Healing The Ruthless Alpha

Chapter 41

I looked up at the ceiling in my room with a pillow clutched to my chest. My body tingled in a dozen different places and if I got up too fast, sharp pain in my back and legs made me sit back down. Cahir had bent me over in ways I did not think I was flexible enough to get into and then he chased me out of his room.

"That isn't how it happened, though." Asena's quiet voice echoed in my head but I said nothing in response to her.

It may not have happened exactly like that but that was how I felt. How could he send me away to my room after we engaged in the most intimate of acts?

"Have you considered he may have done it for our benefit? Isn't it better to wear our clothes rather than -" Asena trailed off, seeing that her excuse for her mate did not make perfect sense.

I know I went too far wearing his clothes without first asking him but he didn't have to tell me to go to my room for it. Since I came to his pack, I always slept in his room. Although he never shared the bed with me after the night we mated, he never told me outright to get out.

My bedroom door creaked open, and I turned in alarm. It was almost midnight so who would enter my room at this time!? "Oh, it is you." I turned my face away from him, unable to bear to look in his face after he so coldly dismissed me earlier today. "Were you expecting anyone else?" His calm voice had a tinge of something dangerous in it that had me shivering in response.

Wolves were predators but we still recognized the presence of higher predators and in every room Cahir stepped into, he tipped the scale of power as he became the highest predator in the room - the fastest hunter.

"I wasn't. What do you want?" My back faced him as I held my pillow tighter. His presence in the room made me uncomfortable and – scared.

"Look at me." I heard something in his tone that had me turning to face him in a split second. It was not the command of an Alpha - No, it was more subtle and more dangerous than I'd ever heard.

"What is it?" I asked him, my skin prickling underneath his gaze.

"Don't disrespect me." This time, the words were a command that had me nodding.

"Okay,” I answered in what must have been a wretched tone.

I'd jumped from a frying pan to a burning fire with my eyes wide open. I had no one to blame for my present misfortune.

"You didn't have dinner." His weight sank the side of the bed as he sat.

"I am not hungry," I muttered.

A long silence ensured after that. His eyes burnt a hole into my skin while I stared at the ceiling without seeing.

"What is this mood you are in?" His words broke the quiet in the room.

"I don't know what you mean," I answered on a whim.

“This – mood.” I didn't look at him but I imagined his face wrinkled as he spoke. “You're in a funny mood." I was feeling less than funny at that point. "Can I ask you a question?" I asked him. His eyes burnt into the side of my face but I did not have the courage to look into the storm in his eyes.

"I may not answer." Frustration made me want to kick the sheets off me and storm out. How could a man be this impossible!?

"Okay." I forced myself to take a calm breath and then I closed my eyes.

“What is the question?" He asked me.

"Forget it." I turned. An icy hand on my shoulder stopped me mid-turn. I opened my eyes and came face to face with the red of an Alpha. "Don't turn your back against me, Sihana Asena." His words were growled out through clenched teeth and his grip on my shoulder started to hurt.

“I am just – I am just trying to sleep." Asena cowered at the expression on his face.

"You will sleep after you tell me why you are acting like this," he growled at me.

"It's because you treat me like shit!" I exploded and then turned as white as a sheet of paper. "I didn't - I didn't mean to yell." I winced as a cloud darkened his face and his lips pursed.

His hand fell from my shoulder and his expression cleared in the blink of an eye. In a split second, I went from staring at a man on the verge of an explosion to staring at a man with a stoic and unreadable expression.

"I treat you like shit? You are in the Alpha Castle as her mistress. For you, I organized the best Luna Ceremony any Luna has ever had and a few hours ago, I pleasured you as no man can ever pleasure you in this life but I treat you like shit." He said everything as if he was reading off a list of all the good things he had done for me while I had the audacity to be ungrateful.

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“It's not –“ I felt a weight closing down on my chest that made it hard to breathe. Asena pushed me to explain things to him, to show him I was not ungrateful but the words would not come out past a bubble of words strung together without meaning.

"It's not " I started again but his expression darkened again.

"It's not what?" He demanded and I cowered. "You're costing me too much and you don't even know it." I pursed my lips at his words.

What did I cost him? ver asked

for him to buy me clothes, he did all that of his own accord without even asking me The Luna Ceremony which he claimed was the best ceremony in the world was to suit his taste, not mine. He had the money to spend and he spent it on things ver asked for. cost him a lot but wearing his shirt was where he drew the line!

"Good night." He stood from the bed and walked out of the room without a backwards glance but I called out to him in a frantic voice.

"Wait!" He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "What did you want in the first place?" Why had he entered my room so late at night after kicking me out of his?

"Nothing important." With that, he was out of my room, leaving me to toss and turn for the rest of the night, wondering if I'd been too harsh to accuse him of treating me like shit. It was obvious that I offended him with that allegation.

Laura's face flashed into my head making me chew on my nails. She said it would be hard but worth it in the end but I wasn't seeing it. I wanted her to be right – for my sake, I wanted her to be right but I had no faith in her words.

The image of Cahir's blank face assailed me throughout the night. The more I thought of it, the more my mind pushed disappointment to his blank face until I felt like I had to apologize to him. Somehow, I felt like my words hurt him even if he did not show it.

The part of myself that had vowed to live for myself and myself alone, never others, screamed at me to do the opposite. He never apologized to me despite everything he did to me from our first meeting. Why should I apologize to a man who never apologized to me?

"You know what he did wrong but does he?" Asena asked me but I snorted.

How could he not know that it was wrong to sell someone off in their presence? How could he not know that calling all those people to photograph me when I felt vulnerable was wrong? How could he not know that sending me out of his room for something as simple as wearing his shirt was wrong!? “But he said we could keep the shirt. He said nothing about taking it off!" Asena said with indignation ringing in her tone. "If you ask me, I would say he loved seeing us in his shirt so much that it stunned him!" It would be a plausible excuse if he did not tell me to leave right after. "This could all just be a misunderstanding."

In Silver Moon, I felt everything was

a misunderstanding. It took me a long time to accept that the people hated me and no matter what I did, they would never see me in a

I

different light. With every insult every beating, every slur, I myself there had been a

misunderstanding, that if

34

n

they got to

know me, they would see the truth and apologize but it was just a

stupid and desperate dream.

"Cahir isn't like anyone in Silver Moon," Asena said but I didn't want to agree. He had the potential and the power to hurt me more than anyone else ever had. "We have to try, Sia. Please, don't hate our mate. We have to give him a chance."

I slept off with Asena's words ringing in my head. The next morning, I woke up and got dressed to go to the pack house. As the Luna, I had to get familiar with my people and my work.

If I had known what that morning had in stock for me, I would not have gotten out of bed. It was Avalon. Avalon Carson, my worst nightmare.