Alpha’s Hybrid Cinderella – Chapter 22

Even if I could endure the torment, it was impossible to stay here any longer. We had been out for too long, and once the sunlight moved through the trees to beam through the high branches at an angle, the reality of the passage of time returned to us. We needed to go.

I wanted to comfort him as we parted, even though the rational half of my mind coldly informed me there was no room for comfort here. He had made his choice. He would continue to search for his mate so he could pursue his vengeance, and I… wasn’t a part of that anymore, if I ever had been. He believed I had saved him here in this very forest all that time ago, but there was no room for me in the future at his side.

Everything was for the sake of his vengeance. All that hatred, pain, darkness, all those terrible wounds in his heart and mind would never be soothed if he abandoned this path. Or so he had made it seem.

and then…

silence. I dared a few times to glance at his face, and the heartrending sadness etched into every tired line almost made me speak, almost made m

. If I could ask what the curse wa

I was afraid of hearing him sa

meant despite the claim he made that I had saved his life when we were children, despite his taking me away from the cruelty of Dark Moon, despite his abrupt appearance at the dance to keep me away from Ken — and despite that kiss in the driveway. All of it.

ea

r before it had ever begun. It wasn’t that Evan was giving up on me; he’d neve

er they would wipe out his enemies, avenge his loved ones. I wasn’t the heroine of that story, the love of his life, his fated mate. I was just… his little maid, someone he’d picked up by the scruff of her neck like a rain-wet puppy on the side of the road.

ke a mountain.

ve felt so impossibly distant.

a slow breath.

ver.

***

couldn’t stand being in the Dark Moon pack house any longer, not with the sickening knowledge that nearly everyone who had walked the halls were dead,

I refused to st

or? He gave me permission to leave with a single nod, and Peelle escorted me to the station.

alone.

uld see me. Here, I w

rsed down my cheeks in streams, and I sobbed into my sleeve the entire way home. Home… Was it really?

part of the illusion too, my heart tellin

he benches.

’s meet up tonight, I said. We can stay together today.

Something happened, didn’t it?

just typing.

place. Okay?

ind? Is he mad at me for las

ings at the station.

***

up. It’s the best thing to have when we’re hav

hurt to have Raf treat me with such genuine fondness. She only ever said what she felt, what she meant. There was no difference between her thoughts and her speech.

ve, even if she was the only one. She was a good person, truly.

Come on. Talk to me. Did you and Evan break up?”

ether.”

that. Tell me everything from the beginning.”

ion of the ‘curse’ and only because there was no way to explain that I’d heard about it because of my mind-reading ability. Tha

”

him do it anymore. Stop him in his tracks.”

knows he isn’t willing to commit to you. For the sake of someone

shook my knee.

o Ken’s invitation. If he asks you out again after t

his mate either.”

you out, pulling you in, pushing you out like it’s a f*****g game. Am I right?”

eluctantly, but it was w

***

ld chat until we fell asleep side by side.

e?”

”

ybrid, so I don’t have a m

n’t dismiss it just because of that. You never know. You’re only seventeen, so you still have

is the

fated mate, but what if there’s something else that… Never mind. I probably don’t make any sense.”

mate-related curses a long time ago, like in history class back in high school. But I’m not sure.”

tant anyway. Let’s just go to sleep.”