The Alpha Who Let Me Go

Chapter Five

Rhea POV

I don't sleep at all that night.

I sit cross-legged on the floor of my tiny room, staring at the single bag that holds every single thing I own in this world two worn dresses, a pair of sandals with a broken strap, a hairbrush missing half its bristles and I try to make sense of why an Alpha I met only hours ago would fight for me the way he did. Nobody has ever fought for me. Not once, not in sixteen years, not even when I was small enough that it should have mattered to someone.

Maybe he wants a new servant, someone easier to control than whatever staff he already has in that big house of his. Maybe he wants something far worse than that, something I don't yet have the words for, something Ivy and Doran have hinted at over the years whenever they wanted to frighten me into obedience. I refuse to let myself hope for anything kinder than that, because in this house, hope has only ever led to a harder fall afterward, and I don't have the strength left in me for another fall.

I think about the way his eyes studied me, like I was something worth understanding instead of something to be used and discarded. I think about the way his hand closed around Torin's wrist without hesitation, the easy authority in it, like stopping a grown Alpha mid-swing cost him nothing at all. I don't understand any of it, and not understanding frightens me almost as much as understanding usually does.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, I hear Doran's voice through the thin wall, low and furious, talking to Torin about the "mess" I've caused. I press my hands over my ears and count my own heartbeats instead, the way I used to when I was small and the basement door would lock behind me for the night. One. Two. Three. By the time I reach a hundred, the voices have stopped, and I am no closer to sleep than I was before.

I think, too, about Doran himself, and the years since he rejected me. I used to wonder what I could have done differently to keep him from turning on me the way he did. I don't wonder that anymore. I've learned that some people simply look for the smallest reason to walk away, and once they find it, no amount of trying will ever bring them back. Maybe Alpha Silas will be the same. Maybe by next week he'll have found his own reason, and I'll be back here, or somewhere worse.

By morning, I'm standing near the front door with my bag clutched tight against my chest, my whole body aching from a night without sleep, when Ivy, Torin's mate, comes gliding down the staircase, her blonde hair catching the early light streaming through the tall windows.

"Look at the little rat," she says, sneering down at me from the bottom step, her green eyes glittering with the same cruelty I've known my whole life. "Finally leaving us. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. I'm sure Alpha Silas will tire of you within the week."

"Watch your mouth," Silas says, appearing behind me so suddenly I nearly jump out of my skin. His voice is quiet, but it slices through the hallway like a blade through soft fruit. "She is not your toy to mock, and she never should have been in the first place. I suggest you remember that."

Ivy's mouth snaps shut, clearly stunned. I don't think anyone has ever told her no inside her own home before this exact moment, and the shock on her face is almost worth every single cruel word she's ever thrown at me over the years.

"You don't get to talk about her like that anymore," Silas adds, his eyes hard as flint. "Not in my presence, and not once she's under my roof."

Torin appears at the top of the stairs, watching the whole exchange with an unreadable expression, arms folded across his chest. He says nothing to defend his mate, and something in me notes, distantly, that he never once defended me either, not in twenty-two years, not for anything.

Doran lingers a few steps behind him, saying nothing at all, though his eyes track me the whole time, unreadable in their own way. Whatever he feels about my leaving, he keeps it locked behind that same flat expression he's worn since the night he rejected me. I used to search his face for some sign of regret. I stopped looking a long time ago.

Silas holds a hand out toward me, palm open, patient. I stare at it for a long second, unsure exactly what I'm meant to do with it, unused to anyone offering me anything without expecting something painful in return. My hands have learned, over the years, to flinch away from open palms, because open palms in this house have too often turned into closed fists.

"Come," he says again, softer this time, like he can sense my hesitation and is choosing, deliberately, not to rush me.

I take his hand, and the instant my fingers close around his, my knees buckle without any warning at all. The hallway tilts violently sideways, the walls and the staircase and Ivy's smug, satisfied face all blurring together into one spinning smear of color. I hear my own heartbeat roaring in my ears, faster than I've ever felt it go, and somewhere far away I think I hear my name being called, sharp with alarm.

The last thing I register, before the world goes completely dark around me, is the feeling of strong arms catching me before I can hit the floor, and the strange, unfamiliar thought that for the first time in longer than I can remember, I am not afraid of the hands holding me.

Even in the dark that swallows me whole, some small part of me stays aware enough to notice that. It frightens me almost as much as the falling does.