34

ALINA

I haven’t seen Alexander since what happened in the bathroom. I told myself it was for the best, but there was a part of me that really hoped he would show up. At the very least, he should look at me.

I’m back to eating in my room and not speaking to anyone. Well, except Claude and Lisa. Which I guess is all the same. They were the only people I ever spoke to anyway.

I still haven’t seen or heard from Hailey. And I hated that there was nothing I could do. I’ve asked Lisa a few times but she said she didn’t know her and hasn’t seen her around.

Lisa was almost always here. She was by my side when I woke up, and most of the time, I fell asleep while she told me stories about the packs and the people she had lived with. Some, she said, had been told to her too.

Claude had made it our thing to always take a walk after dinner. Since I don’t eat with him and Alexander anymore. I’m guessing it’s because the latter doesn’t want to see me.

I kept wondering if maybe I did something wrong. I have no experience to speak of. That night with the man at the hotel had been nothing but a drunken stupor. All I remembered was that everything was blurry. Which didn’t help.

It wasn’t hard to spot my inexperience, especially when the person next to me was Alexander. He had enough experience to last lifetimes. I’d heard stories about it, and it wasn’t hard to see how confident he was near a woman. When he touched her.

Just the memory of how his hand had played with me made a throbbing start between my thighs. I squeezed my legs tightly, trying to get rid of the ache and force his face from my mind.

It had been a week since the incident. Since Alexander had touched me like if he didn’t, he would die. Then he kissed me, literally pulling the breath from my lungs. Until my chest tightened and my eyes teared up from the lack of air. Then he released me and disappeared from the room, and I hadn’t seen him since.

I got up from the bed and walked to the beach facing window. I’d tried reading the book Claude left here the other day, but I hadn’t been able to get past a few lines. It wasn’t boring, I promise. I just couldn’t get into it.

I chose to try again. Deciding it was better to lose myself in fiction than in thoughts of a man who clearly didn’t want me. Or else, he would have had me.

But then. Why doesn’t he just get rid of me? Or kill me?

I am of no use to him. He won’t touch me. He won’t talk to me. He won’t let me go out. I’m neither a worker, nor a slave. I’m like an old piece of furniture in the storeroom. Kept and forgotten.

I shouldn’t think this way. Or feel all the things I’m feeling. Even reminding myself he’d kill me the second he found out I’m a werewolf doesn’t stop me from thinking about how gentle he’d held me during that panic attack.

I couldn’t shake the thought of him shielding me from the council, threatening to hunt them down if they ever hurt me. No one has ever done that for me. No one has ever stood up for me.

There has to be a name for the thing I’m feeling toward this man who was neither hero nor angel. But somehow, my entire brain had crowned him as something divine.

My attention was pulled by laughter from down below. It was strange, considering I was on one of the higher floors. I guessed my hearing had gotten better. Either that, or the person was laughing really hard.

“Come on,” a female voice said. “That is definitely not something he would do.”

I couldn’t tell if I knew the woman. She didn’t sound familiar.

The man beside her, though. It wasn’t hard to recognize that hair and that body. The broad shoulders. Set jaw.

Alexander always stood out. So, of course, he stood out now too,beside his brother and the woman still laughing loudly.

I felt my chest tighten in a weird way I couldn’t explain.

“I mean, look at him. Are you really doubting?” There was clear humor in Claude’s voice when he spoke.

Alexander remained straight-backed, shoulders stiff, jaw set. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was being forced to stand there.

But then I understood why he hadn’t left, when the woman moved to him and wrapped her arm around his bicep. He didn’t push her away.

My mouth twisted for some reason. Watching them. I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t my business. Clearly. But I still didn’t like it. And the sight left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Ah, lady Cassandra is back.” I jumped slightly at the unexpected voice.

I hadn’t heard Lisa walk in. Her footsteps were always silent. I kept telling myself to ask how she did that.

“Who is she?” I tried not to sound interested, even though my fingers were trembling with nervous thrill.

It was just to hear something new. Nothing else. I told myself as I looked at her, urging her silently to start talking.

Why the hell was she taking so long?

“She’s the only daughter of King Rowan.” Lisa turned from the window and walked to the center of the room. “They describe her as the perfect princess. She’s the luckiest girl in the world if you ask me.”

I looked back at the window, frowning a little as I watched Lady Cassandra, her arms still around Alexander, chattering off with Claude.

He seemed to be enjoying her company way too much. And I didn’t like it.

Which sounded crazy. Because I had no right to feel that way.

It was even crazier that I was feeling like this toward both Alexander and Claude. When I had zero claim over either of them.

Just admitting that made me want to laugh. Because it was funny.