Stronger as One (#1, Completed)

57. Friends or enemies?

AIDEN

"I don't like this one bit, Aiden." Rafe paced nervously in my living room. "We should have gone with her."

"To the Sun and Moon Goddesses? Last time I checked, no one extended the invitation to us, Rafe, and it's not like we can just show up there."

"I just have a bad feeling," he said as he massaged his temples.

Goddess, he really had it bad, despite all of his seeming denial. He couldn't fight anymore what Riley meant to him and he couldn't hide it from me either because our new bond meant that I knew exactly what was going on in that head of his. It really was something that I ought to teach our mate how to do as well- life would be much easier for all of us like that.

"You have feelings?" I chuckled, teasing my best friend. "Hell must have frozen."

Rafe looked at me unamused and rolled his eyes at me. "Prick."

"Nah, mate- that role is solely reserved for you," I continued teasing him. "So, what is it that you are worried about exactly?"

"We should have been there with her. What if something happens to her? What if Markolf showed up?"

He looked like he had a long list of possibilities for what could go wrong while Riley visited the Goddesses but luckily didn't list them all. I wondered how much time he had spent thinking about all the potential outcomes.

"What if she decides to break the bonds?" I threw the idea out there just to gauge his reaction and it looked like I had struck gold. But then the reality of what I suggested hit me as well- what if she really did ask to break the bonds?

My whole body tightened at the thought. Worry clenched like a tight fist around my chest.

I knew that I was being irrational. I felt Riley and her emotions after we marked her and I knew Rafe had too- she was embracing the connection between the three of us. Not only that, it seemed to even make her happy. Like she welcomed it not because she was destined to do so but because she wanted it.

Truth to be told, I think that was also what freaked Rafe out in the morning. It was easy for him to pretend that he didn't want to be a part of our triad when Riley was rejecting the idea as well. But now that things had changed- hell, now that we had marked her- none of us could pretend anymore. It didn't mean that Rafe wasn't going to try- he was a stubborn bastard that Alpha. Yet, I knew that deep down, he wanted this and he wasn't going to let Riley go without fighting for her. His uneasiness right now was a dead giveaway.

"You really are a dickhead today," Rafe growled, as I grinned. He got up from the sofa and made his way towards the door. "I have to get back to the pack and to check on Natalia in Talamaire. Let me know if you hear anything about Riley."

I leaned back in my seat, trying to think about what we were going to do next. There was Markolf, there was our triad, there was my clan. So many open questions still but it looked like I wasn't going to figure them out at that moment because my phone vibrated from the text message that I had just received.

Meet me at my place. We need to talk. Cyrus

Cyrus was probably the last person that I was expecting to hear from but, seeing as I had nothing else to do while we waited for Riley to return, I figured that it couldn't harm to hear what he had to say.

I shifted and let Blaze take us quickly to Cyrus' place. It had been a while since I had let him out so he was making the most of soaring in the sky. In fact, the last time that Blaze got to spread his wings was with Riley on his back, which made both of us think about her again. There was a silver lining in the pain that Blaze and I felt from having her far away from us though because it meant that our bonds were still in place, which reassured me.