The Alpha's Exiled Mate Chapter 25

Third POV

Kaelin Brooks walked beside Thorne down the hallway of the Grand Lunar Hotel's presidential suite, her steps small and hesitant beside his confident stride. Tears glistened in her eyes, threatening to spill over her perfectly made-up lashes. She reached for his hand, her fingers trembling slightly.

"I didn't mean to disturb your work," she said softly, her voice catching. "You know how my moon-phase syndrome gets when I'm anxious. The doctor says I need to avoid stress..."

Thorne's face remained impassive, that judicial mask he'd perfected over years on the Moon Court. "I told you, it's pack business. There are matters I handle that don't concern you."

She flinched at his tone, visibly withdrawing into herself. "Of course. I understand." Her eyes lowered submissively, the picture of a properly deferential fiancée. "I just... miss you. We've barely seen each other this week."

They reached the elevator, and she dabbed at her eyes with a delicate handkerchief embroidered with the Brooks family crest. "Will you at least come by tomorrow? Father's been asking about the wedding preparations."

"I'll call you tomorrow," Thorne said, his tone softening slightly at her apparent distress. "Go home and rest, Kaelin. Take your medication."

The elevator arrived with a soft chime. Kaelin stepped inside, turning to face him with wide, vulnerable eyes. "Promise you're not angry with me?" Her lower lip trembled perfectly.

"I'm not angry. Just busy." He didn't step closer or offer any physical comfort, maintaining the distance between them.

As the doors began to close, Kaelin caught one last glimpse of Thorne's face—not the controlled Alpha expression he showed the world, but something more complex, more troubled. It fueled a rage inside her that she carefully kept hidden behind her mask of fragility.

Alone in the elevator, Kaelin's carefully maintained façade of vulnerability evaporated like morning dew. Her posture straightened, shoulders squaring as she checked her reflection in the mirrored walls, wiping away the crocodile tears with clinical efficiency. Her wolf surged forward, golden flecks illuminating her irises as she snarled at her own image.

That scent in his room—it was familiar somehow, stirring memories she'd thought long buried. A scent she had spent years trying to eradicate from Moon Bay, from her life, from Thorne's memory.

"Impossible," she whispered, pressing her temples. Her moon-phase syndrome might affect her emotions, but there was nothing wrong with her sense of smell. Someone had been in that room—someone Thorne was protecting from her.

The elevator doors opened to the opulent lobby, and Kaelin instantly reassumed her public face—delicate, refined, the picture-perfect fiancée of the Grey Moon Pack's Alpha. She nodded demurely to the night manager, who practically bent double in deference as she passed, murmuring sympathetic platitudes about her "condition."

The sympathy in this city disgusted her almost as much as the pity. Everyone walking on eggshells around poor, fragile Kaelin Brooks with her tragic moon-phase syndrome. If they only knew how she used their concern to manipulate them all.

---

Outside, the cool night air cleared her head somewhat. She'd been so certain she'd detected a female scent in Thorne's room—and not just any female, but one that triggered something primal and angry in her wolf. Yet logically, it couldn't be who she feared.

"I made sure of that," she muttered, sliding into her white Bentley SUV parked in the VIP section. The leather interior enveloped her in luxury as she gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white with suppressed rage.

Three years ago, she'd personally ensured that Freya Riley would never return from exile. The moon-silver dosage she'd arranged through Officer Carter was twice the lethal amount. No wolf, especially not a half-blood like Freya, could survive that level of contamination for three years.

"I'm overreacting," Kaelin said to herself, starting the engine. "Though if Thorne is hiding something from me..."

She drove slowly around the hotel, intending to head home, when movement on the sidewalk caught her attention. A small figure emerged from the building adjacent to the hotel, moving with obvious difficulty but with a determined gait. Something about the way the person moved—the slight hunch of shoulders she recognized from courtroom footage she'd studied obsessively—made Kaelin's blood freeze in her veins.

She pulled the SUV to the curb and reached for her phone, quickly accessing the illegal security feed she maintained on several downtown buildings. Zooming in on the figure, she felt her world tilt on its axis as the streetlight illuminated a face she'd never expected to see again.

Despite the gauntness, despite the obvious pain and exhaustion, there was no mistaking those features or the distinctive silver-blonde hair that had once been the envy of many high-ranking female wolves.

The vehicle's interior was dark except for the blue glow of her phone screen, her slender fingers now drumming an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel. Her eyes, glinting with golden flecks in the darkness, narrowed as she continued watching the small figure attempt to blend into the crowd.

"Freya Riley," she whispered, her perfectly manicured nails digging into the leather of the steering wheel. "You bitch."

Her phone screen changed as she tapped it, dialing a number from her contacts. Three rings, then a nervous male voice answered.

"Ms. Brooks, I—"

"Officer Carter," Kaelin's voice was knife-edge sharp, cutting through his greeting. "You assured me she wouldn't survive the exile period. Yet here she is, walking the streets of Moon Bay. Explain that to me."

There was a panicked silence on the other end before the man found his voice. "Ms. Brooks, I did exactly as you asked. I increased the moon-silver dosage in her collar maintenance. I don't understand how she—"

"Three years ago," Kaelin interrupted, her tone eerily calm now, "I warned you that she couldn't be allowed to return alive. Your failure disappoints me."

"No one survives that dosage for three years," the officer protested, desperation creeping into his voice. "I don't know how she managed to—"

"Your employment at Silver Shackle Prison ends tomorrow morning," Kaelin stated flatly. "Your services are no longer required."

"Ms. Brooks, please—"

She ended the call with a tap, her attention returning to Freya's retreating figure. The exile was moving slowly, clearly in pain, but with the determined gait of someone who had learned to push through suffering.

Pieces clicked into place in Kaelin's mind. The familiar scent in Thorne's room. His secretive behavior. The way he'd blocked her from entering. All of it pointed to one unthinkable conclusion: somehow, Thorne had found Freya Riley and was helping her.

A wave of nausea swept through her, followed by a surge of pure rage that momentarily darkened her vision. Her wolf clawed beneath her skin, demanding release, demanding blood. With tremendous effort, Kaelin forced it back down. This situation required calculation, not feral reaction.

The fragile, vulnerable Kaelin that she presented to Thorne and the world was nowhere to be seen now. In her place sat a predator, cold and calculating, already formulating plans to eliminate the threat that had inexplicably returned from the dead.

Kaelin's lips curved into a cold smile as she started her vehicle's engine. "Even if you survived exile, little mongrel, I won't let you have any chance at redemption." Her voice was soft, almost tender, in stark contrast to the malice in her eyes. "Look forward to my next 'surprise,' won't you?"