Chapter six

Cindy

"I will be with you shortly," Kelan muttered as he grabbed his phone and walked out of the room without looking back at me.

I waited until I heard his footsteps fade completely down the corridor before I moved.

I had not been sleeping. I had been lying there in the dark with my eyes closed and my breathing slow and measured, waiting for his body to go heavy the way it always did when sleep finally took him.

Then that phone call came at exactly the right moment and pulled him away like a gift I had not asked for but would absolutely use.

I slid out of the bed and dressed quickly, pulling on dark clothing before I moved to the far wall of the castle and through the narrow gate for emergencies.

The secret corridor behind it was narrow and smelled of old stone. I had memorized every turn of it three days after moving into this castle because I had learned very early in life that you always needed to know your exits.

I came out on the eastern side of the grounds, slipped past the garden wall and reached my car where I had left it two days ago at the edge of the property. I started the engine slowly and rolled out without turning the headlights on until I was far enough from the gates that no one watching would connect the movement to me.

The drive to the edge of the pack took twenty minutes and I spent every one of them running the timeline in my head, calculating how long Kelan's emergency would hold him, deciding it would be enough.

The maid answered the door before I even finished knocking.

"Where is your boss," I asked her.

"He is waiting for you in the living room, ma'am," she replied, stepping aside.

I walked in and Tyler was already moving toward me before I cleared the doorway, all broad shoulders and urgency, and despite everything I felt the tension in my body eased slightly just from seeing him.

"Tyler," I said firmly, stopping him with a look. "We never planned to see each other physically until the coronation."

"I know," he replied, and his voice was low and unapologetic. "I am sorry things had to turn out this way, but tell me honestly, how do you expect me to just keep breathing without you anywhere near me."

I looked at him for a long moment. "It is just a few more weeks, please, just a few more weeks until our plan is fully in place."

"I know," Tyler replied, softer this time, and he closed the remaining distance between us and pressed his lips against my neck with a gentleness that contradicted everything else about him.

"I cannot wait until Kelan finally understands what we have been doing to him," he murmured against my skin. "I cannot wait to watch him lose everything he thinks is secured."

"You will have the throne," I told him, pulling back just enough to look at his face. "I promised you that and I do not make promises I cannot keep."

Tyler smiled and I turned away from him because I did not want him reading my expression when I said what came next.

"For you this is about power and influence," I spoke quietly. "But for me it runs much deeper than that."

"I know it does," he replied.

"No," I told him, and I turned back. "You do not."

He waited.

"Everyone believes I am the Beta's daughter," I began, and I heard how flat my voice had gone. "I grew up in his house, I wore his name, I sat at his table, and not one person in this entire pack ever questioned it because no one knew the truth."

"Cindy," Tyler said carefully.

"Melissa is my sister," I told him. "My half sister."

He stared at me. "I thought you just hated her."

"Just hate?" I almost laughed. "No, Tyler, what I feel is not just hate."

I moved to the window and kept my back to him because it was easier to say it that way.

"Her father had a one night stand with my mother years ago and the result of that night was me, and instead of claiming us, instead of doing what was right, he denied us both, he denied my mother and he denied me, and then he went and married Melissa's mother and built exactly the life with her that my mother begged him for."

"I grew up watching my mother survive at the lowest part of this pack, among the omegas and the beggars, watching her work herself down to nothing trying to keep us both alive, and when I was seven years old a sickness came for her that she did not have the resources to fight, and she died with nothing, Tyler, she died with absolutely nothing."

I felt the tears come and I did not stop them because tonight there was no performance required.

Tyler crossed the room and pulled me close without saying anything, I let him hold me while I steadied my breathing.

"When she died they brought me to the Alpha as an orphan and the Beta took me in and sealed the truth away so completely that I grew up sitting in the same room as Melissa every single day, eating at the same tables, sharing the same friends, watching her be loved by everyone while I carried what her father did to my mother in absolute silence."

I pulled back and looked Tyler directly in the eye.

"I orchestrated her parents' accident," I said clearly. "That was me."

Tyler went very still.

"I have been inside Kelan's head for years," I continued, and my voice was steady now, completely steady. "And I will not stop until I watch her suffer for every single thing her mother stole from mine."

The word suffer tore out of me louder than I intended, raw and jagged, and Tyler grabbed my face in both hands and held me still.

"Look at me," he ordered quietly. "Look at me, Cindy, I need you to breathe."

I was shaking and I had not even realized it until he pulled me against his chest and wrapped both arms around me. I stood there with my eyes closed listening to his heartbeat slow mine down by force.

"I am going to make sure Melissa pays for all of it," he promised against my hair. "Kelan will suffer, every single one of them will answer for what was done to you, I swear it."

I believed him.

That was the most dangerous thing about Tyler. I always believed him.