Alpha Alec's Redemption - Chapter 161: Chapter 161

I walk out of Sadie’s bedroom feeling completely pissed. Pissed at the situation and pissed at my reaction.
I stay outside her door for a minute, my hand still on the handle as I try to get my emotions under control. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. I inhale slowly, filling my lungs and trying to let everything wash over me.
It doesn’t help. The turmoil inside me is still there, churning.
After a few seconds, I let go of the handle and stomp down the hallway. My thoughts are spinning so fast I barely register the pack members who bid me goodnight.
When I get to my room, I slam the door behind me. The sound echoes through the empty space, sharp and final. It hits me in the chest like a punch. I’m angry and shattered at the same time. I want to hit something. Someone. Anything to get rid of this suffocating feeling, like my heart is being run over by a damn truck—again and again and again.
I feel like a loose cannon, seconds from exploding. The pressure has built so fast it leaves me shaking with rage.
Grabbing fistfuls of my hair, I start pacing the room.
I should be happy. I should be ecstatic—over the fucking moon. But why does it feel like I’m dying? Like I’m about to lose everything? Like I’m already losing a piece of myself?
I thought I had more time. Turns out I was just lying to myself.
“Alec,” Knox’s voice rumbles through my mind like an echo.
“I’m not in the mood, Knox,” I growl.
I really wasn’t. All I could think about was what Sadie just told me. It keeps replaying in my head like a broken record.
“We have to do something,” he continues, ignoring me.
“No shit, Sherlock,” I snap. “And what do you suggest we do? I’m all ears.”
He goes quiet for a moment before murmuring, “I don’t know.”
I sigh and drop my hands to my waist, staring up at the ceiling. Frustration boils inside me because—just like him—I don’t have a fucking clue. I thought I had more time.
A knock on the door interrupts the downward spiral. I’m so lost in thought I don’t realize it’s my sister until I open the door and see her standing there.
She doesn’t wait for an invitation. Piper breezes in like she owns the place while I quietly shut the door behind her.
“Piper…” I start, meaning to tell her the same thing I told Knox—that I’m not in the mood—but she cuts me off.
“It’s been years, Alec. Why do you still have the same dull décor?” she asks, settling onto my bed.
I glance around the room. She’s not wrong. Black and grey—the same palette I chose when I turned twenty. I haven’t changed it, and I don’t plan to. Well unless Sadie wants me to when we start sharing a room.
“That’s not important,” I mutter. “Why are you here?”
“Can’t I come check on my brother?” she says with a too-sweet smile.
I stare at her. There’s something different about her. A glow I haven’t seen in a long time.
“Did you forget we just had the full moon?” Knox murmurs, and I nearly choke at the implication.
Right. Sadie had given Piper permission to spend the three days with Calvin.
I shut that train of thought down immediately. I do not need mental images of my sister and Calvin. Ever. It’s fucking gross.
“Is Calvin back in his cell?” I ask instead, hoping she kept her promise to Sadie.
It’s not that I don’t trust her—I trust Piper with my damn life—but she can be impulsive. Headstrong. She leaps before she looks.
“He is,” she replies simply. But there’s no sadness in her tone this time. Not like before.
I grunt and move toward the window, my eyes unfocused as I stare into the night. I don’t really want to talk.
“The full moon just ended, yet you seem to be in a foul mood,” Piper says behind me. “Shouldn’t you be on cloud nine after spending three whole days with Sadie?”
There’s a teasing lilt to her voice, but it doesn’t lift my mood.
“Piper,” I warn, turning away from the window and dropping onto a nearby chair.
“What? Things didn’t go as expected? I thought you’d be all loved-up right now, not sulking in your room.” She raises a brow. “Actually, you should be in Sadie’s room right now, you know… continuing where you left off. Talk to me—did something go wrong?”
“I’m not discussing this with you, Piper. Drop it,” I groan. The last person I want to talk to about what happened between me and Sadie is my little sister—who used to be her best friend.
“Come on,” she says with a roll of her eyes.
Despite my irritation, I silently thank the goddess. This—this—was the Piper I knew. The old Piper. The feisty, pushy, relentless version. And something inside me loosens at the familiarity.
“Seriously, Alec. Tell me what’s wrong,” she urges. “I know something’s wrong.”
I stay quiet, my eyes fixed on a stained patch in the carpet. Maybe if I stay quiet long enough, she’ll give up and leave. But then the words tumble out before I can stop them.
“Sadie told me Raven might have found a way around the spell,” I say, my voice raw.
She’d been so happy when she told me. So excited. And I couldn’t even pretend to be happy. Not when it felt like the ground had been ripped out from under me.
“Isn’t that… good news?” Piper asks carefully, breaking the silence.
“Sadie asked the same thing.”
“And knowing you, you couldn’t answer.” Her tone is knowing. “Why is that, Alec?”
She’s my little sister, but right now it feels like I’m talking to a therapist.
I don’t answer. I couldn’t. Because saying it out loud would make me sound selfish. But Piper already knows.
“You’re afraid you’ll lose her,” she whispers. “The reason she agreed to help the pack in the first place was so you’d accept the rejection. Now that Raven may have found a solution, you’re scared Sadie will demand you follow through. That she’ll ask you to let her go.”
I’m not just afraid.
I’m furious.
Furious that I agreed to the damn deal in the first place. Furious that it’s coming back to bite me in the ass. I thought I had time to win her over. To prove we belonged together—before the spell was broken and now it seemed like everything was falling down around me, just when I had built something small between us.
My shoulders sag. “I’m fucking terrified, Piper. Because if this works... I won’t just be losing Sadie. I’ll be losing Aspen, too. They’re my family. I need them with me.”
Piper stands and walks over. She kneels in front of me, taking my hand.
“I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. I don’t have a solution. But I can tell you this—trust the goddess. She brought you and Sadie together for a reason. I don’t believe she’s cruel enough to separate you.”
She squeezes my hand. “Trust that things will work out. And in the meantime, be there for both Sadie and Aspen. No matter what the outcome is.”
Her words don’t fix everything—but they ease the ache a little. So however long this takes… I’ll keep showing up. For Sadie. For Aspen. Even if it means losing them when the curse is finally broken.