Chapter 7
SEVEN
Faye
My feet are flying, carrying me up the stairs faster than I’ve ever gone. Tears stream down my face, but I can’t stop to dry them. I just need to get out of here. I’m not safe here. Not in these halls, or in this castle. The man who killed Miles is here, and he’s never going to let me go.
“I’ll never forget, Faye. Watch your back.” His words haunt me with every step I take.
After Kurt disappeared down the end of the hallway, I only sat there for a moment before pulling myself to my feet and running in the opposite direction. I know I’m not supposed to be out here, but I can’t stand to go back into that room with all the people, dancing and laughing and looking at me while I’m breaking into even smaller pieces. I need to be alone, with a solid door between me and the man who wants to hurt me. The murderer.
Not that a door could stop him. A sob explodes from my lips.
I thought the worst thing that could happen to me was finding an alpha, but no, this is so much worse. This is the stuff that only a cruel fate could construct. A monster with a thirst for suffering and pain.
Turning the corner, I reach the landing on the stairs, thinking of nothing more than getting to my room, when I suddenly bounce off of something hard.
Big hands reach out to grab me and I blink, righting myself as I meet the eyes of yet another strange man with dark hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. He looks intense, focused, and in control. It radiates through every inch of him.
I realize that his hands are resting on my biceps, and I take a shaky breath, lowering my eyes immediately. He is an alpha. And here I am, in the hallway, clearly running away from the ball, which I am not allowed to do. Some part of me hopes he’ll just let me go and leave me to go to my room, but my experience with alphas suggests this will end far differently. Like with me being hauled back to the dance, regardless of my protests.
“Why are you crying?” he asks, his voice low and dangerous.
A shiver runs through me as his voice slides over my skin, and I suck in a breath, breathing in the delicious scent of cardamom. He sounds exactly the way he looks, and there’s something about his voice that I like, which is completely unexpected. Since when do I like people’s voices?
I internally shake myself. The thing is, I don’t understand why he’s talking to me, why he hasn’t already called for someone to escort me back to the ballroom. Is he going to play with me first? Turn this into a game?
“I’m sorry,” I say shakily. “I?—”
Kurt’s face flashes in my mind again, and a sob rips out of me. I put both of my hands to my mouth, mortified, but the man just leads me away, up the stairs, eventually sitting me down on a bench and handing me a tissue from his pocket. I take it, but I can’t seem to fight my terror. What’s he going to do to me? Why’s he pretending to help me right now?
I try to catch my breath and dry my eyes. The alpha puts his hand on my back, rubbing in soothing circles. I fight not to flinch away from him in surprise. I was unaware alphas were capable of comfort. After knowing Kurt, I’d started to assume they only took advantage of people. That they were only capable of causing pain, especially to an omega like me.
When I look around, I realize he’s led me up into one of the castle’s towers. If I glance past him, I can see through one of the windows and into the courtyard, which is eerily empty and dark. It’s a more private place than I like, but it’s better than being trapped in a room with him.
I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself down and managing to slow the fall of tears. All along I’m aware of his hand on my back, and his body so close to me as he sits beside me. Alphas cause pain. They cause death , I remind myself. Even if this one isn’t showing that side of himself yet.
“What happened to you?” he asks me, and his voice is even gentler. Like he thinks I’m something fragile that could be broken with simple words. But maybe I am. Maybe that’s how broken I am.
The alpha is staring at me intently with those piercing blue eyes, and it takes everything in me to glance at him for even a moment, to fight my natural instinct to look away from him, but I do. He’s handsome, in an understated way. His hair is so dark it’s practically black, and he has a five o’ clock shadow that defines his jaw, even though everything about the rest of him is clean cut.
He keeps staring, waiting for an answer, so I swallow around the lump in my throat and try to form an answer. “Nothing,” I say, my voice coming out no louder than a whisper.
I can feel the alpha staring at me, and my body fights against the lie, but I also can’t forget Kurt’s words in the hallway. The reason he’s doing this at all is because I told someone about him killing Miles, so it stands to reason that if I tell this alpha what he’s done, the same thing will happen again. Nobody will believe me, and Kurt will have more incentive to hurt me.
This needs to stay with me. Because there’s no one and nothing that can protect me from Kurt if I speak up.
Maybe even if I stay silent.
“There are bruises on your neck,” the alpha says, reaching forward, the tips of his fingers skimming my neck so gently, I almost don’t feel them. But I can feel the pain, pulsing just below my skin, and I know it will be hard to turn my neck tomorrow. I’ll have to borrow some makeup from Addilyn to try and cover the marks, because no one can know about this.
I blink, looking down at my lap, terrified that if I open my mouth, Kurt’s name might come out. The alpha sighs, pulling back his fingers and balling his hands into fists in his lap. I can’t tell if he’s frustrated with me, but I stay silent, wondering what he’ll do next. What he’ll say.
“Any alpha that would put his hands on an omega is a coward.”
I jolt with surprise and look up at him. Unexpectedly, he looks completely sincere. More than sincere, he looks angry that someone hurt me. A gentle heat pools in my belly at the thought that there’s an alpha who wouldn’t use his power just to control and abuse me. When our eyes meet, his widen for just a second, and a wave of rage passes over his features. Then he seems to compose himself again.
“Who did this to you?”
Damn it. That’s what I didn’t want him to ask, because now it means I have to lie. No one can ever know that Kurt did this to me, least of all some alpha who can’t possibly understand how dangerous it could be for me to be caught in the middle of this.
“I don’t know,” I lie, finally feeling my voice come back to me. I practically sag with relief that I didn’t give up Kurt’s name, and I wonder if the alpha can tell that I’m lying. “I didn’t get a good look at him.”
He looks skeptical. “You didn’t see his face while he had his hand around your throat?”
I swallow thickly, avoiding his gaze, and he drops his voice down even lower. “Listen, I don’t know you, but I can promise you that by protecting this asshole, you’re only putting other omegas at risk.”
The thing is, he’s right, but even so, I must have some desire to continue breathing because I don’t want to share his name. Sharing his name may help others avoid him, in case he decides to kill again, but it’ll do a hell of a lot of harm to me. Not that I can say that to this alpha. He’d never understand.
I squeeze my eyes shut, taking a deep breath and shaking my head again. “I’m sorry,” I say, the words coming out with a sob. “I don’t know who it was.”
After a long pause, he says, “Alright. You don’t know who it is.” There’s a reluctant acceptance in his voice, but at least there’s acceptance. “What are you doing out of the ballroom, then?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” It’s bold, and I surprise myself by saying it.
There’s a moment of silence before he laughs. “If I’m being honest, I’m not really in the market for an omega, and going into the ballroom just to be accosted by a bunch of girls I won’t remember by the morning doesn’t sound like my kind of night.”
“Well,” I say, feeling myself calming at the sound of his gentle voice, “I’m not exactly in the market for an alpha, either.”
He meets my eyes, and I suck in a breath. It almost feels like our faces are getting closer, like the inches between us are shrinking as we look at one another. Which can’t at all be possible. Neither of us has moved.
“That’s a surprise,” he says quietly.
It shouldn’t be. If he doesn’t want an omega, it should stand to reason there are omegas that don’t want alphas. But then, I guess alphas don’t need omegas to be safe. When we go into heat, we’ll draw any shifters that might scent us, which has ended in some pretty bad ways for omegas.
“Why does that surprise you?” I ask.
He leans in closer and my heart races. But to my surprise, I don’t pull away, I just watch him. This strange alpha who radiates safety and calmness, who seems to want to be a protector rather than a villain.
“Excuse me!” someone says, and I jump away from the alpha, heart racing.
He turns and looks at a servant coming down the hallway. The man is old and has a scowl on his face. A beta. “You’re not supposed to be out here! All omegas are to stay in the ballroom.”
“Oh, I—” I start, but the alpha speaks over me, holding his hand up to the servant.
“She’s with me.”
“Sir,” the servant says, dropping his voice, “even if an omega is with you, they still should?—”
“ She is with me. ”
I cover my mouth as the servant stutters for a moment, before cowering and turning away. The alpha doesn’t even seem to notice my surprise. For once, it seems like it might be a good thing to have an alpha around, if they’ll get people to leave me alone. Which is a strange notion. I never thought I’d want any alpha around.
“Come on,” he says, getting to his feet with a long breath. “I’ll take you to your room.”
I stand and he holds his arm out for me to take, very gentlemanly. Slipping my hand onto his arm, we walk together in silence, and it feels nice. Like there’s a quiet understanding between two shifters who both prefer to be on their own.
“Which way?” he asks.
I point.
He switches our direction. “Going forward, it may be safer to stay with the other omegas. There’s safety within the pack.”
“I would if I knew it would keep me away from the alphas. Unfortunately, the alphas are going to be spending this time sniffing around the omegas…”
He smiles, and his smile is devastating. “Is that how you see it?”
I nod. “Wolves and sheep.”
“Omegas are hardly sheep,” he says, pausing at an intersection until I point again.
We head up the stairs and toward my room, me stopping him at the correct floor. His steps are slow and measured, as if he’s keeping in mind my much smaller height. But he’s probably not. That’s not an alpha thing to do.
“Well, we’re certainly not wolves in the sense that all of you are,” I say.
His gaze lingers on my face. “My mother is an omega. And while my father runs the pack, he couldn’t function without her. He needs her just as much as she needs him.”
I find that hard to believe, but I don’t say it. I’d never seen much of alphas and omegas interacting, but I couldn’t imagine such an imbalanced relationship could end in anything but the omegas being used and hurt.
When we reach my door, I unlock it and start to go inside, and the alpha clears his throat. I should be nervous, being alone with an alpha so far away from the party, but I already feel like I can trust this one. Which is stupid. A terribly stupid idea that should have me worried.
“What’s your name?” he asks, looking me over, an eyebrow raised.
“Why?” I ask playfully. “So you can report me?”
He chuckles, jerking his chin in the direction we came from. “If anyone is getting a talking to, it’s going to be me for sending that servant away and keeping you out of the ballroom. I just feel like, if I’ve spent the night with a beautiful woman, I should know her name.”
We look at each other for a long moment, then I smile at him. He has a magnetic quality to him that’s hard to resist. “It’s Faye,” I say, nodding at him once before I close the door and lock it, heart pounding in my chest.
Sliding down my door, I stare at the ground, unsure how to feel. I faced Kurt tonight, an idea that has haunted me since the day my brother died, and I survived. Barely. And I met an alpha who made my heart race in an unfamiliar way, and another alpha who treated me kindly.
It had been a weird night.