The Alpha King's Human Mate by HC Dolores

The Alpha King’s Human Mate

Chapter 71

Chapter 71

“Romantic love is an addiction. A perfectly wonderful addiction when

it’s going well, a perfectly horrible addiction when it’s going poorly.” )

Helen Fisher

The hollow feeling in my chest never dissipated.

If anything, it only seemed to get worse the farther Griffin got from me. Every time that I thought about him – which was

quite a lot – the claiming bite on my shoulder pulsed. Like it yearned for Griffin’s touch.

Deep down, I knew it was the mate bond making me feel this way. It had to be. As little attention as I paid in my werewolf

education classes, I’d remembered that. Once you completed the mate bond, it became stronger. It got harder to spend

time apart.

But hearing about in a classroom couldn’t compare to how it actually felt. As cheesy as it sounded, it felt like Griffin had

packed my heart into his suitcase. \”)

And even thinking that felt embarrassing.

Even with the mate bond, I’d hardly known Griffin more than a month. Amonth – that’s all the time it had taken for him

to burrow his way Chapter 71

into my soul like he’d always lived there.

You survived eighteen years without Griffin, surely you can stand another month.

So much for wanting to be independent.

The worst part was the nightmares that started a couple of days after Griffin left.

I dreamed of Alpha Liam and Griffin in a stand-off, like one of those old Western movies. Instead of guns, their claws were

unsheathed.

I always woke up at the same part ~ right when Liam sliced Griffin’s head clean off his body. I usually woke up gasping in

a cold sweat too, and it would take me a moment to realize that the dreams weren’t reality. That was Griffin was still alive,

and had he died, | would’ve known. Not only would the castle be in an uproar, but I was sure that I would’ve felt it

through the mate bond.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t sleeping that well these days. There wasn’t even a reliable way for me to contact Griffin either. He’d be traveling, meeting with Beta Williams, and possibly walking into a fight. That didn’t leave a lot of time for casual

texting, although it’s not as if I had a phone to text him on.

phone is still sitting cracked on

to wallow in the anxiety of Griffin’s absence. I knew that moping around would only make

myself into one of

kept my

land a punch today?” Ivan asked,

me even though my hits hardly seemed to move it anyway.

too.”

Ivan’s comfort level with me seemed to

going to tattle to Griffin every time he offered a little

probably because I feel like I’m half-asleep,” I said,

Ivan asked, raising an eyebrow, “Are the

sarcastic, but I’d learned that was just him. Brash with no filter. Maybe it

He was about the only person currently in the

afraid they’d

my eyes, “It’s these…well,

“What is ii

mated, right?”

been separated before?” I asked, “Like, for a week or

face — he knew where I was going with this line of questioning.

I was in my prime, I occasionally went on missions to settle

you deal

something awful. “It is… not easy,” he

of the mate.

I asked. I wasn’t sure why

Maybe it just felt like I

what it looked like pity. Or, at least, the closest that Ivan could get

of my mate dying in odd ways,” Ivan confessed, a

Sometimes in

Sometimes just in a mundane

me. Is this just a

remember vivid, haunting nightmares being part of the package when everybody was bragging

the mate bond.

nights,” Ivan continued, “But eventually,

“The source?”

bond’s way of trying to force

won’t want to leave your mate’s

a moment and then he

he’d been

Liam and losing,” I said, “Getting killed.”

talking. Every anxiety

over the past few days spilled out of me. “I know

and Alpha Chapter

Griffin would be the victor. But it still keeps me

head.”

bond,” he said, “The moments together are

all the

humans would that call that withdrawal, which isn’t usually a good

bonds? Their view of love is heavily skewed,” Ivan

you want, but I can tell you

is very different from the way werewolves love.

They don’t feel the overwhelming need to be possessive over