Evaline:
It started as a twinge in my gut. The kind that whispered something was off, even if everything seemed perfectly in place on the surface.
River was back into his usual self - cold, distant, wearing that detached expression like a second skin. He looked every bit the powerful Alpha he always did, with his hair gleaming under the soft light of the early sun and his shoulders squared as he drove in silence.
But as I sat beside him in the passenger seat, with my arms folded and attention locked on the woods outside, that feeling in my gut kept growing stronger.
It wasn’t just one thing. It was everything.
The way his fingers were tapping restlessly on the steering wheel when he thought I wasn’t watching. The way his jaw clenched every time his phone buzzed and he ignored it. Or the way he was completely ignoring my presence. It was not with his usual arrogance, but as if he was genuinely... uneasy.
This shift in him... made me uneasy.
I turned my head slightly to study his profile. "You okay?" I asked, surprising even myself.
He didn’t answer. Not with a word. Just a slight shift of his fingers on the wheel, and that was all I got.
I let out a small sigh and leaned back, trying to shake off the unease crawling up my spine. "Typical," I muttered under my breath. "Ask a simple question-"
Before I could finish, the car jerked gently and began to slow down.
"What are you doing?" I asked, sitting upright.
He didn’t reply. Instead, he pulled the car to the side of a long, empty stretch of road surrounded by tall trees and golden-brown fields.
"What the hell-?" I started, but he had already unbuckled his seatbelt and was stepping out of the car.
For a moment, I just sat there. Stunned. Confused. And filled with suspicion.
The girl inside me, the one who remembered the cold sting of his hatred, immediately raised her guard. My fingers were twitching, and a thousand questions were rushing to my head.
Was this a trap?
Was he planning something?
But no. I wasn’t that scared girl anymore. I wasn’t going to let fear dictate my actions.
So I opened the door and stepped out, slamming it behind me.
"River!" I called as I walked toward him. "What the hell is going on? Why are we stopping in the middle of nowhere?"
He was standing with his back to me, hands in his pant pockets. When he turned to face me, his expression was unreadable, but there was a fire in his eyes I hadn’t seen in a long time.
"Tell me," he started in a low but hard voice, "what’s going on between you and my brothers?"
I swear I stopped breathing and the world stopped spinning for a second.
"What?" I whispered.
He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing. "Don’t play dumb, Evaline. First it was Kieran. Now Oscar and Draven too? What exactly are you trying to do - build your own collection of Rogue Alpha supporters?"
My heart slammed against my ribs as I realized - he didn’t know.
He was angry - furious, even - but he didn’t know about the mate bonds. Not yet. His accusations were driven by jealousy, yes, and a need for control, maybe. But not knowledge.
The relief that hit me was almost dizzying.
I was barely able to breathe, but I forced my voice to stay steady. "Are you seriously accusing me of manipulating your brothers right now?"
"I’m not accusing," he growled. "I’m stating facts."
I couldn’t stop the chuckle, though my stomach was still twisted in knots. "Facts? You are the one who disappeared after the Alpha Gathering. You didn’t speak to me for weeks. You made me feel like I was a problem you needed to erase. But the second you realize your brothers might not be as insane as you, suddenly I’m the manipulative one?"
His jaw clenched as he spoke. "I didn’t disappear."
"You sure as hell did," I snapped. "You just expected me to sit quietly and wait for you to come around again."
"I didn’t want this to get messy," he said through gritted teeth. "I didn’t want them involved."
"Oh, poor you," I hissed. "Maybe you should have thought about it about it you planned all that in the first place."
He looked like he wanted to argue more, but then something flickered in his expression... something dark and almost vulnerable.
"They have been at my throat every damn day," he muttered in an almost bitter voice. "Kieran, Oscar... even Draven’s started acting like I’m the enemy. You have no idea how hard they have been pushing back since that night."
"I didn’t tell them to," I said quietly.
"You didn’t have to," he said. "They were always going to choose you over me. Just like you knew they would."
The accusation hit hard, making me feel guilty even though I knew that I shouldn’t be feeling that. But a part of me could see the reason behind his bitterness.
In his eyes, I was becoming someone who could turn his dearest brothers against him. And he didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want that to happen.
This only made me wonder what kind of tsunami would hit me if River found out about my mate bonds with Oscar and Draven.
So I shook my head slowly and took a step back, needing space to breathe. "Believe whatever you want, River. I’m tired of trying to explain myself to someone who sees me as a threat."
He looked at me, really looked at me, and for a moment, the anger drained from his eyes. Replaced by something else. Guilt, maybe. Or regret.
But I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care anymore.
I turned on my heel and walked back to the car. My hands were trembling slightly even as I forced myself to stay steady. He didn’t follow at first. He just stood there, alone in the middle of the road, like a storm that didn’t know where to go.
And me? I sat back in the passenger seat, folded my arms, and waited.
Eventually, he got in. And we drove the rest of the way in silence, but everything had changed.
And deep down, I knew that I was sitting on borrowed time.
Because one day, the truth was going to come out. One day, River was going to know about my bonds with his brothers.
And when he did...
The storm wouldn’t just be between the Rogue Alphas. It would swallow me whole.