QUADRUPLE UPDATE BITCHESSSS!!!!!!

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Aiden's P.O.V

I watch as Reon sags forth one final time, listening to the way his heart thumped its final beats before he died. His breathing stopping and his blood no longer struggling to pump it's way through his veins.

He was dead.

"I shouldn't have killed him." I say with immediate regret as I pull his face up and listen for a breathe. "Fuck, he's actually dead."

What the fuck was I supposed to do without him? Who do I hurt now when I got mad?

"This is a good thing Aiden." Julian mumbles besides me, pressing a hand to my shoulder but I immediately moved away from it.

I tap Reon's face slightly for some signs of life but he was dead. Like, dead dead.

Well I don't imagine there being any other forms of dead - Maximus replies tauntingly. I brush him off.

I stumble back as I look at the body that once held Reon. The man who had fucked my life up before it even began. Now nothing more that a couple of bones and torn skin. His arms lying on the floor beneath his body, next to his legs, feet and hands.

"We need to bury him." Julian says after a moment. I turn to face him with wide eyes to make sure I heard him right.

"Bury him?" I question and he nods. "You want me to bury this piece of shit?"

"You need to put him to rest and live your life without him controlling it." He says simply, his eyes never leaving mind. "You need to bury him."

"I didn't know you had a degree in psychology." I reply as I turn back to look at the literal pile of shit.

"Aiden." He sighs sounding serious. But he always sounded serious unless he was liquored up or stuffed up, so I ignore it.

"He ruined my life." I remind him.

"He ruined Levi's life as well but he's not down here dismembering him." He says cringing slightly. "You can't keep blaming Reon for how messed up you are."

"First you lied to me and now you're insulting me, what a mate." I say sarcastically. I see the way his hard gaze falters, the way guilt and pain swirls in them and immediately hate myself for causing it.

"We need to bury him." He says again before I can apologize. I stare at him for a moment longer before nodding reluctantly.

With the help of the guards, we carry his remains upstairs and out into the pack lands before dismissing them. They ran away puking into a bush, leaving us with shovels and looks of disdain which we ignored.

"I thought you said I needed to bury him." I say with a raised brow when Julian picks up a shovel. He looks at me with those perfect blue eyes that made my chest tight and smiles a little, the sight of him making my soul melt before him.

"I did, but you're my husband and I love you." He says, his lips stretching that little extra way it did when he said husband. After all these years, it still made him giddy with joy to say it, though he didn't seem to notice. "So I'm going to help you in any way I can."

He begins digging while I look at him with a blank stare, my mind buzzing from his words. If it weren't for the pieces of a corpse besides us and our unresolved shit, I'd be mounting him right here against a tree.

Julian had a way of saying all the right things, most of the time he said it when he didn't even know that those words were exactly what I needed to hear. I suppose that's why we were mates, he fit all the parts of me that were lacking, which was a lot. But Julian was special without being my mate, he was a one of a kind masterpiece.

"I said I'd help you, not do everything." He says snapping me out of my thoughts. "Start digging."

I can't help but laugh a little as we begin digging together, my conscious almost completely forgetting all the shit that happened today.

But my mind was apparently a needy dickhead and liked working over time by thinking about shit I rather not.

Did Levi truly believe I would make him leave? That I would be so cruel as to kick him out of his own home?

He feared me. If not, by the very least, was afraid of my actions. I knew it was warranted, I wasn't the kindest soul and had a tendency to favour death above all else. But I thought I showed him and the family that they were completely exempt from the worse parts of myself. I thought they understood that everything was different when it came to them.

I would hurt myself before I let a single tear gather in their eyes. I'd take all their pain and more if I could, I'd protect them all until the day I died.
I thought they understood that, but they evidently did not. Apparently they saw me the way I knew many others did, a ticking time bomb.

It was hard to accept that my child saw me in a light different than the one I thought he did, but it stung just a bit more knowing it was Levi.
I thought Levi and I shared a connection different to anyone else in the pack, that he was the only person besides Julian who entirely understood why I was the way I was. Mostly because he went through similar events as well, but also because there were parts of Levi that seemed to mesh so well with parts of myself.

At least, that's what I thought.

Apparently even my own mate thought I was some wild thing which was prone to violence.

It hurt.
In all honesty, it hurt like hell to know that they saw all the flaws inside me that I tried to work on. The ones I tried to hide and fight back, they saw and they feared them.
It hurt.

The pain was resurfacing quickly, tumbling over me in waves but I pushed it down when my chest began to ache, focusing on digging the stupid hole.

I didn't want to think about it just yet, I didn't want to think about any of it at all.

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"You have to say some words." Julian says leaning against his shovel while I panted breathlessly on the ground.

Who knew burying someone was so much damn work. The shit just never ended, digging and digging into layers and layers of fucking soil. Only to dump it all back in. Fuck me, this shit was a serious workout I was not prepared for.

"It's not a funeral Julian." I wheeze as I stare up at him.

"Not nice words, just words." He says offering me a hand to stand, I stand on my own. He takes a shaky breath and ignores my rejection. "Just parting words, a way of letting him go."

"If you keep taking like this you may put Dr.Phil out of a job." I say with a smile that he does not reciprocate. "I killed him and buried him, is that not enough?" I ask gesturing to the slight hump of soil next to us.

"Come on, just try." He prompts encouragingly. I roll my eyes a good four times so he knew I was not enjoying this and then looked down at the ground.

"Reon, you are finally dead and I'm going to miss hurting you." I say smiling at the way Julian glowered at my introduction. "It was nice, making you feel pain worse than the one you made me feel. Little Aiden is super happy right now, so thank you for that."

I look to Julian but he made a gesture for a bit more. I make a big show of groaning my discontent and then continue.

"It's good that you're dead, but it doesn't feel as good as I thought it would. Its just like a lost a toy or something, but I'm still mad and now I can't hurt you to make that go away. I don't know what I'm going to do now, which kind of makes you the real winner in all this. You're dead and gone, at peace in your own fucked up way and I'm still here trying to live with the complete shitshow that I am."

I look to Julian who gives me a sad smile. I knew he wanted me to continue, a piece of me wanted me to continue as well, but it wasn't that easy. Just letting it all out wasn't that easy.

"Come on Aiden, you're doing really well." He whispers, offering me his hand.

I stare at it for a moment knowing that I couldn't do much of anything without Julian's support. I take it. I let my fingers tightly intertwine with his own and pull him into me. He rests his other hand on my arm, rubbing it soothingly as if to give me stress, a calming gesture that aided me in going on.

"I think it's time I stopped taking out my rage and blaming it on you and start dealing with it by myself. If I don't I may lose my family and I'm not going to let that happen, so I'm going to let you go Reon." I say taking a deep breath of Julian's scent to calm me. "Let you go and fix myself."

I look to Julian who was smiling proudly at me and returned his loving gesture.

"See, wasn't that bad was it?" He teases and I give him a slight shove. "I'm proud of you."

My heart burst with the simple words that were my undoing. It seemed as if with age, the more Julian effected me. He had me wrapped around his long fingers and a single word from those perfect lips could send me tumbling down.

"I think we should talk before we go back to the house." I say and he nods in agreement, the fear in his eyes impossible to ignore. "But first, a shower. I smell like blood and mud."

He laughs and agrees as we head to the nearest shower we can find. Cleaning up in one of the pack houses, we find fresh clothes and head back to our home. Taking a detour to our favorite spot.

We make our way slowly through the expanse of woodlands, walking in silence all the way to the clifftop which we often visited and never forgot through our many years. It was special to me, the place I first kissed Julian or rather where he kissed me after a subsequential breakdown.

Sitting down in the grass, Julian doesn't let my hands go, in need of physical connection due to our bond's prominant distress. I didn't stop him, instead looked at him as he tried to gather enough confidence to speak.

"Are you still mad at me?" He asks tentatively after a long while of just toying with my fingers.

"Yes and no." I say honestly. "I'm not mad so much as sad. I thought you trusted me more than this, that you knew me better than this."

He looks at me with telling eyes that spoke of his distress, trying to decide between being honest or apologetic.

"I won't leave." I remind him, pressing a kiss to his ring. "I won't leave even if your words upset me and if I do, I'll be taking you with me."

He laughs a little and nods. We both knew that despite Julian's many strengths, he still crumbled when our bond was on the line. He still laboured over the fear that I'd go.

"Levi came to me one day, eyes red and puffy, I could tell he was crying." He says as he stares at our hands, letting himself recall a memory. "He told me about Jayson, this was before he knew who he was, when he was tethering on the edge of feral. He couldn't speak, couldn't understand Levi and didn't know they were even mates. At the time, he was simply J, the rogue beyond our pack who Levi found out was his mate."

"J?" I ask in question and he laughs while nodding. "He called him J?"

"I reacted the same way." He says fondly. "Turns out Levi isn't as smart as we believe him to be."

We laugh for a bit before he continues, a faint smile resting on his lips. His fingers still twirling around mine as he sat in front of me.

"They had gotten in to their first fight. He had been hiding him, from all of us, going a few times to see him here and there. Jayson grew tired of not seeing him and got angry, so he ran. " He explains glancing up at me. "Levi was so scared, he was a complete mess... he looked ready to break at any moment. I told him to keep him in the Beckett and Emitt's old house, enjoy their initial time together as mates and slowly work on telling the family. I told him, I'd help him keep it hidden from you and that I'd work on you slowly in preparation of telling you."

"Is this why you wanted us to watch a documentary about acceptance?" I ask laughing at the memory, his cheeks light up like little lanterns as he nods a little. "That was such a shit documentary and an even shitter way of preparing me!"

"I know." He says with a high tone that shows his embarrassment. "There's none about rogues so what else could I do."

"Literally anything else." I exclaim still laughing. He swats me a little, blush not fading, before grabbing my hands again and continuing.

"Anyway, when we came up with a plan and I assured him you wouldn't hate him after you told him, whenever that would be. He started telling me about Jayson." He says with a wide smile as he looks at me. "He just lit up Aiden. Levi suddenly had this spark that wasn't there before. He knew every little detail about Jayson and made sure to tell me about all his quirks which he adored. H-He had this look in his eye that I've never seen before. Aiden you should've seen him, he was so happy."

I feel a warmth spread through me as he describes Levi happy. Of course I wanted nothing more than my kid to be happy, the fact that he was made my soul content in return. Julian's eyes fill slowly but with glee as he smiles at me.

"Levi has always been such a good boy. So caring and sweet, never gave any trouble since his first day with us. He has always claimed to be happy but something was missing and we couldn't fill it, no matter how hard we tried." He says looking at me once more, his lips wobbling. "But I saw it that day, I saw how he practically glowed when he spoke about his mate. It was like he was finally complete... I-I didn't want to jeopardize taking that away from him, even if that meant hurting us."

"Me being the one to take that away from him, you thought I could break them apart?" I ask and he nods sadly.

I nod as well. Understanding that to him, even if he thought there was only a slight chance I would hurt them, he wasn't going to take it. He didn't want to hurt Levi's future, a seemingly bright one. I understood and I agreed with him, but it didn't stop it from hurting all the more.

"I hated lying to you." He says squeezing the pair of hands I was staring at. "I didn't want to and I hated every time I did it, I know it's not a good excuse and I'm sorry. I just didn't know what else to do, he begged me to help him and Aiden I had to. I'm sorry."

"It's okay Julian." I say rubbing my thumb across his soft skin.

"I love you Aiden, so much. Please don't ever doubt that." He begs as he brings himself closer to me. "Y-You thought I was cheating on you, I would never do that. Never."

"Julian, calm down. Breathe babe." I say running a hand through his hair to calm him. "It's okay Julian, I know you love me. I'm sorry for doubting you, I never should have, but I was just scared and that made the most sense at the time. I'd be lying if I said that I would do any differently in your position. So it's okay, I forgive you."

He releases a small chocked sob as a smile stretches across his face. He seemed to be forcing himself from jumping onto me for a hug and wipes his tears away before continuing.

"I need you to know that I honestly didn't know what you would do." He says avoiding my gaze. "I didn't even image a version of today where you didn't hurt Jayson. I couldn't imagine it and I still can't entirely believe that you haven't."

"I'm not a mo-"

"I know you aren't." He says quickly, pulling himself closer to calm me down with his presence. "I know you aren't, but Aiden that's how we all thought you would react and that's not okay. For the family or for us and I think there's a lot of things we need to fix before we go on."

"You think I need to get help." I say, reading between the lines. He nods, his eyes searching mine for a moment. "I don't like therapist."

"I think if we work on the small things first, we can face that eventually." He says and I force myself to nod. He was right, Julian was always right. "No more torturing and Rogue Hunting and unnecessary killing, it doesn't do anything for you but just feed the anger in you already."

"No unnecessary killing, sure. No torturing, I'll make it work. But no Rogue Hunting... Julian that's like my favorite thing to do." I say seriously, he nods in understanding but I don't think he understood. "It's parts of my old pack's traditions."

"It's a fucked up tradition and it needs to go." He says simply and I have to stop myself from laughing. For some reason when Julian curses, I can only describe it as adorable.

"So what should I do instead?" I ask with a raised eyebrow. "It's the best way to get rid of it all, the rage."

"When was the last time you picked up a paintbrush?" He asks and I groan looking away but he doesn't let me drop it. "You were really good, you loved to paint and you started back when Levi was young. Then you dropped it again. It's something you've always loved, I think it can be a good way to relieve some stress."

"I don't know." I say scratching at my neck. "Playing around with paint isn't the same as doing it with someone's life."

There's no way you didn't hear how fucked up that sounds - Maximus interjects and I can't help but laugh.

"That sentence right there is exactly why you need to start engaging in other activities." He says with finality, the tone telling me it was already decided and he was just waiting for me to give in. "We still have Levi's old art room that he doesn't use anymore, we can clean it up and you can use it."

"Fine." I groan as I pull him into my lap and he smiles victoriously, looping his arms around my neck. "But if I'm not doing all that, everyone in the pack has to stop too."

"I've been saying that for years." He deadpans but I ignore it. "They won't like it at first but they'll deal with it."

"You're sexy when you get all alpha." I groan and he frowns despite the way his eyes gleamed with excitement.

"None of that until you promise to be nice to Jayson." He says and I groan again throwing my head back.

"Isn't it enough that I'm leaving him alone?" I ask with annoyance. "He almost killed you Julian and I know that it wasn't entirely his fault now but it doesn't change the fact that he hurt you. I'm barely keeping it together seeing him next to Levi."

"Levi won't be happy if you're threatening the kid every second you see him." He says as if that made it all okay, but before I could even argue he was already moving on. "Plus, I think you would like him a lot if you talked to him." He says stupidly, I press my head to his chest and groan again. It was the best way of communicating that I wanted to be childish and not listen. "He's a lovely person and he is perfect for Levi. His wolf even put Damon in his place."

"Expand." I mumble into his clothes.

"Damon tried to attack him once, back when he wasn't entirely himself. His wolf put him down before I could even blink, he made him submit." He says and I can't help the immediate anger which boils up. "I was angry initially as well, but then I realised that we've been too lenient with Damon. For him to attack Levi's mate was unacceptable and impulsive, incredibly stupid as well."

"Is this why Damon and Levi have been fighting?"

"Yes but I think he also said something that made Levi mad." He says resting his head on mine. "Josey is only now coming around to Jayson, I've been talking to her on the side."

"Let me guess, Hagen is all kumbaya with Jayson." I say before I remember that time in the market and immediately pull back with wide eyes. "That little shitbag told me he was a random rogue. He was on his back like if they were best of friends."

"He does have a soft spot for Jayson." Julian admits laughing. "I think its because Levi and Damon have always been close and Peter is happy with a book rather than an actual person, that Hagen sees Jayson as a big brother he can bond with."

"Bond? He's like twice his age." I deadpan but Julian ignores me.

"They get along really well."

"And Peter?" I ask hesistantly. "Kid must be shitting bricks every time he sees him."

"At first, yes." He admits. "He used to come to me in the middle of the night crying because he had a nightmare that Jayson was coming to kill him."

I snort but manage to stop when Julian glares at me.

"He barely left the house, barely slept, he was so scared." He continues. "Then one day, he said he wanted to try knowing Levi's mate. He started texting Levi and slowly tried to understand their situation. Until he felt confident enough to meet him in person and now those two are thick of thieves."

"Peter?" I ask in disbelief, he nods. "Our Peter?" He nods again. "Our Peter who's afraid of his own shadow?"

"He is not afraid of his own shadow." Julian dismisses quickly.

"I loved the kid to death but he is an omega in every sense of the word." I say with a chuckle. "You're telling me that the omega of all omegas, just woke up one day with a sack?"

"It's beyond me how such an imbecile is my mate." Julian groans in exaspiraiton. "Him being an omega has nothing to do with it."

"Whatever." I grumble still slightly shocked by all this information. "What I'm getting from all of this is that Jayson is basically perfect."

"Nobody is perfect, but he's very close to it."

"You tell me all the time I'm perfect, what is this new bullshit." I say in accusation.

"You're perfect to me as my mate and for me as a person. But you are very far from perfect my love." He says pressing a kiss to my forehead. "So will you be nice to the almost perfect man, please?"

"I will try to tolerate him and I will stop threatening him, that's the best I can do." I say honestly.

"I'll take it." He says with a smile.

"So can I kiss you now?" I ask anxiously, my eyes studying his lips. He shakes his head and I smile before asking again. "Can I kiss you now Jewels?"

He nods happily and presses his lips to mine before I can get to him. He hums against me as our bodies sizzle at the contact we both craved so much. My arms circle his waist and pull him tight against me while his fingers grip my hair. He bites at my lip and I open up for him without question, our tongues meet and I can't help but groan at the taste of him. I let him leave his fun, dominating the kiss with eagerness and need before I take control.

Flipping him onto the ground, I lie between his legs, gripping his hands above his head with one hand before gripping his face with my other and taking what was mine. I claim his mouth as I claim him, his body raising to meet mine as he submitted to me happily.

I loved Julian with everything I had and that hadn't and wouldn't change no matter how old we got. Julian held my heart and soul, he wielded my every movement but seemed oblivious to that fact.

In my eyes, he was still the beautiful, lean and bossy alpha who I feel in love with when I was eighteen. He still made my skin tingle every time he looked at me, still made my heart race when he woke me up in the morning with a smile and he still held every piece of me in his grasp.

I belonged to him, happily and proudly. I aimed to please him and make him smile. It was one of the main reasons I wanted to change, wanted to fix myself. If I got to the point where even my own mate doubted me, my Jewels, then things had to change.

And they would. If he wanted me to get better, I would do it. No matter how hard it may be, I'd also accept Levi's mate. I'd become the best version of myself, someone my family and my mate could be proud of.

I'd change for them.

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I MISSED MY BABIES. UGH GIVE ME BACK ALPHA MATES I WANT TO WRITE MORE ABOUT THESE TWO. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

okay, let's talk about actual chapter. Aiden can be such a sweetheart sometimes.

Thoughts though????
Did you guys enjoy?
Did you agree with what was said?
Did you tear up?

I hope you liked. I really liked writing it. Okay, enjoy next chapter.