Alpha’s Hybrid Cinderella
Chapter 20

What?

What did they just say?

Executed?

I stared down at my gleaming plate, and the faint reflection of my wide eyes in the ceramic stared back.

Executed. I hadn't misheard.

I wasn't stupid. I'd known Elly, Maria, and Kris had never thought of me as real family, even if they had given me somewhat preferential treatment when I did as they wanted. I wasn't grieving their loss the way I would have with loving family members. But they were dead. Killed.

And they weren't the only ones. Images flashed across Osborn's mind, enough that I could gather immediately who the casualties were. Alpha Kris's siblings, aunts and uncles to Elly and Maria, pack members who had lived together for decades... killed. Executed. But as horrifying as the splashes of crimson across Osborn's memory, what was even more terrifying was Evan's utterly callous response to it. No need. He had written it off as simply as if it were a change in the weather, an inconvenient sprinkling of rain in the daytime. He was even now preparing to dig in, unbothered by the c*****e he had ordered and participated in just before I arrived.

Meanwhile, my stomach was turning inside out. Was it my imagination, or was the vision of a decapitated head rolling across the grass part of Osborn's memory?

It was nothing to Evan. A speck in the day's events. Whereas Osborn was at least dwelling on the mention of the executions, Evan had already as good as forgotten about it.

I gripped my cloth napkin under the table, then spoke.

"Alpha Evan?"

"Hm?"

"I want to go see Elly and the others later. They're not here, but I can find them after dinner."

The table fell silent, and my heart sank all the way down past the floor. Was I the only one who hadn't known? Had they all intended to keep it a secret from me? How many Dark Moon pack members had been slaughtered today? Had there been any children? What was I saying? Elly and Maria might be older, but they were practically children too, the way they were raised. They were little older than me, after all, and pampered so much they couldn't even take care of themselves without my help for so many years. Peelle and Osborn glanced at Evan. They were waiting for him to lie, to make up some excuse to distract me. My chest tightened.

At last, he replied. "I have other plans for you later."

"Then I'll go now. I'm not hungry anyway, and that way we can attend to whatever you have in mind after you're done with your meal. I'll be back soon."

He turned his head and watched me for a long moment. How do I explain this? he asked himself, mulling it over as if he were wondering how to explain a simple arithmetic problem, and he must have settled on something immediately. "Claudia. Your father committed egregious wrongs against his own pack. There needed to be consequences for that."

"Consequences?"

He fixed his gaze on me, and even if I couldn't read minds, I would have understood that arctic coldness in his eyes.

"Is he dead?" I asked quietly.

He nodded.

"And Elly and Maria?"

"All direct relatives of the previous Alpha to the second degree, for their participation in and reinforcement of his misconduct." He narrowed his eyes. "As well as for everything they did to you."

Everything they had done to me. I'd told him about the punishment, the imprisonment, the abuse. But this wasn't what I had wanted. As he held the stare, gaze absent of any trace of remorse or gentleness, I recalled all at once why everyone was so terrified of him. That was right. The Alpha Evan who kissed me on the forehead and drove me home from classes wasn't the Alpha Evan everyone else knew. That wasn't Alpha Evan the rest of the world knew.

He was cruel. Violent. Wiped out entire packs in a ruthless s*******r just because he could. When he trained his fighters, they were training to kill man, woman, child, elder, everyone. No exceptions. No mercy.

If he had been afraid to tell me even a little, I might have been able to make myself believe that cruelty wasn't his true face. But all that floated through his mind now was the thought that I needed to accept what he had done. The end.

"I'm directly related to Alpha Kris, too," I reminded him, doing everything I could to keep my voice level. "I'm his daughter, like Elly and Maria."

"I brought you out with me."

"And if you hadn't?" I countered. I searched his face for... anything. Please, I thought. Please. "What would you have done if you hadn't taken me with you, then? Would you have killed me, too?"

"I don't want to discuss hypotheticals. Let's eat, Claudia."

"Would you have killed me too?" I asked again, insisting louder. "What exactly would you have done with me if I'd been anyone else? Would you have killed me?"

"That's impossible, and it didn't happen. That's all, Claudia. There's nothing more to it."

But of course it wasn't impossible. His answer just now proved it, and he knew it too. That was why he refused to meet my gaze any longer as he contemplated what I'd just asked him.

Was this what happened to every pack who even slightly displeased him? He massacred everyone, including even the ones who hadn't been complicit? He had as good as admitted just now that he would have had me executed too if not for circumstances being what they were. And I'd been a mere slave, mistreated all my life.

That night in the car. His thoughts, swirling and painful. He didn't want me to get hurt, and yet he couldn't give up on this life of bloodshed and violence. He cared about me, I knew he did - and yet he didn't want me to be a part of that life of c*****e. He could only have one or the other, so which was it?

My knees trembled under the table. I wanted to remember only the side of him I treasured, the gruff but kind Evan who was so sweet with his kisses.

I didn't want to think about the Alpha Evan who would have killed a defenseless slave just for being cursed to be born as the illegitimate daughter of an enemy. I didn't want to think about the Alpha Evan who might have stood over me and torn my head from my shoulders without a thought for the injustices I'd suffered from birth onward.

How could I ever see him the same way again?

How could I ever see past this portrait of the cold, ruthless Alpha who killed and killed and killed like it was nothing?

"I'm not too hungry," I said in the silence, voice quiet. "The scents in the gardens must have gotten to my stomach. Excuse me."

I hurried to one of the guest rooms before I could keel over in front of everyone. The bed was just within reach, and I managed to barely fall against the side of it when my legs gave out from underneath me.

Two degrees of separation. That meant nearly everyone in the pack house must be dead. No wonder I had seen no familiar faces at the table. Even some of the slaves must have been...

Elly was dead. Maria was dead. Kris, and all his brothers and sisters. The rightful punishment for them all would have been to make them see what it was like to live a slave's lot, to make them learn how unjust they had been so they could become better than they

were.

But death, indiscriminate? Elly and Maria were hardly older than I was. They'd grown up learning from their useless father, our useless father, and who knew? Maybe in a year, five years, ten - they could have become good people.

But no one would ever know now.

The same went for the frilled higher-ranking werewolves and their offspring who knew nothing but wealth and luxury. If they had experienced even a month of hardship, they might have learned and changed. Why had Evan done that? Hadn't he thought for even a second that there might be another way?

But all he had thought of was death. Killing. Execution without a trial.

A knock on the door interrupted my horrified thoughts, and I shot up from the bed when it opened. Evan stood in the doorway. For an instant, I wondered if perhaps he had come to finish the job.

But he stared at me from across the small room, and I sensed anxiety from him, not blood thirst.

Still, I didn't know what to say. The split second of fear had disappeared and I knew he wouldn't hurt me, but even so...

"Claudia. I want to take you somewhere."

I didn't answer. He took a step forward.

"Please."

I hesitated one last time, then moved toward him.