All Chapters of Claimed By The Ruthless Alpha Devils : Chapter 11 - Chapter 15

MIRABELLAMy pulse speeds up, a rapid flutter against my ribs that makes it hard to breathe evenly. “Oh.”“I’ve tried to put her off for as long as I could,” Cassian continues, his voice measured but tinged with something that might be weariness. “At least until I was sure you’d settled in. But she’s persistent, and she thinks it’s time she meets you.”I don’t know what to say to that. The words tangle in my throat, refusing to form anything coherent. I don’t even know this woman—don’t know what to expect from her, what kind of person she is, whether she’ll look at me with kindness or resentment. My father’s widow. The phrase feels foreign in my mind, like trying on clothes that don’t quite fit.Cassian seems to read my mind, or maybe the confusion is just that obvious on my face, because he says, “She’s not the worst person, but her marriage with your father wasn’t the best.” There’s something careful in how he phrases it, like he’s editing his words even as they leave his mouth.“Yo

MIRABELLA“Let’s just go for a walk or something,” Sophie says, almost pleadingly, and I can hear the fear threaded underneath her voice, careful and deliberate as a stitch meant to hold something together that’s already starting to fray.But the crowd is already moving.It happens gradually and then all at once, people drifting toward the staircase that leads up to the top deck, pulled by some collective, wordless current. I watch them go, Sophie’s hand hovering near my elbow but not quite touching it, and I know I shouldn’t follow.Every reasonable, cautious part of me knows that whatever is up there is exactly what Kaius meant when he leaned close and murmured about gifts, exactly what Sophie has been trying to steer me away from all evening.I follow anyway.“Mirabella, wait—” Sophie’s voice sharpens behind me, but I’m already moving, threading through the crowd with a single-mindedness that surprises even me, past girls in floor-length Valentino and boys in fitted Balenciaga, pas

MIRABELLAA second ticks by.Two.Three.Four.Five.Then Kaden jackknifes out of bed and runs out after Kaius, and I sit there staring at the empty doorway with my fingers pressed to my mouth.“I was drunk,” I hear him say in the hallway, and the words land like a slap.The burn of it moves through me slow, the way shame always does when it’s trying to disguise itself as something smaller. I press my lips together and stare at the ceiling and tell myself it doesn’t matter, that I don’t care, that this was nothing and I knew it was nothing even while it was happening.But he wasn’t drunk. I know he wasn’t drunk. He was entirely, completely sober, and he kissed me anyway, and now he’s standing in a hallway outside my door telling his brother he was drunk because the alternative—admitting he wanted to—is apparently worse than the lie.I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them and listen.“Stay away from her, Kaden.” Kaius’ voice bleeds with barely concealed irritation,