Chapter 128: Apologize To My Mate!

On second thought, Bryce decided he really did not need guards or any means of transportation to reach where he wanted to be.

Taking them along would only waste time, especially when he could simply teleport himself wherever he wanted to go. Besides, he had Vincent with him. It was not as though he would be alone.

He explained his reasoning to Vincent, coaxing him until he finally managed to convince him to go along with it, even though Vincent remained insistent that there had to be a reason Agatha wanted him to go with guards.

She knew very well what Bryce was capable of, so Vincent could not understand why she would have asked for additional protection in the first place.

In the end, however, Bryce’s insistence prevailed.

Without informing Agatha of their decision, the two of them teleported away from the room.

The moment they appeared, Bryce looked around, expecting to find himself in the middle of an active battlefield. Instead, he found something entirely different.

It was not a battlefield.

The place looked more like a vast homestead, its grounds stretching far beyond what Bryce could immediately take in.

A huge mansion stood within the compound, surrounded by carefully secured grounds that made it clear the place belonged to people accustomed to protecting what was theirs.

Toward the entrance of the mansion, standing prominently in the middle of the compound, was a statue of a wolf wearing a crown.

Bryce’s eyes moved over the unfamiliar surroundings, taking in the enormous property and everything within it.

Beside him, Vincent murmured, "This is where I grew up from."

There was something heavy in his voice, something that made the words sound as though they carried far more weight than they should have.

His expression, however, revealed nothing. There was no visible sign of the memories overwhelming him, no change in his features to betray what the place might have stirred within him.

Before Bryce could say anything, murmurs began spreading through the compound.

"Vincent?!"

"Alpha Vincent?!"

"Who’s the other person?"

"What is Vincent doing here? That shameless bastard. I heard he rejected Leah after insisting they were mates all that time, and now he involves himself with a man."

"With a man?"

"You mean like sleep with a man sexually?!"

"Yes."

"Could it be the man beside him right now?"

"Honestly, if he’s the one, then I’m not going to judge anymore. He looks like an angel. I mean, who wouldn’t be tempted to touch such beauty?"

"Shut up, you perverted garbage. It doesn’t matter how beautiful he looks, soft even more than women themselves, he’s still a man."

The voices continued to fill the air, passing from one person to another as curiosity, disbelief, mockery, and crude speculation spread through the crowd.

Bryce and Vincent ignored them.

They continued looking around the place, taking in their surroundings without acknowledging the people frozen around them.

When Bryce finally turned to face the people, something changed.

Their eyes dropped almost instantly.

One after another, those who had been looking at him suddenly found somewhere else to direct their attention. For some reason, none of them seemed willing to meet his eyes directly.

Bryce noticed it, but he did not dwell on it.

A voice suddenly came from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, its tone filled with hatred and anger.

"You, you dare come back here?!"

Vincent’s brows knitted slightly, but he did not flinch at the words.

There was no other visible reaction from him, but Bryce could tell from the slight change in his expression that he knew exactly who was speaking.

"Why did I have two sons if one of them was going to become a piece of garbage, useless as the garbage itself? I should have just been given one! You didn’t think humiliating me for not having a mate and picking a random beta woman, lying to the whole world that she’s your real mate, only for them to find out that she wasn’t, was enough?! You didn’t think that wasn’t humiliating enough, so you went as far as daring to touch a man like he is a woman?!"

The words struck the air with increasing force as the man continued.

With every accusation, Bryce felt his own anger stir.

His adrenaline stirred, his emotions becoming increasingly difficult to keep beneath the surface as the man continued speaking about Vincent as though he were nothing more than a disgrace.

The crowd erupted into laughter.

The sound spread across the compound, loud and merciless, with people laughing as though Vincent’s humiliation were nothing more than entertainment.

"Serves you right, monster! Let your son humiliate you to death! Let all of them go mad until they’re doing things that do not make sense! The first one has already started, so the second should follow as well!"

Another wave of laughter exploded through the place.

Vincent’s father’s anger intensified.

"You speak so confidently because you know I can’t move. I’ll chop off your throat the moment I’m able to move again, Leonard, but before I do that, I’ll chop off your tongue that dared say such words to me! You know I don’t make empty promises."

His voice carried through the compound with unmistakable fury.

"And as for the sons, I only have one son, a precious one. And you’ll wait for him to go astray for the rest of your life, but you’ll not see it. So who else are you talking about?"

Bryce’s anger rose further.

His hand moved around Vincent’s waist, pulling him closer.

The gesture immediately drew gasps from the people around them. They walked among the people, searching for the person whose voice had been filling the compound with insults.

"I guess the other one that you’re talking about is that pack member who was exiled. And now he’s shamelessly back. Enough is enough. You’ll not humiliate my pack anymore. You brought yourself back to your death!" Vincent’s father announced angrily.

Another voice joined his.

"Father, I told you to do it long ago. You should not have exiled him. Just end him, because at that point he was only going to humiliate our pack, our family. But you didn’t listen. Look at this now?! How much more shameless has he become to the point of involving himself with a man?! I think he’s doing this on purpose just to humiliate us."

Vincent suddenly laughed.

The sound was loud and mocking, carrying a quality Bryce had never heard from him before.

"Who do you think you are?" Vincent asked, his laughter fading into a cold amusement. "You think I have time for that? I don’t think about any of you enough to waste my time trying to humiliate you or please you. I’m so occupied with my man all the time that not even a single second is spared away from him."

"You bastard!"

"Bastard!"

Vernon and Vincent’s father said it at the same time.

That did it.

Bryce could no longer wait.

He moved through the crowd with such speed that he was suddenly standing directly in front of the two men. One was older, the other somewhat younger.

His fingers tightened into fists at his sides, containing the emotions threatening to surge beyond his control.

"Who do you think you’re to speak to my mate like that?" Bryce demanded.

His voice carried authority, the words leaving no uncertainty about what he expected from them.

"Apologize to my mate!"

Murmurs immediately filled the air again.

Then another roar of laughter erupted from the crowd.

"Mate?"

"What does he mean, mate?"

"They are both insane?"

Bryce did not entertain the murmurs this time.

He turned toward the crowd, then let his power move through the air.

The people who had been laughing suddenly found their voices gone. Their throats locked, their mouths continuing to move as they tried to speak, but no sound emerged from them.

Bryce turned his attention back to the two men he had intentionally left unaffected.

"Don’t make me repeat for a third time. Apologize to my mate."

His voice had grown more dangerous.

Vincent’s father and brother looked conflicted, their expressions revealing their reluctance, but neither of them spoke.

Bryce stepped closer.

One step.

Then another.

The space between them diminished with every movement.

"Vincent, you’ll never stop being a coward, will you?" Vincent’s father began, his voice carrying the uncertainty of someone who was afraid of something but refused to admit it, much less yield to it. "You brought a kid around to protect you? And you actually let him speak for yo..."

Before he could finish, Bryce’s eyes suddenly changed.

Purple and gold appeared together within them, blending into a harsh, unnatural hue that made the air around him seem to shift.

His gaze fixed upon the two men.

The next instant, both were ripped from the ground.

Their bodies were hurled upward and suspended in the air, completely at the mercy of the power Bryce had unleashed.

"I said, apologize to my mate!"

His voice rose with such force and danger that even the earth threatened to shake.