Arranged Mate Bond

4.- Comparisons

Aiden’s POV

The second I opened the door of our mansion I heard her laughter echo through the halls followed by Caleb’s whispers. At least one of us was able to have some fun even though we were in this situation. But then again, she wasn’t the one who lost a mate. I was.

Seeing her with Caleb suddenly made me think. What if Caleb was her mate?

No. That wasn’t possible. My father assured me that she didn’t have a mate nor was she going to find one. He didn’t told me how he knew, or he did told me and I wasn’t paying attention. Every time he brought up Brooke my thoughts automatically went to Emma.

And once I was thinking about Emma everything around me fell to the background.

I closed the door behind me with more force than necessary and when I turned around their eyes were on me. The smile that was stretched on Brooke’s face only seconds ago was completely wiped off her face. Instead her lips were set in a thin line.

“Hello brother, nice of you to finally join us,” Caleb stated with a mischievous smile playing on his lips. Since when did Caleb start keeping tabs on me? Usually he was the one that was never at home and when he was he always had female company in his bedroom.

“I’m going to get a drink,” Brooke said and gave me a nod as she passed me, like she had been doing all week. After our argument she kept her distance and always found an excuse to leave the room whenever I walked in. Not that I minded.

Caleb came to stand next to me and placed his hand on my shoulder as we both watched her retreating back. “I sense some tension,” he joked.

I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and glared at him. “Go bother someone else with your stupid games, Caleb. I’m not in the mood.”

“I can see that. Trouble in paradise?” he asked amused.

“If there was such a thing as paradise,” I muttered under my breath, fully aware of the fact that he was still able to hear me with his enhanced hearing. I moved past him and walked towards my office to bury myself in yet another couple of hours of work.

My office door was just a couple of doors away from the kitchen. When I reached it I glanced over towards the kitchen and contemplated on going over there to talk to her. Since Brooke and I weren’t exactly on good terms this seemed like the perfect moment to change that.

But images of Emma filled my thoughts and that was enough for me to decide against any plan to talk things through with Brooke. I walked into my office and slammed the door behind me. Why was it so hard to get Emma out of my head?

It wasn’t that I wanted to move on with someone else. I just didn’t want to feel like this. Every time I thought about her I felt a pang of pain in my chest. It physically hurt to think about her, yet I still couldn’t keep her out of my mind. I accepted the fact that she wasn’t coming back, but it wasn’t enough to stop the hurting.

I walked over to my desk and took a seat behind it. Sighing I let one hand go through my hair and ruffled it up. When I looked down at my desk I noticed the files on it that I had left there the night before. I looked them over and saw that the documents held information on neighboring packs who were going through some changes.

I had to keep myself updated on the changes in other packs, especially the neighboring packs. Since I became Alpha I had let my Beta John keep up with these files, but now that I had someone to avoid I looked over every single detail myself to stay busy. The more work I had to do, the less I had to be around Brooke and act like a couple. I was doing her a favor too, it was clear that she would rather hang out with Caleb than me anyway.