"Yes. She’s said to be the link between our kind and the goddess," Vincent replied. "She was here in the human territories? Or where did you meet her?"

"Here. She said she’d been looking for me. She told me we were chosen as mates for a reason, mostly because the wolf world had become a complete mess, and you were the only hope the goddess had. You kind of lost your way somewhere along the way, but since you were still better than most of the others, she still intended to use you to bring everything back into order."

Bryce paused briefly before continuing.

"She was looking for a better female mate for you, but she couldn’t decide easily when I was born. Long story short, she needed you and your mate to produce a powerful child, one who would grow strong enough to rule over even the alphas.

She gave me that power, which the baby will inherit, and she expects me to take over that role during the next full moon while we wait for the baby. She also expects you to return to being the alpha of your pack because your father and brother are only making everything worse."

Vincent said nothing for a moment after Bryce finished.

His silence made Bryce watch him with confusion.

"So that day when I said I could feel and hear another heartbeat inside you, and that if you were a woman, I would have been convinced you were pregnant... it was true?"

Bryce stared at him as though he could not believe that, after everything he had just explained, that was what Vincent had chosen to focus on.

"Apparently," Bryce answered shortly.

"When you left, did you know you were pregnant?"

"Yes. Kind of." Bryce hesitated briefly. "I was only suspecting it. I didn’t know for certain. I saw it in a dream, and all the symptoms pointed in that direction. I confirmed it with a test later, before I met Agatha, and she confirmed it too."

Vincent’s voice dropped.

"So you knew you were carrying our child, and you decided to leave?"

Bryce said nothing.

"If it weren’t for the pheromones you mentioned earlier, would you ever have told me that we have a baby together?"

Bryce stared at him in silence for a moment before giving him the answer he clearly did not want to hear.

"No."

He said it plainly.

Vincent fell silent, his expression unreadable, but the subtle rise and fall of his chest betrayed the weight of what he had just heard.

"Is it because of how I treated you before?" he asked eventually. "Is that the reason you’ve decided to hate me this much and punish me to this extent?"

"You’ve always wanted an egg from your mate to give to your beloved wife."

Bryce’s voice began to rise before he even realized his anger was taking hold.

"And then I suddenly had the egg you had always wanted. What makes you think I would have stayed around and let you find out, knowing you would try to take the baby from me?"

Bryce’s chest rose sharply, his breathing growing heavier as a purple haze began to spread across his vision.

"Bryce."

Vincent took a slight step backward, as though he could sense the danger in the power beginning to stir within him.

"Bryce."

This time, Vincent’s voice carried greater firmness, pulling Bryce back to himself.

Bryce blinked, and the purple haze that had clouded his vision dissolved, leaving his sight clear again.

Vincent released a quiet breath of relief before continuing.

"I was stupid, okay?"

He took a small step forward.

"I’ve been thinking about everything, and I feel like all that time, it wasn’t me. It was as if someone else had possessed me. It’s not an excuse, and I wouldn’t want you to think I’m letting you keep the baby simply because Leah isn’t here anymore.

Even if she were here, in my right mind, I still wouldn’t have done that."

Vincent moved slightly closer as he finished explaining, his gaze fixed on Bryce.

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