The Triplet Alphas' Secret Mate

Chapter 49: He Knew

Leon’s POV

​My eyes widened, and for a heartbeat, I couldn’t even breathe. He knew. The secret I had guarded with my life—the one thing that could ruin my standing and my future—was something he’d seen through as if it were glass.

​"You knew?" I swallowed nervously, my grip on his collar loosening just enough for him to pull away.

​"Yes," Ethan said, his voice maddeningly calm as he smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt. "It was so obvious, Leon. The way you look at her when you think no one is watching... the way your scent spikes every time I touch her. It isn’t exactly a mystery."

​I felt a cold sweat break out across my neck. Panic flared in my chest, sharper than the anger from a moment ago. "Keep your voice down," I hissed, glancing at the door as if my brothers or father might be pressed against the wood. "Don’t let them know. Not my brothers, and especially not my father."

​Ethan scoffed, a short, dry sound that made me feel like a complete fool. He sat back down, crossing one leg over the other, completely at ease.

"You have no business with me, Leon," he said, dismissively waving a hand. "If you wanted her, you should have claimed her two years ago. Or this morning. Or literally any time before she looked me in the eyes and accepted my proposal."

​"You think it was easy?" I barked, the words tearing out of my throat before I could stop them. "You think I didn’t try to say it? I tried to tell everyone. I loved Scarlett long before I ever felt the pull of the bond. I loved her before I even knew we were mates, but—"

​"But what?" Ethan mocked, his voice cutting through my defense. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing with annoyance. "You are scared, Leon. You’re terrified to tell the whole world that Scarlett is your mate. And why? Because her parents were branded as traitors?"

us until he was towering over me, his

not her parents," he spat. "She is a young girl who has suffered in silence while you, her mate, watched it. You let her scrub floors. You let her eat scraps. And

like a physical blow to my chest. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to shift and

protect my title, thinking I was being noble, but looking at Ethan, I realized

backbone to stand up to your father," Ethan said, turning back toward the balcony, "then you don’t deserve her.

​"One month," I whispered.

trailing over his shoulder. "And the clock starts now, Leon. If I were you, I’d spend that time figuring out who you actually

dim, the shadows of the ancestors’ portraits mocking me as I passed. I thought about what he said. A boy playing at being a man. It was the truth. I had let my father’s rules and the pack’s judgment dictate my life while Scarlett—the other half of my soul—carried the weight of a crime she

and locked the door, leaning my back against it. My wolf was pacing in the back of my mind, his eyes

it

of old journals. Inside was a necklace I had gotten for Scarlett on her eighteenth birthday... that was the day I

whispered to

of the secret was starting to crush me. And as I looked at the box, a new, terrifying thought flashed in my head. The thought of losing my Scarlett

as I shook my

came on my door, interrupting