Chapter 40

ALPHA TRISTAN 

"The last time, we left too many loose ends, and that was why Alpha Rune found out. Unlike the last time, the entire world already believes she's dead. Her actual death would no longer be on your hands, Tristan—unless, of course, you are keeping her alive for some other, more personal reasons." She made a face at me, a look of pure accusation that immediately put me on the defensive.

"Whoa, easy now. Have you considered the fact that she has a growing sympathy group within our own walls? More people are beginning to rally to her side, including my best commanders."

"That's just Harlan and Paige, and I’ve already told you that Harlan is a traitor to your cause." She looked up at me, her eyes glowing with a desperate, inner light. "I have given you everything, Tristan. Everything! I debased myself with that filth Khalid just to protect your seat, your crown, and your pack. I have been the shadow that caught every blow meant for you for years. I’ve loved you in absolute silence while you chased a ghost, and now I feel like I’m losing you to a prisoner who hates the very ground you walk on. If you won't kill her for the sake of the pack, do you even care what it's doing to me to watch you look at her with those eyes?"

She took slow, steady steps as she spoke, her voice thick with years of repressed emotion. By the time she was finished speaking, she was deep inside my personal space, her heat radiating against my chest.

The raw, bleeding vulnerability in her voice was a weapon I didn't know how to ward off. She was right—she had sacrificed everything for my ambition and my grief. The guilt I felt was a crushing, physical weight in the center of my chest.

"Yvonne, I—" I murmured, my voice ridden with a heavy cocktail of guilt and confusion.

"Don't say anything," she whispered, her fingers sliding up my neck and into my hair. "Just tell me I’m more than just a tool to you. Tell me I’m the one who actually matters in this house."

She pulled me down, her lips crashing against mine with a desperate, hungry possessiveness that nearly knocked the wind out of me. It wasn't the soft, familiar touch of Claudia, nor was it the clinical, healing touch of Sara; it was a violent storm of grief, need, and years of unspoken longing. I found myself responding, my hands tangling in her dark hair, fueled by a messy cocktail of guilt and a frantic need to feel anything other than the shame of the last two hours. I pushed her back against the edge of the glass desk, the monitors flickering with border feeds behind her as I fumbled blindly with the buttons of her uniform dress.

In all honesty, it was the first time in my adult life that I had truly looked at Yvonne as a woman and not just a weapon. I couldn't believe how beautiful, hot, and sexy she actually was when the armor was stripped away. How come I didn't see all of this since we were pups? I asked myself, my mind clouded by adrenaline. In that moment, I convinced myself I wanted her more than anything in the world. I quickly tore open the first few buttons of her dress, my breath coming in short, jagged gasps.

Her palm reached down, undoing my zipper and fishing out my hardening cock. Her touch was surprisingly soft and tender, and the suddenness of the sensation made me feel like I was going to blow my load immediately. She began to jerk me off with a slow, deliberate rhythm. I didn't know why, but the intensity of the moment made everything feel surreal, like we were the only two people left in a dying world.

Her lips found mine again, and we both knew we were chasing that elusive release. I wanted nothing more than to be inside her, to lose myself in her and forget the girl downstairs. I couldn't believe I had been so blind my whole life to the woman standing right in front of me. I gently lifted her onto the desk, clearing away tablets and papers without breaking our kiss.

We were a single breath away from the point of no return—the point where my life would be forever tied to hers—when a soft, hesitant, and agonizingly familiar knock sounded at the door.

The door pushed open before we could even find the breath to tell the person to stay out.

Sara stood there in the doorway.

We finally broke the kiss, gasping for air, to see who would dare walk into the Alpha’s office without permission.

"Sara..." I muttered, the word tasting like ash. This was not a good position. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I was standing between Yvonne's parted legs, her dress hitched up to her waist while she was literally holding my cock in her palm, and one of her breasts had escaped her bra and was hanging outside her dress.

The sight of Sara was like a bucket of ice water poured directly over my soul. She had been cleaned up—Paige had clearly taken her to the baths and dressed her in a fresh, oversized white tunic—but the smell was still there. The sour, metallic scent of the Grand Hall, the stench of cheap beer, and the lingering odor of humiliation. It clung to her like a funerary shroud.

Yvonne tore herself away from me, her face contorted with a hideous mixture of interrupted lust and murderous fury. "Get out! How dare you walk in here without being summoned?" she yelled, frantically trying to readjust her dress and shove her breast back into place.

Sara didn't look at Yvonne. She didn't even look at our disheveled clothes or the obvious sexual act she had just interrupted. She simply collapsed to her knees right there in the entrance, her forehead touching the cold, hard floor. The sound of her sob was small, muffled, and utterly broken.

"Please," Sara whispered, her voice cracking and trembling with a terror I had never heard before. "Please, Alpha... have pity on me. I can't... I can't take it anymore. I am traumatized. I see their faces every time I close my eyes. I can't go back to that room. I can't be alone in the dark. If you're truly going to kill me, please, just do it now. Just don't... don't let them touch me again. I beg of you."

She was shaking so violently that her teeth were actually chattering, a rhythmic clicking sound that filled the silent office.

"Leave us this instant, Sara!" Yvonne hissed, stepping forward as if she intended to kick the girl out of the room. "Come back when you're actually summoned for your duties. You're ruining the moment. Get out of here!"

I stood there, my shirt half-undone, my cock hanging out and rapidly losing its heat, looking down at the girl on the floor. The fire that had been surging through my blood a second ago vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, hollow, and echoing vacuum. I looked at Yvonne—at the smeared lipstick, the disarrayed hair, and the predatory, selfish glint in her eyes—and then I looked back at the girl who had saved my life at Mari's clinic, now reduced to a begging, shivering heap on the floor.

The desire was gone. Entirely. It felt as though it had never existed.

"Go, Sara," I said, my voice flat and devoid of any emotion. "Paige is waiting for you in the medical wing. You will stay there tonight under Harlan's guard. You won't be harmed again tonight. I give you my word as your Alpha."

Sara scrambled up, her eyes wide, bloodshot, and red-rimmed, and fled back into the hall as if the hounds of hell were chasing her.

Yvonne turned to me, her chest heaving with exertion, her hands reaching out for me again, trying to pull me back into the heat. "Tristan... ignore her. She's just playing a part. She’s manipulating you. Come back to me. Let's finish what we started."

I stepped back, physically putting the heavy desk between us. I tucked myself back into my pants, pulled up the zipper, and began buttoning my shirt with steady, numb, and clinical fingers. "The moment is over, Yvonne. It’s dead."

"Tristan—"

"I said it's over!" I snapped, finally looking her in the eye. "Go to your quarters. Now. I need to be alone with my thoughts."

I stayed in the office long after she left, the silence of the room feeling like a heavy, suffocating blanket. I looked at the spot on the floor where Sara had knelt, and for the first time, I wondered if any amount of vengeance for Claudia was worth the soul I was so clearly losing.