The Alpha's Cursed Healer

CHAPTER 10: THE CRUELTY

ARIA WINTERS

We're still pressed against the wall when I hear footsteps in the hallway outside his study.

Kael freezes and I feel it immediately. It’s like his mind suddenly caught up with what his body is doing. His eyes literally change immediately. He pulls back from me so fast, like my body is fire he has to run from. Cold settles into my depths as his fingers leave me, and the warmth of his presence that enveloped me instantly recedes.

Fuck, did I do something wrong? And who the f**k is the asshole walking around here by this time?

I bite back a whimper as my body begins screaming for him. But he's already reaching for his clothes, his back to me, his shoulders completely rigid.

The footsteps pass. No one tries the door. But it doesn't matter because whatever just happened is over. f**k!

I just stand there half-dressed and confused and trying to figure out what's wrong. But I already know. It was just his wolf messing with him. He hates me, I’m just a rogue with abilities that could be of use to him. How the f**k was I stupid enough to believe that the bond would override the witches cursed tattoo?

When he turns around, he's not the same guy who was kissing me like I was the only thing keeping him alive. This guy looking down at me is cold, and furious. He looks at me like I'm a problem instead of someone he was just getting naked with.

"Get dressed," he says, his voice completely flat.

I'm still in a daze. I look around, trying to find my top, and keeping the hot tears threatening to fall from falling. My heart feels like it was ripped into pieces a million times. How could I be so dumb?

"I said get dressed and get out of my study." He barks again, meaner and sharper this time.

"What?" I ask, pulling my shirt on with shaking hands. Don’t even know how the words fell out. "What did I do? What's wrong?"

He turns away from me and I can see his jaw clenching so hard I think his teeth might c***k. When he speaks, his voice is low and venomous and it cuts deeper than anything Celeste has ever said to me.

"You tried to use your good-for-nothing powers to get me to f**k you," he says, not even looking at me. "You bewitched me into this, stupid slut."

"No," I say, because that's insane. "Kael, that's not what happened. You felt it too, there was something…."

"I didn’t feel nothing!” He growls again and I flinch, my fingers giving in, trembling. I rub them together and hide them behind me.

“And it’s Alpha Kael to you!” He continues, his eyes bloodshot now. “This is what you people do, isn't it," his voice is so cold it makes my skin crawl. "Get inside someone's head. Make them want things they shouldn't. Make them forget who they're supposed to be mated to."

I stare at him like a stone. What is he saying?

I know he knows that's not true. Some part of him has to know that I didn't do anything to him. But it's easier for him to blame me than admit he wanted this without any manipulation at all.

"You're dangerous," he continues. "And I'm not going to be another victim of whatever this is."

Victim? A small scoff escapes me in between the silent sobs I’ve given up on trying to control. My body was getting hot from the inside, and the tears are spilling now. Don’t even know what to think. Is he kidding right now? Victim? When he literally just ripped my clothes off me and dug his hands into my pants?

I don't argue because… I can't. I just can’t. I wipe the tears that have spilled already with the back of my hand as I look for my clothes. Shame crashes over me in waves and I'm reaching for my pants with shaking hands. I turn my back to him slowly to dress because I won't let him see me cry. Not again. I've cried enough in front of him.

Fuck. Every atom of pride in me just evaporated. I hold my chest, pressing it down like it’ll keep the sobs from escaping. How the f**k do you just use someone, then throw them away like trash. Like everything that just happened means nothing.

Maybe it really doesn’t. Maybe I’m just the really stupid one.

I grab my clothes off the floor and pull them on and I can feel him watching me but I refuse to look at him. I refuse to let him see how much his words just destroyed me.

I trail slowly to the door, wiping my tears. And before I could reach the handle and open it, it bursts open and Marcus walks in, breathless and grim. He pauses at the entrance at first, taking in the view. Then he clears his throat and proceeds into the room towards Kael. Doesn't say anything about the obvious tension in the room or the way we're both disheveled and flushed. Whatever he's about to say is way more important than whatever just happened in here.

He leans in and whispers something to Kael and I watch the Alpha go completely rigid.

Then he explodes upright, knocking his chair back so hard it crashes against the wall.

"How many?" His voice is a roar.

"Three hundred," Marcus says. "Maybe more. They're preparing for battle."

Kael moves toward the door, already going into full Alpha mode. He's barking orders at Marcus and I'm still standing there trying to process what just happened and why he suddenly doesn't want me and what three hundred enforcers means.

But at the threshold, he pauses. He looks back at me and for just a moment flickers across his face.

"Don't go back to your cabin," he says, and his voice is clipped. "I'll send someone for you. Stay in the pack house until this is handled."

Then he's gone and Marcus is gone and I'm alone in his study surrounded by the wreckage of the last hour.

What the f**k? Was that concern I saw on his face?

My stomach was pulling at the intensity of his eyes again, when I looked around and mentally slapped myself. He doesn’t care. He just doesn’t want to lose someone that could potentially heal him. He doesn't care.

I sink down onto the floor because my legs won't hold me anymore.

Everything happened so fast. The violence, the tenderness, the heat, the cruelty, the accusation. And now there's some sort of war, which is probably happening because of me.

The mate bond, which felt like everything twenty minutes ago, now just feels like a chain that’s tying me down. A chain around a guy who’s wolf wants me badly, probably, but he himself hates me so much he can't stand to look at me.

I don't know if I'm more terrified of Kael or of how much I still want him despite all of it.

I sit there on the floor of his study, half-dressed in my own shame, and I think about how I'm the most pathetic person in this entire pack. A rogue who threw herself at the Alpha.

I pull my clothes on the rest of the way and I'm trying to breathe and not fall apart when there's a knock at the door.

A young warrior I don't recognize stands in the doorway and he looks nervous, like he knows something happened in here that he's not supposed to know about.

"The Alpha sent me to escort you to the pack house," he says quietly. "He wants you to stay there."

I nod and follow him through the halls in a daze. We walk past windows and in the distance I can see rows of warriors gathering at Shadowmoon's border under torchlight. Hundreds of them. All preparing for battle.

This is because of me, it’s always my fault.

War is coming and somehow, impossibly, it's my fault.