Alpha Caius

Lorcan: She Is Not My Alpha

“Alpha,” I bow as Harmony enters the office. She gives me a chastising glance. I lower my gaze but my lips quirk up a little as I anticipate what she will say.

“How many times have I told you to not call me that?”

“I know but in rank, you still are higher and a Luna no less,” I reply. However, the real reason behind not saying her name is wholly different. If I call her by her name, then I am afraid she will also know the feelings I still have for her in my heart.

Harmony shakes her head and walks further into the office. The tense strain on her shoulder and her perpetually tired eyes increase my worry.

“Is something wrong?” I ask. We have established this much boundary where she treats me as a friend. Once alpha Isaac used to frequent here, but I wasn’t too fond of him since somewhere along the line, Harmony fell for the bastard’s charms and later was devastated when he went MIA. Until Ryker came into the picture. I hated him. Hated him so much so that I wanted to kill him and remove him from her life because–

“Lorcan?” Harmony’s sweet voice pulls me out of my thoughts. I blink back at her. She has made herself comfortable on the couch and is staring back at me.

“Huh?”

“You spaced out. Everything alright?” she asks, partly worried and partly out o formality.

My heart clenches in my chest. Her impassive expression doesn’t give away anything and I don’t know what I should make of it. Should I be happy or wistful or sad? I don’t know.

I muster up a smile. “Nothing. Just… alpha Caius is busy. He has been… busy with the rogue beta we caught recently.”

“Really? He did not-”

“He did not want to bother you. He is not in the dungeon-”

“What?” Harmony stands up hurriedly, her eyes are wide with horror. She is moving towards the door before I can ask her anything else.

“Why did you let me in there? You know how he gets,” she says, walking towards the said destination. The accusing tone makes me bite back a retort. It’s not like I forced him in there. All the culprits have been so far locked up in there. The fact that it has been not in use recently is not something to be ashamed of.

It stings. It stings to see how Harmony now sees me as someone who has let something happen to their alpha when she knows I would never.

“I apologize, alpha,” I murmur, trying to sound sincere.

“Don’t bother. I am sorry for snapping at you,” she murmurs as she descends the steps. And just like that, my heart skips a beat at her humility.

“You know paranoia,” she says as she stands in front of the door that leads into the dungeon.

“I know,” I mumble because I do. I have shared this paranoia with her, with the Tenebris siblings, because I cared for them as a friend. They had done more than a family could ever do and that is why I am so protective of them.

She glances at me for a moment, and something flashes across her eyes. The motion is so sudden and fleeting that I am not able to recognize it. She takes a deep breath but before she can open the door, I say, “Will you be okay?” She has equally bad memories of this place. But she is, once again, trying to act brave for Caius’ sake.

She nods before opening the door and walking inside. I sigh, following her inside.

“She is at the end of the corridor, locked up in the last cell,” I inform. Harmony nods tautly as she quickens her pace. When we reach, we find Derek standing guard. He oddly sports a black eye and Caius is nowhere.

“Where’s Caius?” Harmony asks while I file away the question about Derek’s black eye for later.

“Alpha Caius left a few minutes ago,” he reports.

Harmony lets out a heavy sigh. “This guy…”

“Fine, and who is the…” she gestures towards the cell. Derek glances over his shoulder and then steps aside.

The girl looks indifferent, but she is clearly injured or disgruntled after Caius left. She glances up and her eyebrows furrow. Her eyes narrow at Harmony. I initially chalk it up to the girl’s anger. However, what she says, makes me stupefied.

“I have seen you somewhere,” she says, her voice hoarse.

“You are mistaken,” Harmony says promptly. But I know her, I know every aspect of her, and I detect the slight waver in her tone. It makes my heart stutter, not the way it does when she smiles at me, but this time, it stutters with fear.

The girl’s eyes narrow at her as if trying to concentrate and focus. She clicks her tongue although the action is sluggish.

“Nah, I did.”

Harmony’s shoulder tense before she turns to me and hisses, “Is this girl nuts?”

I am about to reply when the girl sniggers. “Was I not supposed to say this little secret of yours, Minnie?”

“Shut it,” Derek thunders. However, I stand dumbfounded. Harmony has already turned around, her back facing the girl, which allows me to see the way her eyes widen for a second before she schools her features into that blank expression that she has finessed during these past few years especially after Ryker passed away.

She hastily walks out of the place. Even though her pace is calm and so is her face, I detect the way her finger clenches and unclenches by her side.

When we are out of the place. I ask.

“What was that about? Why did she call you-?”

She whirls around me, her gaze furious. “That was nothing. She is nuts. There is nothing… nothing to believe in her.”

I swallow back the remark I was about to make. No, she is an alpha now. She is not my best friend or the girl whom I loved and dreamed of spending my life with.

“I need to speak with Caius,” she murmurs after staring back at me, silence weighing down around us.

“Sure, alpha,” I acknowledge.

I mind-link Caius just so I can take my mind off this issue.

“Alpha?”

“What?” Caius grunts.

“Your sister is here. She has visited the dungeon,” I reply reluctantly.

I don’t hear from him for some time before he groans. “Tell her I will be in the office.”

“He said he will be in the office,” I report back. Harmony nods curtly.

As we are about to climb up the steps, she says, “Don’t say anything that happened here to Caus. He will… worry.”

I look back at her, frowning.

“He is my alpha. And even if I don’t Derek or that girl, definitely will,” I say.

“Please,” she says softly, gazing at me with that look that is difficult to say no to. I force myself to turn around. She is not my alpha. She is not someone I have to obey. Caius is my alpha and I need to learn to stop cleaning up after Harmony.