was all but broke on the outside world since I’d spent every penny I had on lawyers for the first appeal I’d lost. The rest of it was keeping my family with a roof over their heads and I sure as shit wasn’t going to strip that away from them.
Harper started massaging my shoulders and my skin prickled at the touch. It would have felt natural once, her touching me like that. But since I’d been mated, I rejected all other Wolves. All other women for that matter. It was a cruel kind of fate. I’d been banking on getting out of here and putting as much distance between me and Rosalie as possible. Now I was stuck in Darkmore, still pining for her, still turning away my own pack.
“Enough,” I growled sharp enough to make Harper spring away.
She whimpered and I looked to her with an apologetic frown. “Sorry, love, I…” I didn’t have an end to that sentence, so I just sighed and looked away. I’d lost everything. And all I’d had to hold onto in here was that my time would soon be over in this place. I’d been so close to freedom. How could I have fucked it up over an Oscura girl? It was shameful. And the worst thing of all, was that a small part of me was happy. Because now I didn’t have to leave her. Now I could stay and see her and hold her and devour her. I’d have to endure this hell for far longer than planned, but so long as that meant I could have her, I wasn’t as upset as I should have been about the idea. And I had to think the stars were having a huge laugh at my expense.
***
It had been almost three months since Rosalie was put in the hole and I was in a state. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat. My pack thought I was losing my mind. Sometimes I thought I was too. I set Veiled Wall jobs every day to find out as much information as I could about what was going on with her. But no one had the answer as to when she was being released. No one but Cain. The asshole who’d put her there and who held her fate in his hands.
I was done pretending she meant nothing to me. I had to risk it. I couldn’t do this alone anymore. This secret was feasting on my insides. And it was going to kill me if I didn’t let it out soon enough. So I came up with a plan that would kill two birds with one stone and summoned Harper to my cell.
“Hey Alpha,” she said with that worried look they’d all been giving me for weeks. Months really. Ever since Rosalie had arrived and fucked up everything. Made me obnoxiously happy and unbearably unhappy simultaneously.
I was in my jumpsuit with the arms tied around my waist, my chest bare. Harper cocked her head at me as I moved past her and tugged down the sheet over the bars to give us privacy.
“I need to tell you something that you can’t tell anyone else. And I need you do something for me that is a big ask…but I have no one else to turn to and I trust you Harper.”
Her brows pulled together. “Anything.”
I sighed, taking her hand and pulling her away from the door, lowering my voice to nothing but a murmur. Man, I missed silencing bubbles. This place had ears even without the gifts of people’s Orders.
“I have a terrible secret,” I said, swallowing thickly. “Something that could shatter the foundations of our pack, that could make all of them lose faith in me. Could make you lose faith in me.” I knew what I was risking here, but this couldn’t go on any longer. And maybe, just maybe Harper would pull through for me. She’d been a loyal Beta, but this would push the boundaries of that loyalty to their limits. Possibly snapping them for good.
“What is it, Alpha?” she asked a little fearfully.
“Will you swear not to tell the others?” I asked, making a mental note to perform a star deal with her the next time we were in the Magic Compound.
She nodded firmly, no question about it in her eyes. “I promise.”
“I…fuck, how do I say this?” I laughed, sounding slightly deranged and her frown deepened. “I’ve been…mated to an Oscura. The moon chose us. I didn’t want it, I