Accidentally Mated To Four Alphas

Chapter 297: _ He’s Really Dead?

Morgan walks back toward the thicket of brambles where he had tossed his phone with such dramatic flair moments ago. He finds it nestled in a patch of stinging nettles. It feels small in his hand, a plastic-and-glass toy from a world he has already outgrown.

Inside his head, the space where his heart used to be is a vast, air-conditioned vault. The silence there is magnificent. No more frantic pounding, no more heat, no more of that sticky, suffocating love for a twin who was never really his twin.

He looks at his reflection in the dark screen of the phone. His eyes are flat. He experiments with a facial expression, pulling the corners of his mouth down and squinting his eyes.

Grief, he thinks. This is what grief looks like.

He practices a sob. It’s a dry, hollow sound at first, so he adjusts the tension in his vocal cords, adding a bit of a tremor.

Better.

He needs to be a masterpiece tonight.

Before he can even begin to dial, the air in the clearing shifts. It’s a sudden, heavy pressure. A white blur, massive and blindingly bright, bursts from the tree line.

It’s Heidi.

In her wolf form, she is a goddess of the hunt, a shimmering mountain of fur and muscle that seems to glow from within. She skids to a halt, her claws digging deep furrows into the earth, sending a spray of dirt over the very rogues Morgan just dismantled.

Her gaze sweeps the clearing. It stops on the pile of shredded meat that used to be a dozen wolves. Then, it drops to the center. To Grayson.

The howl that rips from her throat is a physical blow. It’s not just a sound; it’s a vibration that shakes the leaves from the trees and rattles the remaining teeth in the rogues’ dead skulls. It’s the sound of a mate-bond screaming as it’s being torn out by the roots.

Morgan watches her. He waits for the familiar pull in his chest, the "mate-call" that usually makes his blood sing whenever she’s near. Nothing happens. He feels exactly the same way he would if he were watching a very loud car alarm go off.

The bond hasn’t just gone quiet; the Demon Core has rewritten his DNA, and the "Heidi" frequency has been scrubbed from the dial.

Heidi shifts her focus to him, her golden eyes wild and wet.

Morgan doesn’t hesitate. He reaches up and pokes his own eyes with his index fingers—hard enough to sting them—and within seconds, fat, convincing tears are rolling down his cheeks. He collapses to his knees, his shoulders shaking with the simulated weight of a thousand sorrows.

"I couldn’t stop them," he chokes out. "Heidi... I was too late."

The white wolf lumbers toward Grayson’s body. She nudges his cold, pale shoulder with her nose, a desperate whine vibrating in her chest. She licks the blood from his cheek, but Grayson remains stubbornly, beautifully dead.

"They were rogues," Morgan sobs, burying his face in his hands so she won’t see the lack of real redness in his eyes. "But not just any rogues. I heard them talking before I... before I slaughtered them. Tobias sent them. Our father. He wanted all of us out of the way. He thinks we ruined his name, so he would rather we be dead than become rogues."

Heidi’s hackles rise until she looks twice her actual size. A low, thunderous growl starts in her belly. Morgan knows it’s a sound of pure, unadulterated hatred for Tobias Bellamy.

He watches through the cracks in his fingers. Perfect, he thinks. Fuel the fire. Make them all burn.

Heidi lets out one last, broken whimper. She leans down and gently, almost reverently, takes Grayson’s shirt in her massive jaws. She hoists his limp body onto her back, his arms dangling uselessly against her white fur. She doesn’t look at Morgan again after that. She turns and launches herself into the woods, heading north at a dead run.

Morgan knows that direction. She’s headed for the Duskwind pack. She’s taking the evidence of the King’s "betrayal" home to where the war will truly begin.

Once she’s gone, Morgan stands up and wipes the fake tears away with the back of his hand. He feels a strange, intellectual satisfaction—the kind of "happiness" a clockmaker feels when a gear finally clicks into place.

His phone begins to vibrate.

It’s Darien.

Morgan waits for the fifth vibration before answering. He needs to sound like a man who has just watched his world end.

"Darien?" he gasps into the receiver.

"Morgan! Where the hell are you?" Darien’s voice is frantic, sharp with the kind of panic only an older brother can feel. "Heidi just went nuclear. She went into a frenzy in the hotel room, shifted right in the middle of the lobby, and bolted into the woods. She said she felt Grayson—she said he was gone. What is happening?"

Morgan lets out a long, shuddering sob. He actually hits the tree with his fist to create a realistic thudding sound. "He is, Darien. He’s... he’s gone. Grayson is dead."

The silence on the other end of the line is heavy enough to break bones. For a full ten seconds, the only sound is Darien’s ragged, uneven breathing.

"How?" Darien finally whispers, his voice sounding like it’s being dragged over broken glass.

"Rogues. Dozens of them. They ambushed him in the clearing near the bridge. I arrived late but managed to kill them, Darien, I killed every last one of them, but they... they got to him first. They carved him open like he was nothing."

"Where are you?" Darien roars, his grief finally turning into the familiar, explosive anger of a Bellamy Alpha. "Where are you? I’m coming now."

"I’m still here," Morgan whimpers. "In the clearing. Heidi was here... she took him. She took the body, Darien. She’s running for the pack. She looked like she’d lost her mind. I’m alone. I can’t... I can’t move. My legs won’t work."

"Stay there," Darien commands. "Do not move. I’m ten minutes out. We’re going to the pack together. We’re going to find out who did this, and I’m going to burn the world down."

The call ends.