My Cold-Blooded Alpha Came Home and Found His Younger Self Calling Me Wife Chapter 10

My Cold-Blooded Alpha Came Home and Found His Younger Self Calling Me Wife Chapter 10

One weekend, I was in the study going over the gallery’s financial reports when young Adrian came in with a plate of sliced fruit. He leaned over the back of my chair and held a piece of apple to my lips.

“Take a break. You’ve been staring at those reports all morning.”

I bit into the apple. He took the opportunity to lower his head and nuzzle the side of my neck, right beside

my mate mark.

The mark did not react to him, but my inner wolf had already begun to recognize his cedar scent, identical to

Adrian’s but younger, fresher, and harder to ignore.

“That old man has a dinner to attend at the Rainier Club tonight. He won’t be home for dinner.”

He lowered his voice, making his intentions impossible to miss.

“Spend tonight with me. Just me, okay?”

His lips had barely brushed my neck when the study door swung open. Adrian stood in the doorway, his expression darkening at the sight of his younger self pressed against me.

“The dinner was canceled.’

He strode into the room and yanked the boy away from my chair.

“What are you doing?” young Adrian demanded.

Adrian adjusted his cuffs with infuriating calm.

“I said I’m staying home tonight.”

The boy laughed in disbelief.

“Then stay home. Why are you interrupting us? Can’t you smell how emotionally drained she is today?”

Adrian ignored the provocation. He planted both hands on the edge of my desk, and the scent of a mature Alpha rolled over the younger wolf’s fresher cedar.

“Evelyn, we need to talk.”

He stared directly at me.

“How long do you intend to let this continue?”

I leaned back in my chair.

“I think things are working perfectly well.”

“His presence is an unpredictable variable.”

Adrian lowered his voice.

“He has no legal identity, no complete records, and he can’t stay eighteen forever. You know he can’t offer

you a secure future.”

Young Adrian shot back, “I’ll grow up, and I’ll become stronger than you.” Adrian answered without mercy.

“You expect Evelyn to pay for your education and training, then wait for you to grow up and replace me?

Dream on.’

He turned back to me, his tone unusually forceful.

“Send him back to the guest room tonight. I’m your legal husband, and I’m the one who shares a mate bond

with you.”

I looked at Adrian’s clenched jaw and knew he was genuinely rattled. Over the past few days, young Adrian had drawn closer by giving me the companionship and emotional attention my husband had failed to provide for years. For the first time, Adrian understood that his place beside me could be taken away.

He was used to controlling the law firm, the Blackwood family, and the entire North Bay Pack. Now he was being forced to share his home with his eighteen-year-old self. For a man like him, tolerating even this

much was an enormous concession.

Young Adrian crouched beside me and looked up, stubborn and wounded.

“You promised you’d spend tonight with me.”

He held my hand tightly.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s only jealous because I’m younger and more willing to take care of you.’

One used our legal marriage and mate bond to demand his place. The other used wounded eyes and vulnerability to win my favor. Both were trying to force me to choose.

I pulled my hand from young Adrian’s grasp, then pushed Adrian’s arm away from the desk. I stood and

walked to the window.

“I already told you. I’m not choosing.”

Neither of them had understood me. I turned to Adrian,

“You canceled the dinner and rushed home because you were afraid he and I would grow closer, didn’t you?”

His expression stiffened, but he did not deny it. Then I looked at young Adrian.

“And you flooded the study with your scent because you knew he would pass by. You wanted to provoke him, didn’t you?”

The boy turned his face away, his ears reddening. I knew exactly what both of them were

were doing.

“If all three of us are living under one roof, then we follow rules.”

I returned to the desk and tapped my fingertips against its surface.

“Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are Adrian’s. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are yours,” I told the younger man. “But until you complete your pack registration and adult wolf assessment, you can only keep me company. You are not allowed to touch my mate mark.”

I looked at both of them and added one more rule.

“Sundays are mine. Neither of you is allowed in the master bedroom.”

Then I delivered the final condition.

“Anyone who breaks the rules leaves this home immediately.”

Both men fell silent. A storm of emotion crossed Adrian’s face before he clenched his jaw and nodded.

“Fine.”

Young Adrian looked deeply unhappy, but he knew this was the most he could get for now.

“I understand.”

Lite gradually settled into a rhythm no outsider could have understood. For the first time, I held the power in our relationship. Adrian finally shed the arrogant indifference he had worn for years.

Whenever it was Adrian’s turn, he began ending meetings early, bringing flowers home after work, and asking about the gallery without being prompted. As our mate bond came alive again, he stopped treating physical intimacy like another obligation on his schedule. Instead, he kept seeking reassurance that I still wanted him, that my wolf would still respond to his scent.

Sometimes, he would lean close to my ear and demand in a low voice, “Your only true mate is me. The man I

am now. Not my past self. Not some substitute.”

I calmed him by giving him the reassurance he needed.

“Our bond is still intact. He’s only staying here temporarily. You’re the one I’m legally married to.”

Only then would some of the tension leave him. Young Adrian, meanwhile, proved just how good he was at winning people over. He left traces of his fresher cedar scent around Adrian’s coats on purpose.

Whenever I was not paying attention, he left faint kiss marks along my neck, though he never dared touch my mate mark itself. He took me camping by Lake Washington, watched midnight movies with me, and even began studying gallery management and modern pack law. Every time he suggested taking me

somewhere alone, Adrian objected at once.

“No.”

All I had to say was, “Then both of you can come.

That was enough to silence them. They constantly tried to outdo each other, comparing themselves and inventing new ways to prove their value to me. Whenever their arguments grew too heated, I only had to say, “Keep arguing, and you’re both leaving.”

Both men would rein in their Alpha pressure, and the argument would die. I did not rush to decide how long this arrangement could last. As long as young Adrian remained in this timeline, he was the best possible reason for Adrian to change.

Adrian’s status, resources, and power were also exactly what I needed to keep the younger one under

control. A few months later, Adrian handed most of his interstate business to his partners and shifted his focus back to Seattle. He remained the most dominant Alpha in the North Bay Pack, but he had finally begun learning to make room for his family in his schedule.

His attitude toward his younger self changed too. At first, he had wanted the boy gone at any cost. Now, he had reluctantly accepted that young Adrian might be staying for a very long time.

One year later, the North Bay Pack Council finally created a new identity record for young Adrian. To avoid

having two Adrian Blackwoods in the same timeline, he changed his name to Aiden Blackwood and publicly

claimed to be Adrian’s younger half brother, supposedly sharing the same father. He passed his adult wolf

assessment, received a Social Security number and his own bank account, and was no longer dependent on

Aiden had no interest in becoming a lawyer. He applied to the University of Washington’s visual arts

program and started over as a freshman. Since his major overlapped with my own field, he had more than

enough reason to drop by my Pioneer Square gallery every day.

That fall, I held a small exhibition at a private gallery near the Seattle Art Museum. Wearing a burgundy

strappy gown, I was discussing plans for the following year with a curator. Adrian stood beside me, one hand resting lightly at my waist, a wineglass in the other.

From time to time, he spoke with clients who came over to greet us. He kept his Alpha pressure tightly

restrained, and his cedar scent perfectly controlled. He looked calm, composed, and careful not to overstep.

The curator smiled.

“Ms. Carter, your husband is remarkably young and very accomplished.”

Before I could respond, a familiar young voice came from behind me.

“Hey.”

I turned. Aiden stood there in a white shirt with an enormous bouquet of sunflowers in his arms, young,

bright, and bursting with energy.

He walked up to me and held out the flowers.

“That lipstick looks gorgeous on you today.”

I accepted the bouquet without a flicker of surprise. One slightly pointed canine showed When Aiden smiled,

then he turned to the curator and politely offered his hand.

“Hello. I’m Aiden, Evelyn’s assistant.”

The curator looked from Adrian to Aiden. The resemblance was impossible to miss. One carried the mature,

commanding presence of an Alpha. The other radiated younger, fresher energy.

“You must be Mr. Blackwood’s younger brother.”

The curator asked no more questions. After a few polite remarks, she excused herself. The moment she left, Aiden dropped the formal act.

He moved to my other side and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his fingertips lightly brushing my earlobe

“You look gorgeous tonight. Want me to help you take your makeup off when we get home?”

Adrian’s hand tightened around my waist.

“Aiden, today is Wednesday.”

Wednesday belonged to him. Aiden did not even look at him.

“I know. I only offered to help her take her makeup off. I never said I’d do anything else. Can you stop making everything sound dirty?”

A vein pulsed at Adrian’s temple. Holding my wineglass, I watched the two versions of him start arguing

again and found their bickering strangely amusing. A year had passed, and neither was willing to back

down.

Still, they were far more restrained than they had been at the beginning. They had learned to eat at the same table, behave in public, and occasionally even cooperate. Last month, when I had a fever, Adrian went to

First Hill Medical Center to pick up my medication while Aiden stayed home, made soup, and watched over

They had worked together surprisingly well. Of course, once my fever broke, they argued for half an hour

over which one had cared for me better. I patted the back of Adrian’s hand, then glanced at Aiden.

“The exhibition isn’t over. Both of you, behave.”

That evening, when we returned to our condo at Escala, I kicked off my heels and stepped barefoot onto the

carpet. Aiden came up behind me and began kneading my shoulders.

“I ran your bath.”

I relaxed against his chest. Adrian emerged from the walk-in closet and paused at the sight of us, but this time he did not lose his temper.

He sat on the couch and picked up his tablet, pretending to answer emails while glancing at us again and again. I knew he was waiting for me to call him over. Adrian had once been too proud and distant to fight for

anyone’s attention.

Aiden’s arrival had finally taught him that a neglected relationship could truly be lost. I held out my hand. “Come here, honey.” The tension in Adrian’s scent eased at once.

He came to my side and took my other hand. On one side stood the mature Alpha bound to me. On the other stood his younger counterpart, now independent but still passionate and full of life.

I smiled. This was exactly the life I wanted. Older Adrian. Younger Aiden.

I was not letting go of either oue.