Alpha’s Hybrid Cinderella
Chapter 30

Leon and Rafael picked me up in his truck. I had only one duffel bag of my clothes and my backpack, just the essentials. I could have never lived with myself if I had taken any of the luxuries and creature comforts that had been given to me during my stay here. Not once had I ever forgotten all of it was a kindness, and that at any time, I could have been tossed back into Dark Moon to live out my days in captivity and servitude.

That life was far behind me now, but I would never truly be comfortable in all these affluent trappings because of it. Leaving them all behind was a comfort more than a sadness, but I was thankful for all the generosity everyone had shown me since my first day. It was just time to strike out on my own. It had been time for a while now.

What awaited me back at the tiny house that was now mine was amazing food, cake, and various housewarming gifts. How Raf and Leon had managed to get all of this together in less than three hours, I didn't understand - until the doorbell rang, and Ken showed up on the doorstep. "Ken Joseph!" Raf exclaimed after hurrying to stand behind me in the doorway. "Come in!"

He waved a bottle of champagne with a red ribbon around the neck as he entered. "My gift to you," he said with a wink. "You guys move fast! I can't keep up."

"Don't lie! Claudia, Ken was the one who put all of this together. He had his people pick up the food and rush order the cake. This is custom! Come here and take another look!"

Sneaky Raf! She had put candles on the cake in those few seconds I had gotten up from the table. As everyone gathered around, she gave me a smooch on the cheek and hugged me tight.

"You mentioned a while back that you've never celebrated your birthday," she said. "I was so upset. I didn't say anything then but I've been waiting for an excuse to do something like this. It's not your birthday, but it's kind of like a semi-birthday since you're starting a new life, right?"

She held my hair back as she urged me to blow out the candles she had put on the cake. I was embarrassed by the flood of attention everyone was showering me with, Leon with his laughing and clapping and exaggerated attempts at operatically singing the birthday song, Raf with her loud, clear voice urging me to hurry and make a wish on the candles before the good luck ran out, and Ken leaning in and giving me a firm side hug that brought tears to my eyes...

I made two wishes. Maybe it was cheating, but I'd passed seventeen birthdays without making a single wish, so maybe I could call in a favor and get two this time.

My first wish was to earn enough money to outright buy the house soon, and to pay Evan back as soon as possible.

My second... was more selfish. I was careful not to wish that Evan would love me, but that I hoped he either got the revenge he hungered for so he could finally have peace, or that he could erase his hatred altogether.

I wished that his curse, whatever it was, would leave him.

I closed my eyes and blew the candles out, all at once.

***

The third night at my new house, I still had butterflies in my stomach.

This was my place. My house. My home. I'd dreamed of this for so long I couldn't remember when it started, though it must have been in my little girlhood days when Elly and Maria began bullying me. My bedroom. My bathroom. My kitchen. All of it belonged to me. Those windows the rain pattered against, those were mine too now.

I'd borrowed Evan's money to do it, but I would pay him back. I was not going to be indebted to him forever. He might have given me all that money as a gift, but who would I be if I happily lived my life here, knowing I'd only been able to do it because I was leeching his money from him?

No. I would pay back every cent, I decided as I relaxed in the tub. My tub! And I could bathe and relax for as long as I wanted. Even in the Scarlet manor, I'd been too anxious to spend too long in my 'own' bathroom. Because deep down, I'd known that place could never truly be a real home for me.

I was dozing in the warm water when an abrupt bang and crash erupted from downstairs. The house was so small I could hear every little sound, but that had been so loud the water rippled in my tub.

What was that! What had that been! Was someone breaking in! I prepared my wolf as I stepped out of the tub and snatched up a bathrobe. This was my home now, and I would defend it and myself, hybrid or not.

But when I rushed downstairs, feet padding down the steps at lightning speed... the sight that met me stopped me in my tracks.

Evan.

He was soaked to the skin, clothes and hair wet from the rain. He stood in the middle of my living room, eyes flashing as they ate me up. Anger and desperation rolled off of him in violent waves, and I pressed back slightly from the banister I had grabbed onto. "...Evan. I'll go get a towel. You should dry off-"

I had never seen him move so fast before. I had known he was a strong Alpha and a ruthless, deadly warrior, but one second he had been standing in the living room, and in the next, he was on top of me where I had stopped near the foot of the stairs. He forced me down, heavy body crashing into mine, and I struggled between his weight and the steps he pinned me to.

There was no time to say anything, and no chance to get free. He pushed me back down when I tried to rise and kissed me hard, crashing his lips into mine and devouring me with his tongue, his teeth, with heat and strength and anger. His hands groped my sides and my thighs, pulling them around his waist as he dragged his lips over my neck and my shoulders, pushing aside the bathrobe.

I managed to hold it closed, but not because I could overpower him - because he resumed kissing me on the mouth with so much fervor he abandoned all attempts to go lower. His hands still slipped inside my robe several times, and my heart pounded out a frantic beat as he continued to r****h me, growling in between his kisses when I tried to wriggle free.

"You left me," he snarled, and I took advantage of the pause to push at his shoulders.

"Why do you have the key to my house!" I demanded, asking the question I'd meant to ask from the beginning.

"You think I can't find you? You think there's any place you can run away to that I can't track you down? You're my maid. You belong to me."

He picked me up, forcing my legs around his waist. My eyes widened - I wasn't wearing anything underneath my robe! I was naked pressed against him as the bottom of my robe parted, but he didn't seem to care. He carried me out of the house, charging down the porch steps to throw me into his car. The rain pounded down around us, and lightning lit up the sky as he strapped me in with the seat belt. Before I could get back out, he was already in the driver's seat, and I grabbed onto the door handle when he peeled out of the short driveway and onto the road.

"Where are you taking me!" I cried, blood ice in my veins. "What are you doing!"

"I'm taking you to see what happens to people who cross me."

***

I shivered and kept my robe closed tight around me as the car raced over drenched roads, hydroplaning several times. I was so afraid he would crash, but not a word escaped me. He was furious, so furious nothing I said would reach him, and his anger swallowed me whole the entire drive back to the Scarlet manor.

But he didn't drive to the garage. He rolled the car over a secondary path I'd never taken, and a metal gate lifted to let us in. He was too impatient to slow down and almost scraped the roof of the car on the gate, but he was beyond caring.

We stopped before a looming concrete building hidden by trees all around it. I'd never known this place existed far back on the grounds, but I had no chance to inspect it when Evan dragged me out of the car and onto a concrete bridge just beyond the main gate. This part was sheltered, almost pitch-black, but still it was cold, the winds beating into me and the residual spray of traveling rain making my skin damp.

But when I looked down, an even more frigid horror overtook me.

Down below the bridge, deep in a pit where only scant electric lights reached, at least a hundred people cowered in the pit. Women. Children. All of them weeping and curled up, suffering on the filthy ground.

"This is Adrain's entire family," Evan said coldly. "See them?"

"Those are children. You have children trapped here." I couldn't even shudder. Deep horror locked my body as I stared down at the pit.

"It doesn't matter. Adrain killed my parents. This is the price he pays."

I finally turned to him, but he was looking away, hiding his face. I stared for a moment.

He had suffered. I knew that. There was so much pain in his life and it had been carved into him as a little boy. He would never heal from some of those scars.

But this?

"If I can't even take revenge on him, what am I supposed to do, then?" he demanded. "What do you want from me? What do you want me to do?"

"You know this is wrong."

"Adrain knew what he was doing was wrong!"

"But he's dead, and you're making children suffer who never could have known a thing. You're doing this."

He grasped the railing so hard he dented it with his fearsome strength, but all I saw was a soaked, miserable, lost man... still hurting.

What he did terrified me. What he did sickened me. And he knew it. It sickened him too.

I moved to his side, heart heavy. He had so much pain in him that it spilled over, and all he could do was put that excess pain on everyone else, raging and uncontrollable. It had to stop.

I placed my arm around him and hugged him gently, urging him with my silence. He had brought me here to make me afraid, maybe, but he knew. This was not right.

But he surprised me again. He whirled around and pulled me in hard, wrapping his arms around me so tight I couldn't breathe. And then he caught my lips again in a passionate, frantic kiss, panicked and desperate. "Don't leave me," he groaned. "You said you wouldn't. Don't leave me, Claudia."