<b>Chapter </b><b>225 </b>


    Julian’s POV


    I knew my uncle wasying the guilt on thick to have the greatest effect on me. They all wanted <b>their </b>Olivia impersonator, and I was the one being difficult. It made sense that they would try to pull out all the stops.


    I couldn’t even be angry. Mom was important to all of them, as she was to me. And it was easier for them to push for this Olivia angle, when they weren’t the ones who had been threatened and attacked by the


    woman.


    If they had, I suspected things would be different.


    Instead, I tuned them out again. Standing, I decided to go down to the cafeteria to get some coffee. As the


    cafeteria was in the opposite direction as the exit, no one tried to stop me this time.


    As I walked, I kept flexing and releasing my hands. Even on my medicine, the anxiety I felt about everything that was happening was nearly overwhelming.


    For a wild moment, I thought of taking even more of the medicine. If it made me feel this numb, perhaps it could erase the feeling entirely, which could lead to me feeling better about all this. Or at least to not feeling so bad.


    But that wouldn’t help in the end, would it? After all it was because of the medicine that I hadn’t felt


    Amber when she was in trouble.


    I imagined her as Rafael said, sitting frightened, in shock, clutching her phone and waiting for me to call. Had her heart cried my name, begging for me to save her, and I’d been too oblivious to feel it, too numb through our bond?


    I couldn’t risk the medicine anymore. I would feel everything, every pain or possessive aggression, if it also meant that I could feel her when she needed me.


    However, maybe it wasn’t really up to me. The pills had been Amber’s idea from the start. If she wanted me to keep taking them, maybe I had no choice but to. I would do whatever she wanted. In the end, aside from Alice, she was the most important person in my life.


    I would do anything she asked me to do, even this.


    Maybe she would see my side of things this time though. Taking out my phone again, I sent another text.


    I’m sorry, Amber. I really don’t want to take these pills anymore. I know they have some benefits but I hate not being able to sense you through our bond. Would you ept it if I stopped?


    As Alpha, it wasn’t like me to ask for permission to do anything. Yet, in this rtionship, and only with Amber, I wanted her to know that her opinion held weight. I might be Alpha, but if our marriage <fn784f> The rightful source is f?ndnovel</fn784f>


    continued, we would be equal partners inside of it.


    I would never again allow her to feel like nothing, as I had in the past when I discarded her and her emotions, treating her like she didn’t mean anything to me while I hid her away from the world.


    Since then, I had learned many valuable lessons, and none were as important as this: a marriage needed


    to be built on love and trust andmunication.


    No more secrets. No more hiding.


    No more secrets made me think of what my family wanted to do, hiring an Olivia impersonator. For a moment, I almost included that in my text to Amber, wanting to be fully transparent.


    But, thinking about how much she had gone through today, and how my family’s talk likely wouldn’t amount to anything, I decided to hold onto that information for how.


    Next time I saw her, I would have a ton of stories to tell. But there was no sense worrying her about this now, before it became something.


    I also didn’t know how to exin that my mother hated her, for reasons I still hadn’t figured out. That


    was another story for ater date. Likely Mom would pass before Amber would ever be in the same area code as her. Just one more thing I didn’t need to worry her with.