The Bully Alpha's Fake Alpha Mate (BL)-Chapter 40: PERFECT SYNCHRONIZATION

ASHER

I woke up to the smell of coffee and the sound of Reed packing up camp. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, his back was turned, movements efficient and controlled as he rolled up his sleeping bag.

But I couldn’t forget the way he’d been watching me in the darkness. Those gray eyes fixed on me like I was something he was trying to figure out, and something he was hunting.

My chest felt tight just thinking about it. I sat up, my whole body aching from sleeping on the hard ground. The pill bottle was still in my pack. Three pills left after this morning’s dose.

Three days if I was lucky, two if I wasn’t.

My hands trembled as I reached for the bottle. I dry-swallowed the pill quickly, hoping Reed wouldn’t turn around and hoping he wouldn’t ask questions I couldn’t answer.

"Get up," Reed said without turning around. "We move in ten minutes."

I climbed out of my sleeping bag and started packing, my fingers fumbled with the straps on my pack. Everything felt wrong this morning. Everything was warm, and sensitive like my skin was stretched too thin over my bones.

Reed handed me an MRE(meal, ready-to-eat) without a word. Our fingers brushed for half a second, and I jerked my hand back like I’d been burned. Reed’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

We ate in silence, the tension between us thick enough to choke on. Every bite of the tasteless food stuck in my throat. My stomach was churning, nausea rolling through me in waves. The pills were getting worse, then suddenly Reed pulled out a map and spread it on the ground between us.

"We’re here," he said, pointing to a spot on the map. "Rogue activity has been concentrated in this area." He traced a circle with his finger. "We track northeast, look for signs, report back at twenty-one hundred hours."

"Fine." My voice came out rougher than I intended.

Reed’s eyes flicked up to meet mine. "You need to follow my lead out there. I’m not joking about that if I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to fight—"

"I know how to fight."

"Not like this, you don’t." Reed’s voice was hard. "Rogues aren’t Academy Alphas playing dominance games. They’re feral, they hunt in packs, and they will kill you if you make a single mistake."

"I said I know how to fight."

"Then prove it." Reed stood up and started walking. "And try to keep up this time."

We’d been tracking for three hours when Reed stopped, his whole body went still and alert.

I froze behind him, my heart rate spiking. Adrenaline flooded my system, making my hands shake worse than before. Reed held up a hand for silence. Then he pointed at the ground.

Tracks.

Large paw prints pressed into the soft earth, fresh enough that water was still seeping into the impressions. It made my throat go dry.

Reed knelt down and examined them closely. His fingers traced the edges of one print, and I watched the way his jaw tightened. The way his shoulders tensed.

He was scared, Reed Jackson was scared, and that terrified me more than the tracks.

"Wolf," he said quietly. "But too big to be natural. Shifted rogue."

"How many?" My voice barely worked.

Reed stood up and scanned the area. His nostrils flared, scenting the air.

"Three, maybe four." His eyes narrowed. "And they’re close."

The words had barely left his mouth when the growling started. Low and guttural, coming from multiple directions.

My bladder almost let go, terror locked my muscles and every instinct in my body was screaming at me to run, to hide, and to get the fuck away from here. We were surrounded before I could give in to my instincts.

Reed’s hand went to the knife strapped to his thigh. "Stay behind me."

"I can—"

"Behind me. Now." He yelled, the command in his voice broke through my panic. I moved behind him on shaking legs. Three wolves emerged from the trees.

Oh god.Oh god, oh god, oh god.

They were massive, easily twice the size of normal wolves, with matted fur and eyes that glowed with an unnatural amber light. Their lips were pulled back in snarls, revealing teeth stained with old blood, saliva dripped from their jaws.

I was going to die here.

The largest one, an Alpha, judging by the way the others deferred to it took a step forward. Its eyes were fixed on me. Those eyes of a hungry, starved wolf

Reed moved to block its line of sight. "Back off, this is Academy territory."

The Alpha rogue laughed, it was a horrible sound, half-human and half-animal, that made my skin crawl and my stomach turn.

"Academy pups," it said, its voice distorted and wrong. "Wandering into our territory. How generous."

"Leave," Reed said, his voice dropping into Alpha command. "Now."

The Alpha rogue’s eyes flashed. "Make us."

Then it lunged, everything happened at once. Reed met the Alpha mid-leap, his knife flashing. The two other rogues split up, one going for Reed’s flank and the other coming straight at me. Time slowed down.

I could see every detail, the rogue’s muscles bunching. Its claws extended, and the hatred in its amber eyes.

I grabbed my knife and dodged left as the rogue’s claws raked through the air where my head had been.

My heart was trying to break through my ribs. The rogue spun faster than anything that size should move. It was on me again in seconds, jaws snapping, and I quickly drove my knife into its shoulder.

Hot blood sprayed across my face and hands. The rogue howled and stumbled back but it recovered too quickly. It charged again, and this time I wasn’t fast enough.

The impact sent me flying, my back hit a tree hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Excruciating pain exploded through my spine. Stars burst across my vision.

The rogue was on me before I could recover, its weight crushing, its breath hot and rancid on my face as its jaws went for my throat.

I was going to die. Right here, and right now. Terror flooded every cell in my body.

Then Reed was there.

He grabbed the rogue by the scruff and hauled it off me with strength that shouldn’t have been possible. The rogue flew through the air and crashed into another tree with a sickening crack.

"Get up!" Reed shouted.

I couldn’t move, my body wouldn’t obey. Shock had frozen me solid.

"ASHER! GET UP!"

The raw desperation in Reed’s voice broke through the paralysis. I scrambled to my feet, gasping for air. The Alpha rogue had Reed pinned now, its claws tearing into his shoulder. Blood was spreading across Reed’s shirt, soaking through the fabric. Reed’s face twisted in pain, something inside me snapped.

It was not terror anymore but rage. Pure rage that burned through every other emotion, and thenI moved without thinking.

I grabbed a fallen branch, thick and heavy, and swung it with everything I had.

It connected with the Alpha rogue’s skull with a crack. The rogue staggered, its grip on Reed loosening.

Reed took advantage immediately, his knife found the rogue’s throat, and sliced through, blood sprayed out of the wound. The Alpha went down gurgling, its blood pooling on the forest floor.

The other two rogues saw their Alpha fall.

For a moment, they hesitated, fear flickered in their amber eyes, and then they ran.

Reed and I stood there in the sudden silence, both breathing hard, and both covered in blood.

My whole body was shaking. Adrenaline was crashing through my system, making my vision blur and my hands tremble violently.

Most of the blood wasn’t ours but some of it was.

"You okay?" Reed asked, his voice rough.

"Yeah." The word came out choked. "You?"

Reed looked down at his shoulder. The claw marks were deep, bleeding steadily. He swayed slightly on his feet.

"I’ll live."

I moved toward him. "Let me see."

"It’s fine—"

"Let me see." My voice broke on the words.

Reed went still as I approached. His eyes tracked my every movement, wary and intense.

My hands were still shaking as I pulled his shirt aside to examine the wounds. They were bad, deep enough to need stitches, deep enough that he could bleed out if we didn’t get them closed soon.

Nausea rolled through me again.

"You need to clean these," I said.

"I know."

"And bandage them before we keep moving."

"I know."

But he wasn’t moving, he was just standing there, watching me with an expression that made my chest ache.

"That was..." Reed started, then stopped.

"What?"

"The way we fought." Reed’s eyes were searching mine, and there was something vulnerable in them now. "We moved together like we’d been training together for years."

He was right, in the middle of that fight, there hadn’t been any hesitation. No second-guessing. Reed had moved left and I’d moved right without either of us saying a word. When the rogue had me pinned, Reed had pulled it off. When the Alpha had Reed, I’d stepped in. It was pure instinct, and perfect synchronization like our bodies recognized something our minds refused to acknowledge.

"You saved my life," Reed said quietly.

The words hit me harder than they should have.

"You saved mine first."

"Yeah, but..." Reed’s jaw clenched. His hands were shaking too now. "You could have run. When that Alpha had me down, you could have run and left me there."

"No, I couldn’t have."

"Why not?" Reed took a step closer. His voice cracked. "After everything I’ve done to you. After declaring war, after threatening you. Why the fuck would you save me?"

"Because you’re my partner." The words came out before I could stop them. "Like it or not."

Reed stared at me, the air between us felt charged, like an electric flowing through us. My skin was too hot. My pulse was racing. Everything in my body was screaming at me to either run or get closer and I couldn’t decide which.

"We need to keep moving," I said, breaking eye contact. "Report this attack. Get you patched up."

"Yeah." Reed’s voice was rough. "Yeah, we do."

But he didn’t move, and neither did I.

We stood there in the aftermath of the fight, blood-spattered and breathing hard, the body of the rogue lying beside us, and something had shifted.

I could feel it in the way Reed was looking at me. Not with hatred anymore. Not with the cold fury from before but with something that made my chest feel like it was caving in.

Something that terrified me more than the rogues had.

"Asher," Reed said quietly.

"What?"

Reed’s eyes searched my face, gis hand lifted slightly, like he was going to reach for me, then dropped back to his side.

"Why do we fight like we were made for each other?"

The question hung in the air between us.

My throat closed up, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think because he was right. We’d moved together like two parts of a whole like our bodies were meant to be one like we were meant to fit together, and that thought made me want to scream.

Reed took another step closer, closing the distance between us. "Tell me you felt it too," Reed said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Tell me I’m not imagining this."

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs. My hands were sweating, and my skin felt like it was on fire.

"Reed—"

A howl cut through the air, it was distant but clear, more rogues calling to their pack, and the moment shattered. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Reed’s head snapped up, and the vulnerability vanished from his face. "Fuck!! They’re coming back with reinforcements."

"How many?" My voice was shaking.

Reed closed his eyes, listening. His jaw tightened. "Too many."

He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

"We need to move. Now."