The Game Of Quadruplet Mates
Chapter 34

Of all the times that Pete would come, he chose the moment I was having an internal battle with myself when my heart told me who I loved, but my soul was pointing me to another, to the one I was made for. I was holding by a thread and he was only there to cut it.

Pete is the last person that I need right now.

He found me instantly even though I hid behind the mountain of food.

"There's the guest of honor." Pete cheered, pointing towards me and making the entire area go quiet. It was obvious he was drunk, his legs barely keeping him up.

Ajax and Jeremy stared at each other from across the table, my mate's hand still on my thigh. As if a silent order was given, the nameless pack sitting around the tables stood up, their faces hard and intimidating. Pete grinned, looking delirious as he waved everyone away. "There's no need for that."

"Pete," It was my old Alpha, rising from his seat and giving Pete a reprimanding look. "You're not supposed to be here. I commanded you to stay away."

My father even gets up, his frown present as was his disappointment. "Listen to your Alpha, boy. Leave."

The old Alpha visibly swallowed as his gaze nervously drifted towards Ajax, who had not moved. He knows what Ajax can do and would prefer not to have it on his lands. We were a peaceful farm pack and our old Alpha had done his best to make that happen. "Go back to your house and do not leave until I tell you to."

But Pete merely walked forward, ignoring the Alpha's command, too drunk and stupid to follow it. "This is a pack celebration. I should be here. I'm from here. She's not."

He stares at me again, eyes wide and eager.

"What's your name again?" It was Jeremy, standing from his seat to intercept him. The charm was on, smiling and looking mischievous. He was trying to deescalate things before it destroyed the night.

Pete looked offended that Jeremy didn't know his name. "It's Pete. I was at the Games with you. Don't you remember?"

Jeremy blinked in confusion. "What? I didn't catch that. Did you say Parker?"

"No, uh, Pete." He says dumbly, staring at the beauty of Jeremy.

The Beta was glowing under the twinkling lights, all the attention on him. Pretty boy. With his golden hair and bright blue eyes, his smooth milk skin and easy smile, there was truly no one as beautiful as him. And the entire pack was in awe of him.

The hungry stares of the girls followed his every move.

Even Pete had to take a step back from Jeremy, overwhelmed by the man's incomparable good looks.

"Oh, it's Patrick? Of course." Jeremy guessed, his hand to his chin as if he hadn't heard Pete's name at least a dozen times already. "I'm really bad with names."

"Pete." My supposed best friend repeated impatiently. "My name is Pete. You know me."

Jeremy snapped his fingers, smiling widely at his eureka moment. "Oh, yes, I know. It's Paul."

Pete growled, frowning at the Beta. "It's-"

Jeremy interrupts him, his smile ever present. "Listen, Pablo."

"Pe-" He didn't get to finish.

Jeremy shook his head. "Pedro, don't talk when someone else is speaking. That's just rude."

Pete was red in the face. "My name is not,"

"Pinocchio, shush." Jeremy humbles him by placing a finger in Pete's face. "You're being rude again. Let me finish."

By the end of it, I even forgot what his name was. I'm sure everyone forgot as well, enthralled by the playful Beta.

"Pringles isn't a very hard name to remember. I know what I'm doing." Jeremy shrugs, taking Pringles- Pete by the arms and tugging him away from me. "Listen, you should leave before you're escorted out by someone else. And you will not like that someone. Trust me. Let me take you back and we can continue our night peacefully."

"Shut up, pretty boy." Pete yanks his arm away from Jeremy and squares his shoulders. "You have no power here. The city pack isn't welcome in these lands."

Even with his bravest expression, trying to make himself bigger than he is, he was obviously no match for Jeremy or anyone from the nameless pack.

But Pete still thinks he's the best warrior.

The best of everyone.

Pete turns to the silent crowd of onlookers before chuckling. When he spoke, it was as if he thought himself the Alpha making a speech. "We're here tonight to celebrate an old pack member. She's my best friend. My neighbor. My childhood partner in crime and she was supposed to be my mate. She promised me as much. Didn't you, June?"

I've never felt so small as everyone turned to look at me.

From beside me, Ajax is sitting and drinking a dark liquid in a crystal glass. He purses his lips as he continues to hold me, his hand possessively on my thigh while his fingers try to soothe my tenseness. If he was angry or amused, he did not show it. It was clear Pete was beneath him and he glanced at Jeremy with a blank stare, making his Beta step forward once more. "Time to go."

Pete merely walked closer to me. He was so out of his mind that he didn't even notice the large monstrous man sitting beside me.

"I have to say, I'm proud of you, June. She is the perfect example of the girl that can get whatever she wants by using her pussy." The air felt like it was squeezed out of me then. But he wasn't done. Of course he wasn't. Pete points towards Ajax, a smirk on his lips. "Weren't you just having sex with his Beta? Everyone was talking about your time at the lake with the pretty boy. You were always alone with him. And now you're mates with his Alpha. Is the nameless pack's Delta a boy? Because June would sleep with that one too."

The entire area was even more quiet. No one took a breath, no one even moved.

Except my father, who jumped out of his chair. "Boy!"

For the first time, Ajax acknowledged Pete by giving him a look that could kill. It was so chilling that even I had to swallow back.

Ajax silenced everyone with one look, even my father, who could not move or speak.

The air around Ajax felt toxic and before I could react, Ajax's glass was suddenly soaring through the space between them and was smashing against Pete's face, shattering the glass into millions of pieces. The shower of broken crystal glass made everyone duck and shout.

Pete falls backward, the force of the throw knocking him down. Ajax stands from his seat then, throwing the table in front of us to the side, hitting against the wall of a house and shattering even more things. Ajax didn't care. Nothing stopped him as he walked towards Pete in a deathly stride.

Each step, each muscle was like a death sentence as the monster showed itself. No more was quiet Alpha standing supportively beside his mate. In its place was every rumor, every scary story that was told about him.

The energy that pulsed around Ajax was frightening, the hairs on my arms standing up to the ends. Everyone in the vicinity, our old Alpha included, took a horrified step back from him. The only ones that stood in place was the nameless pack.

Ajax doesn't say a word but his men move as if he did, coming to stand behind a moaning Pete before roughly pulling him up, holding Pete by the arms and restraining the whimpering mess.

Pete was bleeding, blubbering nonsense as both his eyes, which were Ajax's target all along, leaked thick red liquid down his face. With one glass, Pete was a mess, shards of crystals were embedded in his skin, his eyes and his lips.

Ajax takes Pete by the neck, lifting him out of his men's hold. Speechless, I watched as Pete's feet kicked about, flailing around as he choked. He looked minuscule beside Ajax. He had no chance.

No one had.

If anyone wanted to help Pete, no one spoke up. The fear in everyone's eyes was so obvious. No one dared stop him. Not even my old Alpha.

Pete's blood was dripping down Ajax's arm but this did not stop him.

"Your death is long overdue," Ajax says, devoid of any kind of emotion.

Pete's desperate bloody eyes found me. He was choking, his words coming out in rasps of breath. "June, please, June. I'm your best friend. I was supposed to be your mate. We were supposed to have a life together." Ajax tentatively glanced at me and I merely nodded.

Without looking away, I watched as Ajax ripped Pete's head out of his body, using only one hand to do so. The sound of it was so loud and echoing that I swear it shook the ground.

Pete's lifeless body slumps to the floor, followed by his head that Ajax throws to the ground before he stomps on it, the weight of his foot smashing whatever was left of Pete. It was an explosion of red and pink and white.

A mere bug squashed under the powerful Alpha's feet.

The sight was brutal, more brutal than what I had already seen from him, but even then I didn't look away, watching the blood and other liquids seep into the earth.

I must have phased out because as I looked around, I saw my old pack members sniffling, gasping in fright, and shaking from fear. The old Alpha was trying to keep everyone calm, but we were a small farm pack that had never seen such a thing and they were all in hysterics.

A monster. They whispered. Just like what was told of him.

Monster. The word was repeated over and over. Monster.

When Ajax turned to me, his face was marred with blood and glass. There was a question in his eyes and I understood what it was.

Did I think him a monster too?

I answered by walking to him, holding his hand, the very one that took a life and interlaced our fingers. "Let's get you back home. We'll clean you up."

The shock on Ajax's face was obvious, but he followed me as we walked back. When we're alone, away from everyone, he asks, “Are you afraid of me? Are you going to tell me I was wrong?

"No." I took my time to think about his second question, trying to understand my emotions in all of this and I remember his words from before. "If he was kept alive, Pete would only cause trouble."

Ajax looks away, his expression tight. "He disrespected you. I should have stopped him the moment he came."

I shook my head, knowing the real reason why he held himself back. "You didn't want to ruin the night. My night."

"I wanted it to be perfect for you," He says quietly. "It was supposed to be your celebration."

My hand squeezed his. "It was perfect."

He glanced down to himself, the splatters of blood on his clothes making him sigh. "Maybe..."

I lifted an eyebrow. "Maybe?"

Ajax hesitates, his amber eyes on our hands that held each other. "I always seem to be knee deep in blood and d e a t h. Even before in the woods, when I first met you. I couldn't go to you because I was like this. Maybe I cursed."

"Don't say that." I urged, making us stop from walking. "Don't ever say that. You were eight and survived the unsurvivable. You are a good man, Ajax. I know that. Isn't that enough?"

This time, he didn't hesitate. "It is enough. It is more than enough."

We stared up at the moon for a silent while, admiring its light that shined in the darkness.

Suddenly, I can picture myself in the woods again, but instead of being scared of everything, I imagine Ajax with me there, looking up at the same moon like we were doing right now. It was comforting.

"I'm glad you found me again." I tell him, my words barely loud enough to be heard, but he hears them anyway.

He wraps me in an embrace, pressing a kiss on top of my head. "I would have spent my entire life replaceing you, my little mate. Now that I have you, I'm never letting go. Never." It was an oath.

A vow.

And I kept it close to my heart.

We make it back to the house and, with another kiss on my head, Ajax goes to the bathroom to wash away the blood on him. I sat on the couch, eyes toward where the party was.

A sharp pain in my neck made me gasp, my hand flying up to feel it. It was burning, more than it was before, but this time it wasn't Jeremy's pain. It was mine. Through all this, I couldn't look away from the window. Something was happening to Jeremy.

I forced myself to stay under the blankets, fighting my soul to not move, but the mark had become almost unbearable and before I could stop myself, I was out of the house and walking towards the bright lights of the party.

When I got there, Pete or what's left of him was gone, leaving only a circle of damp earth that shimmered with blood. The place was almost empty, leaving only a handful of people... including Jeremy, who was drinking excessively in a dark corner. He looked wasted, bracing himself against a wall as he drank bottle after bottle.

The sight of him relaxes my mark a little until I see a girl on his lap, the girl from before and she was kissing his neck, licking at where he should be marked as he drank from a bottle, her hands all over him.

Rage consumed me instantly and the burn of my mark seemed to triple. I wanted to s cre a m, to make a scene but I held myself back, keeping control of myself as I approached them as calmly as I could. "Jeremy, what are you doing?" I asked, my voice on edge. He didn't drink often and he certainly didn't look like this when he did. His hair was a mess, his eyes were blood shot.

The girl glances at me, her eyes wide. "Oh, June, 1-"

"Jeremy?" I pressed, my lips pressed thin. "What are you doing?"

He didn't look surprised to see me, his drunken state worse than I thought. "What? Since when did you care what I do?"

I took the bottle from his hands and tried to pull it from him but his grip was strong. "You're drunk and you haven't stopped drinking."

His blue eyes darkened. "I don't have to listen to you. You're not my mate. I can do whatever I want."

"Stop it." I argued, watching as the girl continued to kiss his neck. The more she kissed him, the more I flinched back from the pain that shot through my neck.

He started drinking even more. "Is that an order, Luna?"

"Yes." I commanded, my words final, the air becoming still. "Now stop it."

Jeremy shoves the girl out of his lap, the girl letting out a small shriek from the force. When she was gone, Jeremy stared at me, his eyes still dark but they weren't angry anymore, they were sad. "It hurts, you know. My neck. I feel everything." I held my own neck. "Everything?"

"Everything." He confirms pitifully. "And it hurts and I feel like I'm going to die, but I know I've made my decision and you've made yours. But I still hurt. All of over."

All I wanted to do was hug him at that moment, my soul was begging for it, my entire body calling out to him, but I fought it.

I stayed where I was.

And kept my hands to myself.

"I'm sorry. I never wanted to be with her, I... I was just trying to forget you. To distract myself. Do you feel pain when she kisses me?" He asked, rubbing his neck and making a face when his hands felt wet from her kisses. "Yes." There was no point in lying. "I do."

His head dips low, his face laced with regret. "I see. It won't happen again."

I bit my lip. It hurts to say, but I push myself to get it out. "Maybe it should happen again. You should move on. Find someone else. We're not meant to be. Not in this lifetime. Not after all that we've said and done."

Tears fell from his eyes, trailing down his cheeks, but he forced a smile anyway. "Maybe in our next life, I would have claimed you first. Maybe in that life, I didn't chose loyalty. I would choose you like I've always wanted to." "Maybe." I don't dwell on this even if something deep inside me wanted him to keep going. "But it's too late for this life."

"You know good and well how much I love you. I was ready to leave it all for you." He whispered, standing from his seat to stand mere inches away from me. "We were going to have a life together."

The words that left my lips stung me. "But you didn't, Jeremy. You didn't choose me."

"But I wanted you. I still want you." He was shaking uncontrollably. "I regret... it. Every day when I see you, I just want to take you away and run."

"Stop it. He will kill you." I whispered, fighting the emotions that spilled from him, from me. I couldn't tell which ones were mine. "Enough of this, Jeremy, please."

Jeremy laughs but it was a sad one. "I'm starting to think death is better than this."

"Then let's make it a reality."

My heart stops as a chill like no other goes through us. I didn't want to look behind us. I didn't want to see him.

But I still did, turning to replace Ajax with dark eyes staring at us, looking murderous.