Chapter 15
Stesha
Icould smell Zenevieve’s scent as soon as she entered the ruthouse. I was angry, believing she’d followed me in here, but now that I’ve found her in the exhibition room locked in conversation with another Alpha, I feel like the ground has been ripped out from beneath my feet.
The Alpha behind the cutouts stands up and meets me eye to eye. I know him by sight; he’s a mid-ranked soldier in the City Guard. He’s a little annoyed to see me, but there’s also curiosity in his gaze, and dawning understanding as he looks from Zenevieve to me.
“Is she yours?” the Alpha asks me. “She’s lovely. Apparently she likes Alphas with white hair.”
It takes all my self-control not to pull Zenevieve into my arms and demand to know what this Alpha said to her. What he offered her. What he was coaxing her to do for him.
Zenevieve gets to her feet of her own accord and faces me. She looks pale and wrung out, but defiant as well. “Oren, this is Stesha.”
“I can see you’re in a rut as well,” Oren says to me. “I don’t mind sharing. Do you think you can manage us both, little one?” Oren reaches through one of the cutouts and runs his knuckles down her bare arm.
I see red. I grasp Zenevieve around the waist, haul her over my shoulder, and stalk out of the room. I walk right out of the ruthouse with her and march up the street. I only let her down because she’s kicking and thrashing about so much that I’m afraid I’m going to drop her.
“What the hell were you doing in there?” I snarl as soon as her boots hit the cobbles.
Zenevieve’s cheeks are bright, angry red, and she pushes her black hair out of her face. “What do you think I was doing? I was watching that Alpha in his rut because I wanted to.”
“I think you were about three words from becoming that Alpha’s lavish.”
She glares at me from beneath her lashes. “And what does that matter to you? You chose how you wanted to spend your rut. Alone. Which means I’m free to do what I want.”
I want to break something. I want to kill someone. I want to rip that Alpha apart with my bare hands. I pace up and down the street, wishing I knew why I went in there and interrupted Zenevieve when it’s none of my business what she does.
“I saw a Beta leave Oren’s room with the most beautiful smile on her face,” Zenevieve tells me.
“She wasn’t throwing up blood. She wasn’t feeling as miserable as I feel now.
Stop making me feel like I’m dirty or wrong for wanting to do what every other Beta my age and younger already does.
” Her voice rises until she ends on an angry shriek.
I push both my hands through my hair and grip my head. I’m making Zenevieve miserable. Why am I doing this? Am I cursed?
“I think I should move out,” she says brokenly.
I seize her by her shoulders. “Please don’t.”
“Then give me a reason to stay.”
“Because we’re family. I thought we were happy. I care about you more than anyone else in the world.” Desperate words pour from my lips. I say anything and everything I can that’s the wholehearted truth. “But I can’t turn you into a lavish.”
She reaches up and cups my jaw. Squeezes my shoulders. Entreats me with her eyes. “A Beta isn’t a lavish if she’s mated.”
Mate her. If only I could.
Her nails dig deeper into my shoulders the longer I’m silent. Finally, when she realizes I’m not going to say anything, Zenevieve lets go of me. Her hands fall dejectedly to her sides. I keep my eyes lowered so I don’t have to see how much I’m hurting her. Slowly, she turns and walks away from me.
“We’ll talk when my rut is over,” I call after her, but she doesn’t answer.
I barely sleep during my ruts at the best of times, but for three days, I pace up and down my room in the ruthouse with no rest. I picture Zenevieve with Oren as he fucks her over and over, the images tormenting me for hours on end.
But she’s smiling throughout. She’s happy.
I took that happiness from her, and I can’t give her anything to replace that joy.
I’m making her suffer as much as the gods are making me suffer, and for no good reason except that I am too jealous and possessive of her to let her go.
Three days later, I leave the ruthouse feeling exhausted, guilty, and more miserable than ever, but I’m looking forward to getting home.
Why am I so eager? Because Zenevieve is always there to greet me after my ruts, pressing a cup of cool water into my hand and telling me she’s laid out fresh clothes on my bed.
There’s usually the smell of something delicious to eat in the air, and she catches me up on any developments within the flare.
Sometimes she brushes my tangled, sweaty hair.
Often she hugs my aching body. I crave the comfort she brings me.
Our home is jarringly silent and dark when I enter. I stand in the doorway for several tense breaths, listening as hard as I can for the sound of her moving around in the next room. For her footsteps on the stone floor.
Nothing.
I run to her bedroom door and wrench it open. The mattress has been stripped of bedding and the empty wardrobe stands open. All of Zenevieve’s little knickknacks are gone from the windowsill, and Minta’s bag of treats is missing.
I stare at the space she’s left behind, and my heart thumps desolately in my chest. Zenevieve did the only thing she could do after I couldn’t give her what she needed. I said I didn’t want her, and so she’s gone.