Alpha’s Hybrid Cinderella
Chapter 27

I pushed him away. "Evan, no! You know-!"

I couldn't even finish what I'd meant to say, the words catching in my throat like burning barbs gouging deep. How could he? All while thinking, all while knowing he would never stay with me, all while plotting to find another woman to be the one for him no matter what I did, he was still trying to do this to me?

I lost her, he thought, the desperate hiss in his mind cutting into mine. I've lost her.

You never even wanted me to begin with, I wanted to say back, but that would only expose me in the worstay. I moved aside, gently pushing away his hands from me. My heart ached at the struck expression carved into his face, but this wasn't fair. I couldn't throw myself at him when he had said to my face I wasn't the one for him. Even if he wished I was his mate, even he wished he could stop searching... this was the choice he had made

"Evan. We're still friends. We're practically family now since I'm in your pack, right? I'll be there for you always." Just not as lovers. I didn't have to say it aloud, the meaning of my words sinking into him and turning his thoughts to even more chaos. But beneath the anger and the panic was also fear. The fear of losing me, not as a lover, but as a comp He was afraid of being alone. He didn't want to be in the dark again with no hand to hold. Maybe anyone would do...

It might have been a bad idea, but I couldn't endure the sheer pain emanating from him. I held out my arms in an offer of an embrace.

"I can't and won't hurt myself just to make you happy for a little while," I said softly. "My days of catering to others at my expense are over. But I can do this much for you. Okay?"

Without a word, he wrapped me up in his arms, holding tight. He was warm and strong and a part of me wanted to burst into tears just thinking about how all of this was stolen, these few moments that didn't even belong to me but were being held in trust for his future mate...

But it was what it was.

"Did you sleep well?" I asked. "You haven't been taking your banshee weed since you left for Dark Moo

"It's been terrible."

"Well, lucky for us, I brought back some of the banshee weed from the Dark Moon gardens and the cit great house. It's their specialty, much more potent than the strains that grow out here. Will you try it?"

***

I took the excuse to go outside and get fresh air. I had been working so hard to get Evan out of my mind and start healing from the gashes I had opened in my heart, hoping in vain that he would accept me, and then he had to go and... Why?

Why couldn't he just make his choice? Tears sprang to my eyes as I took cuttings of two banshee weed pets I had potted after coming back to Scarlet territory, and I wiped at the wetness on my cheeks several times as I worked. Evan. He had every right to search for someone else. He had every right to want to become powerful enough to take his revenge for his loved ones.

But that didn't give him the right to use me and throw me away. That didn't give him the right to kiss me and love me temporarily, all the while getting ready to toss me aside like yesterday's trash once he found who he had been searching for.

Maybe he wanted me to stay on as his mistress when that time came, I thought with a sickening lurch. Maybe he wanted me to stay in the pack house with an official mistress's room once his mate and future Luna moved in. Whenever she was busy, he would call me over and kiss, have s*x, whatever it was, and then tell me to leave the room so he could do the same with his mate a few minutes later.

The thought of living forever as someone's 'other woman' almost made me throw up. I hung my head as I squatted on the ground, willing my stomach to settle and my heart to slow.

Evan wouldn't do that. He was impulsive and greedy and he did want both his future mate and me, but he would never hurt me so cruelly by using both of us. He just needed to get his thoughts together. He was lonely. He was frustrated. Once he pulled himself together, he would stop tormenting me. That was all.

I just had to bear it until then. No matter how much it hurt, this would pass, and I would be okay. A year from now, a month, however long it was before another woman walked in and they stood together in a warm embrace... I would be okay. And until then, I worked. Hard. That was all.

I picked up the cuttings, lit a flame in the small fire pit, and let the gentle smoke of the burning leaves carry high into the night sky.

***

"Here it is. I know it smells a lot stronger than the ones I've been making for you lately, but it's that much more effective. Evan?"

I peered inside his room. It was only dimly lit, just one light in the corner by the bed turned on. I wished he had stayed in my bedroom, I thought queasily, but as soon as I had come back upstairs to find my lights off and the room empty, I had known where to find Evan. Too bad that I kept remembering the first night when Evan had made me sleep here. Right next to him.

He had even said that next morning how he would make me sleep by his side from then on, but he had never followed through with it. Would that change tonight?

Please, don't, I begged inwardly. I didn't know if I could take it. He would never understand what it was like... How much it hurt. And I could never explain how devastating it was to look into the future before us and know that path was closed to me forever, no matter what I did.

"Claudia, come in."

Come in, he said. Come in. So easily.

I entered his bedroom with the steaming mug of banshee weed tea in my hands. As soon as I did, Evan frowned and stared at it, the creasing of his expression making it evident he had caught the strong scent from across the room. Keen senses, but also, the true power of Dark Moon's banshee weed. Despite feeling terrible, I had to giggle at it.

"Don't knock it until you try it," I said sternly as I handed over the mug. "You have no idea how effective this is. I'm glad I had a chance to get cuttings straight from their garden that are fresh. The ones I had were dried so they lost some of their potency." "It smells sour. And musky."

"And it smells like sleep. Drink."

It was true to reputation. He downed the mug with a grimace and he looked like he wanted to spit out the contents several times, but I watched him until he drained every last drop.

"Good night, Evan," I said after tucking him in. He looked exhausted, but that was a good sign. It meant sleep was quickly taking him, and in a minute, he would be long gone. "I'll stay here until you fall asleep."

I touched his forehead, and he relaxed into my palm. I ignored the pain in my chest and smiled down at him, watching as he settled into the pillow with a frown.

When I returned to my room, I shoved away the dull agony and stared at the darkened ceiling, unable to rest.

***

I must have fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning. I was only dozing when Evan knocked on my door, and I hastily answered it. He stood in the doorway with a dark, brooding look on his face. "Claudia, is this banshee weed only found in Dark Moon territory?"

"This strain, yes." I pulled my robe around myself tighter to stave off the chill. "But banshee weed in general grows in several regions. Why? What is it?"

"I know this taste. It lingers."

"It does have an aftertaste that doesn't go away quickly, with the treatment method I used."

"I know this taste," he repeated. "It was sometime... a little before my parents died. I think they might have been drugged with this."

I froze. This particular taste and smell was only this strong because of the smoking method, which almost no one in Dark Moon knew. The method was too precise and more labor-intensive than simply steeping it in tea. But who else knew? I'd learned it from an old note lying around in a cupboard, not from someone specific.

"I don't know who would have more information about this," I told Evan. "Some of the slaves might have been taught by the pack members though. You may want to question them one by one to find out. But it might not mean anything, Evan." "I'll try anyway. Thank you, Claudia."