Fated To The Alpha: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (17 page)

But I finally decided she was real when she walked toward me, knelt down and placed a gentle hand on my head. “How are you doing?”

I could only respond by giving her a look that silently said, “How the hell do you
think
I’m doing?”

She frowned, and sighed. “I’m sorry about this. I really am. The worst thing in the world when you’re a parent is to see your child in pain.”

“Then why are you letting Dad do this to me?”

Mom grimaced uncomfortably. “I wish I could do something to help you. But it’s not just your father I’d be going against. Leon is also sanctioning this. If I let you out, he would severely punish us both.”

I laid my face down in my arms, getting that feeling of helplessness that had become so familiar lately.

“I came down here because I want to try to understand. I want to know what you were thinking this whole time.”

I lifted my head, giving my mother a nasty look. “I was thinking I found someone who made me feel like I was in a romance novel or John Hughes movie. Remember you saying something about that, when we were talking about my engagement to Leon?”

Mom paused. “I remember telling you that love wasn’t always like those things. I said it didn’t always happen in one big moment, and that it takes time to build.”

“But sometimes it
is
like that, isn’t it?” I said. “And you can still build it after that, can’t you?”

Mom looked uncomfortable. “Evelyn… I know it’s easy to think you’re in love with dangerous boys when you’re young, but it’s not real—”

“Mom, shut up!”

She blinked, jerking her head back in surprise.

“You don’t know anything! Jeremy is the least dangerous guy I’ve ever known! If anything, Leon is way more dangerous than he is! He’s never been anything but good to me! He actually listens to me, which is more than I can say of anyone here. And he protected me when someone else tried to hurt me. It’s not just some thrill I get by running around with a forbidden lover! It’s real with him!”

Mom looked like she was about to cry out of pity. “Evelyn… did you ever think that maybe he was just using you? It’s what a Morgandorf would do.”

“That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it?” I snapped. “That he’s a Morgandorf. You think that’s all you need to know about him. You think they’re all the same. We’ve all demonized them, and made them out to be killers and thieves. Well you know what? They say the same things about us. You should’ve heard some of the things they accused the Caldour pack of while I was there! Out of the mouths of their pups even! I mean it was like being in a mirror world over there. They all live just like we do. They have families that love each other just like us. And their pups are beautiful. Just like ours. If you’d just give them a chance, you’d see there’s nothing to hate about them at all!”

Mom looked like she didn’t know what to say anymore. “I… well… you…”

“Now everyone’s treating me like a traitor, because I couldn’t bring myself to love someone who treated me like a trophy, who told me he was going to marry me like it was a done deal and never bothered to ask what I wanted, and instead I chose to love someone who actually respected me, instead of hating him just because he was born to the wrong pack.”

“Evelyn…”

“When Dad and Leon made that whole arrangement, you told me I should just accept it and learn to like it. So that Dad could use me to bandage his wounded pride, and so Leon could have me as a prize. You tried to tell me there was nothing I could do but accept that their needs were more important than mine. That’s what Dad thinks being loyal to him means; he wants me to put my wants aside for his. Well, I’m sorry, Mom, but I don’t accept that!”

Mom just looked all kinds of uncomfortable. “Evelyn, please listen…”

“If you’re not gonna let me out of here, then just go away!”

Mom tried reaching out to touch my shoulder. I scowled and slapped her hand away. “JUST GET OUT!”

There was nothing more she could say, and it seemed like she finally realized that. With a pitiful expression on her face, she finally stood up and backed away toward the stairs, pausing to look at me sadly before ascending back into the house.

Once she was gone I curled up on the floor and laid my head back down.

CHAPTER TEN

I was pretty sure it was a few hours later, judging by the window showing night outside, when I was roused from a state of semi-consciousness by the sound of muffled voices yelling above me. It was hard to make out words through the walls surrounding me, but I could recognize the voices as belonging to my parents.

I got up and climbed the stairs, pressing my ear to the locked door. “Rene, the only thing you’re accomplishing is making her hate you!”

“Maybe that’s true,” Dad said. “Maybe she’ll hate me now, but she’ll thank us later, when she learns her lesson.”

“What lesson is that?  That you’re always right? That Leon is always right?”

“That she owes this pack her loyalty, and that running off with Morgandorfs is betraying us!”

“Rene, this is cruel!”

“Any crueler than what she did to us? Disappearing for weeks and then turning up with one of them?”

“Yes! It is crueler than that! She’s been down there four days; she’s probably losing her mind by now!”

Four days? Was that all it had been? It felt like I’d been in that basement for a lot longer than that. It felt like I’d been down there for weeks.

“Don’t you remember how you were losing your mind while she was gone?” Dad said. “We thought she was dead somewhere, most likely mounted up as some sick trophy for the Morgandorfs to spit on! And then she comes back, and we find out she was alive all this time, and living with them by choice! If that’s not enough to make you go out of your mind, I don’t know what is!”

“Rene, she’s young! She’s following her heart! Is this really an appropriate punishment for that?”

“That sounds romantic to you, doesn’t it? ‘She’s just following her heart.’ Well she has to learn there are consequences to that!”

“But locking her in the basement? Never even letting her see daylight? Like she’s some kind of criminal?”

“She
is
a criminal!” Dad suddenly blurted out. “Don’t you get that? She abandoned us to consort with the Morgandorfs! Can you think of a worse crime a Caldour can commit?”

“You don’t think for one second you might have pushed her away?”

“Oh, Brenda! I can’t believe you’re defending this!”

“I’m not condoning what she did, Rene. But you’re taking this way too far!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter what you think now,” Dad sighed. “Leon wants her to stay down there until she comes to her senses.”

“She’s going to
lose
her senses down there!” Mom insisted.

“Maybe that’s what it’ll take!”

“Oh, my god, Rene, listen to yourself! What are you expecting her to say that’ll get you to let her out of there! You think locking her up will make her stop loving that boy, and want to marry Leon? All she’s going to want is to get as far away from this place as she can, if this is how we’re treating her!”

“If you want to take it up with Leon, be my guest. Otherwise, she’s not going anywhere.”

I heard a door open, and footsteps walking through them. Then I heard Mom calling, “Rene! Rene, come back here!” And then I heard the door shut, and Mom sighed in defeat, pulled out a chair and sat down hard.

I did similarly, sinking to my knees on the step and setting my head against the door. At least Mom seemed to be more-or-less on my side, but she was outvoted. She couldn’t help me even if she wanted to—and I got the sense she really did want to.

I didn’t even notice at first when I started crying. It wasn’t until a teardrop fell on my thigh that I realized it. I spent a few more minutes kneeling there on the step, letting all my tears out—

—before I heard my mother’s footsteps approaching the door.

Just as I lifted my head, I heard the latch start to unlock and the door swung open, spilling a flood of light into the gloomy basement. I blinked at the sudden brightness, looking up to see Mom looking down at me. “Evelyn… did you hear that?”

I didn’t answer her. At the moment, I was much more preoccupied with the fact that I could see the inside of the house beyond her. The clean, well-lit, comfortable house, and the outside world beyond it that had been shielded from me all this time. Something primal in me took over, as I suddenly shifted to my four-legged form and lunged forward, desperately trying to take this opportunity for freedom that had presented itself to me.

But Mom was a little quicker, swooping down and catching me in her arms, and holding on tight as I desperately struggled to get away. My claws scrabbled at the floor, and I kept whimpering like a puppy, as Mom kept grabbing me again each time I managed to slip through her grasp a little further. She repeatedly shouted my name, and told me again and again to calm down and be still.

After a minute or two I finally did, mellowing out there on the floor, and slowly returning to my two-legged shape in her arms, where I hung limply like a ragdoll, emotionally drained. Mom lifted me up to place my head on her shoulder and softly shushed me, stroking my hair. “I’m so sorry about this, baby. I wish I could do something.”

“You could let me go,” I sobbed. “I’ll go out that door, disappear into the forest, and never look back.”

“But your father would know,” she said. “And Leon would know. They’d track you down, drag you back here and do even worse than what they’re doing now. Not to mention what they’d do to me.”

“I don’t care what they’ll try to do!” I protested. “I can’t stay down there anymore! I have to do something!”

“I know. This whole thing, it’s just horrible! Your father has really gone too far!”

“So we shouldn’t have to stand for it, Mom! That’s what I’ve been trying to say; we should be trying to change things! We shouldn’t be fighting the Morgandorfs! And I shouldn’t have to be locked up for trying to make that happen!”

“Evelyn…”

“What is going on here?” I heard Leon’s voice demand. We looked up to the open back door to see Dad and Leon standing there, looking at us with angry eyes.

“Rene, what are you…?” Mom said. “I thought you…”

“We could hear the racket the two of you made clear across the village!” Dad said. “Why is she out of the basement?”

“Rene, please! Can’t you see this has gone far enough?”

Leon scowled, and marched toward us, roughly shoving Mom away from me and grabbing me by the wrist. “Deal with your wife, Rene,” he ordered.

“Nooooo!”
I screeched as Leon dragged me bumping along back down the stairs into the basement. When we reached the bottom the flung me sliding across the floor to slam into the wall.

When I lifted my head again, he knelt down in front of me, getting right up in my face, all fire, brimstone, and spittle. “You think this treatment is bad?” he thundered. “My father would have had the pack rip you to pieces for consorting with that dreg-of-the-earth Morgandorf scum! Be thankful that I still care enough about you to give you a chance for redemption! Once you say to me that you recognize how you betrayed us, and that you are ready to rejoin us, and are prepared to kill the next Morgandorf you see—and make me believe it—then you may leave this basement. Not before. And if you try to get out before that again, I will personally lock you in a much smaller space, with not even the amount of sunlight you get in here, and the only food you will get is a tiny bowl of gruel once a day, and I will leave you in there, day, after day, after day, until you are so desperate for a breath of fresh air that you are willing to lick the mud from my shoes if I tell you to! Am I perfectly clear?”

I looked Leon straight in the eye—and then I gave him my answer.

I spat in his eye.

Leon recoiled, his eyes wide with shock. The alpha was always supposed to be respected and obeyed; for someone to defy him this bluntly was completely unprecedented. He blinked repeatedly as he wiped his eye, staring at me as if I had just spat fire. It was like he had no idea how to respond to this.

Except to backhand me across the face, I mean.

“One way or another, you’ll learn respect again,” he growled as he stood up. “If I have to beat it into you, starve you or hang you up by your toenails, I will. Remember that.”

With that he started marching back up the stairs, where I now heard the indistinct sounds of my parents yelling at each other above me. I couldn’t make out any words this time, and honestly, I didn’t want to.

Largely because whatever they were arguing about, it sounded like Dad was winning.

Then Leon shut and locked the basement door behind him, muffling the sounds of my parents’ voices, throwing me back into my terrible isolation.

*

I couldn’t begin to guess how many more days I was down there. Dad’s was the only face I saw for a long while; he would come down periodically, bring me some food and water, and ask if I was ready to “see reason” yet. Which of course meant he wanted me to say all the hateful propaganda Leon had told me I should say. Well, I was lonely and miserable down there, but I wasn’t to that point yet. So I would take the provisions he brought me, and either keep silent, give him a nasty look, or find some way or other of generally telling him to fuck off.

I started to wonder why Mom hadn’t come down to see me again. I kept hoping she would come back down and tell me she’d come up with some way to help me that she hadn’t thought of before. But I never saw her. In fact, I didn’t even hear her above me. That realization worried me. Had Leon done something to her? Had Dad? Had she paid the price for daring to try to help me?

“Deal with your wife,” Leon had told Dad. What exactly had he meant by that?

As days ticked by and the question continued to haunt me, I started imagining the possibilities of what might have happened. And each thought that crossed my mind only made me feel worse. Maybe Mom had been locked up in another basement like this. Or maybe she’d been locked up in a worse place, like the shed or something, with less floor space and less sunlight like Leon had warned me about. Maybe she was being lashed or tortured. Or maybe…

Maybe I was becoming a paranoid mess.

I finally broke down and had to find out. One day after Dad brought me a simple bowl of soup, and as usual asked me if I was ready to cooperate—to which of course I still remained silent—I spoke up as he turned his back to leave. “Where’s Mom? Why hasn’t she come down to see me?”

Dad gave me an unhappy look. “Leon decided to punish your mother for letting you out by making her spend a week chained to a stake outside by her neck. I hope you’re happy.”

I wasn’t sure what appalled me more: what he’d just told me, or the suggestion that I should be happy. “Can you think of a single reason I have to be happy?”

“I don’t know what makes you happy anymore,” Dad said. “After the way you’ve shamed this pack, for all I know you may think dragging your mother down with you and seeing her humiliated for it is a big hoot.”

Oh, no he didn’t just say that!

As he ascended the stairs I grabbed the bowl of soup in front of me and
flung
it at him, forcing him to duck as the soup went flying all over the place and the bowl shattered against the far wall. Dad looked over the mess I’d made, and said, “You’re not getting another one.”

“Wouldn’t eat it anyway,” I snarled.

He frowned, and continued marching out.

He started feeding me less after that. I think I was getting only one meal a day at that point. As much as I wanted to continue spiting him by pushing his food away, the malnutrition was starting to take its toll on me. The longer I stayed down there, the weaker I felt. I started to feel an ache inside my gut constantly, and it gradually got harder and harder even to just get myself up off the floor.

Even worse, after all that time with nothing to do and nowhere to go, it was getting steadily harder to maintain my grip on reality. Some days I would swear that rats were eating through the walls and creeping in to surround me, slowly growing in numbers until there were rats everywhere I could see, before I tried to scurry away in panic and disgust and landed with a thud on bare, rat-free floor. Other days I would feel the room starting to shake, until the house started cracking, and the ceiling collapsed and came crashing down on me—and then when I lifted my head after ducking and covering it, I would look up and see the ceiling still there, intact and with no cracks in the walls or anywhere.

Then came a day when I heard the sound of my mother’s footsteps coming down the stairs. I looked up and smiled at her, relieved to finally see her returning to me. She bent down, gazing at me with a tender smile. “My poor pup,” she whispered.

I reached up to touch her face—and found only empty air under my hand.

I cried especially hard that time.

I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. At this rate, I was going to go completely insane if I didn’t starve to death first.

And yet, I never gave Dad what he was looking for. I kept hoping he would realize that it wasn’t going to happen; I would waste away in that basement before I turned on Jeremy. But apparently Dad was still clinging to the notion that I could be persuaded to change.

So long as neither of us was willing to budge, I was going to stay down there.