The Alpha's Exchanged Mate
The Alpha’s Exchanged Mate – Chapter 19

Alexander’s POV…

For the first time in a while, I was looking forward to going home. I wasn’t sure why I felt that way, but I knew it brought me a tremendous amount of happiness. We are most probably going to have a fight and most likely not agree on something, but for the first time, I was going home to my real mate, and that alone is worth celebrating.

I reached home to meet Becca in the central parlor. Why was she there? She should be anywhere Edwina is.

“Becca, why are you here?” I asked without even answering her greeting.

“She said she wanted to be alone,” she replied calmly.

“Alone, Alone where?” I asked.

“She is in the room,” she replied.

“Is she still in our room, or does she mean another room?” I had instructed Becca earlier to aid her move into another room, so I wasn’t sure what room exactly we were talking about.

“What room is that?” I asked again.

“Your room, sir, ” she replied, and then I exhaled. I quickly wheeled myself to the room. After the whole fiasco about s*x and her reaction to it afterward, I had thought she would leave the room hurriedly. So after listening to Becca, I wheeled myself to my room, which wasn’t too far because it was on the ground floor. I opened the door, and my eyes scrutinized the room for her but couldn’t replace her. I was about to exit the room to go back and question Becca when I heard the shower turn on; she was in the bathroom. I sighed.

It’s not easy being on edge and keeping up with an unnatural act of being crippled or rather a former act of being crippled. I have not shifted to my wolf form for months, and my wolf yearns to come out. I had suffered to manage to keep it in during the full moon, and it had been a struggle not being able to fully function as I used to.

But anytime I consider letting go of the lie, I recall what had transpired between Sonia and me. I recall what happened when I lost my leg for the first time and wasn’t really faking it.

At first, she tried to act like it was okay and not really bothered about it, but as the days went by, I started noticing some change in attitude from her path.

***FLASHBACK***

“Can we talk?” I asked Sonia as she was painting her nails. I wheeled my chair towards her, and she ignored my presence for a while. I found it disrespectful. I could see she was preparing to go out, but she had stopped asking for permission or notifying me when she went out. She would just go out and come back whenever she pleased.

“I am in a hurry. I have a flight to be on,” she replied, and I glared at her.

“What flight? You never told me that you were traveling,” I asked in amusement at the information coming to light. I wondered if I had not started this conversation, would she have ever told me that she was going to travel?

“I have to be at the Luna’s award show tonight,” she retorted. Ever since this conversation started, she had not even bothered to look up at me. All she did was focus on the nail.

“I wasn’t aware of it, “

“It’s not my fault you no longer have a social life,” she mumbled, still focusing on her nails. I felt the urge to head to the nail painter and spill all of them on the floor. If with that, I could get her to acknowledge me, but I knew that wasn’t the problem. I was already fuming with anger and rage.

“How does my social life have anything to do with you not informing me that you were going to travel?” I retorted as my voice sounded hoarse and filled with anger.

“If you weren’t such a joke to the realm, you would have been sent out a special invite like they always do to the strongest of Alphas.” She reached out for the bottles of nail polish as she began to gather them together.

“What do you mean I am a joke to the realm?” I wasn’t particularly asking her, but I was demanding an answer. My voice went an octave higher.

“Why are you asking me obvious questions and answers?” she stood up and began to head back to her room. At this time, she had demanded that we sleep in separate rooms, which I had granted to her because I believe it was normal for couples to want space.

“I am talking to you, Sonia,” I called out after her as I followed her to the room. She slammed the door behind her, and I opened it and wheeled my way in. I could tell that the little scene outside would stir up some attention, and I wouldn’t want to be known as the Alpha who was constantly fighting with his Luna.

“I am asking you a question, Sonia,” I yelled out again. She glared at me and let out hysterical laughter.

“The Alpha I knew would have shifted to his wolf form by now, and all hell would have been let loose but can’t you see you aren’t even the glimpse or shadow of the man that you used to be? Everything with you now is just a joke,” she yelled back at me.

I knew Sonia to be cruel due to the way she treated some of the other female wolves, servants, and guards. She wasn’t a nice person to be around. One can even take her to be unpleasant most of the time, but never have I thought she would act that way towards me.

“Is it because I am crippled?” I muttered the question to her. It was a question I already knew the answer to, then I needed to hear it from her lips.

“What do you think? You are a joke to the community of Alphas,” she paused and exhaled, “I am ashamed to be associated with the name Alpha Alexander’s Luna because, to me, it’s a name that brings ridicule. It is a name that brings shame, I used to pride in myself being your Luna, but right now I detest that title,”

those words broke me down and shattered me into pieces. I had thought about how impenetrable my soul was, but those words were more than that of a two-edged sword.

I was paralyzed and crippled for the second time, but it didn’t come physically but emotionally this time. Even though Sonia wasn’t my original Luna, I had learned to love her and cherished her fierce and outspoken nature. But on this very day, I knew I only learned to love her, and I wasn’t truly in love with her.

***PRESENT DAY***

I watched as the door gently opened, and she came out with a towel wrapped around her chest and water still dripping all around her body. Her hair was wet, and her eyes red. She must have taken a hot bath. She seemed a little bit startled to see me, and I couldn’t help but smile at her.

“Hello,” I said to her as she walked past me to sit before the mirror.

“Good evening Alex,” she greeted, and I could see the smile form again on my face. She called me Alex, and that was a huge relief because I could see it as a form of progress.

“Good evening Edwina,” I responded and noticed we both called each other by name for the first time. I could also see a smile form on her face as she took out a big hair comb to straighten her hair which was tangled from the water, which they had been immense to.

“I thought you said you wanted to sleep in separate rooms?” I asked her because I needed to know if this was something permanent or temporal.

“We are married, and I don’t think sleeping in separate rooms is ideal.”

She said, and I grinned at the beauty of her words until she continued.

“And besides, what better would I be than my sister, and it would breed unnecessary suspicion about our marriage.”

The smile which had formed on my face quickly disappeared. She wasn’t doing this because she had warmed up to the idea that sharing a room with me wasn’t such a bad idea. She did it because she wanted to shut down any form of unnecessary rumor that would surface.

I sighed in disappointment.