Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 287

Aurora’s P.O.V

I took a deep breath, watching Mia's fingers trace the rim of her coffee cup, her gaze fixed on the swirling liquid inside. She was trying to act unaffected, but I knew her too well. The tension in her shoulders, the way she tapped her nails against the ceramic in a barely contained rhythm—it all told me she was on edge. I leaned in slightly, lowering my voice just enough to pull her attention back to me.

"Mia," I said gently, "I know you're scared of what he might say. But avoiding the conversation won’t make it disappear. You should at least give it a try. You owe yourself that much." 

Her lips parted like she wanted to argue, to tell me all the reasons why this wasn’t a good idea, why she couldn't handle it—but before she could get a word out, a familiar voice cut through the air from behind us. 

"Can I talk to you alone, Mia?" 

I knew that voice anywhere—steady, calm, but holding an undercurrent of something unresolved. Shane. 

Mia stiffened, her hand tightening into a fist on the table before she suddenly reached for mine. I barely had time to process the sudden warmth of her fingers wrapping around mine before she turned to face him, her grip not loosening in the slightest. 

"If I’m having this conversation with you," she said, her voice surprisingly steady despite the fear in her eyes, "Aurora stays." 

There was something raw in the way she looked at me then, as if I was the only thing tethering her to the ground. My heart clenched at the vulnerability in her expression, at the way she held onto me like I was her only lifeline. I had always been her safe place, but this—this was different. This was her outright refusing to face whatever Shane had to say unless I was right there beside her.

Of all the people out there…I didn’t think that Mia would trust me to stay with her at such a vulnerable moment.

I exhaled softly, squeezing her hand in silent reassurance before turning my gaze to Shane. He was standing there, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, his jaw tightening for just a second before he let out a resigned sigh. 

"Is that okay?" I asked him, my voice level but firm. I wasn’t going anywhere if she didn’t want me to, and he knew that. 

Shane let out another slow breath, shaking his head slightly. "I don’t have a choice, do I?" 

Mia’s fingers tensed around mine, and I could feel the tremor she was trying to hide. I glanced at her for a brief second before looking back at Shane. "No, you don’t," I said simply. 

The three of us sat in the weight of that moment, the unspoken emotions thick in the air. Mia wasn’t ready to face him alone. And I wasn’t going to let her. 

I sat there, feeling like an uninvited guest to a conversation that was never meant for my ears. The weight of the moment pressed against my chest, making it harder to breathe as Shane took the seat across from us. His movements were slow, deliberate, like a man carrying a burden too heavy to bear. His gaze flickered toward me briefly, hesitation clear in his eyes, before finally settling on Mia. And then, with a sigh that seemed to come from the deepest part of him, he spoke. 

"I'm truly sorry, Mia," he said, his voice thick with emotion, every word laced with regret. 

The silence that followed was suffocating. I wanted to leave—I should leave. This wasn’t my place. But Mia’s fingers tightened around mine, her grip firm, as if anchoring me there. So I stayed, even though my presence felt intrusive, even though I was an outsider to the storm brewing between them. 

Mia didn’t speak immediately. Instead, she just looked at him, her face unreadable, her eyes searching his like she was trying to understand something that had eluded her for so long. And when she finally did speak, her voice was softer than I expected, yet there was an undeniable strength in it. 

"Why didn’t you tell me, Shane?" she asked, and I could hear the hurt behind the words, the pain of months spent waiting for something…for someone, that was never meant to be. "If you had, I wouldn’t have—" She stopped herself, shaking her head before exhaling sharply. "I wouldn’t have waited. I wouldn’t have hoped." 

Shane flinched as if her words had struck him physically. He lowered his head, his fingers threading through his dark hair as he let out a deep, weary breath. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. And then, finally, he lifted his gaze again, looking at Mia with a sorrow so profound it made my heart ache for them both. 

"When I found out," he began, his voice barely above a whisper, "when I realized my mate was a man… I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to feel about it." He let out a humorless laugh, shaking his head as if mocking himself. "Everything I thought I knew about myself, about my future, everything I planned—it all changed in an instant. And I was scared, Mia. I was so scared."

There it was…the confrontation that I knew, that we all knew was coming from a mile away. I just didn’t expect myself to be at the centre of it when it finally happened.

His confession hung between us, thick with unspoken emotions, and I felt Mia’s fingers tremble slightly in mine. She swallowed hard, her eyes glistening with something unshed, something painful. 

"Shane…" she murmured, but she didn’t seem to know what else to say. And honestly, I didn’t either. 

I sat there, watching them, feeling every ounce of their pain as if it were my own. And I wondered—how much of this moment had been inevitable? How much of this heartache could have been avoided if only the truth had come sooner?