Rejecting the Alpha
Chapter 16

Kylie

I was sleeping when the first pain hit me hard, slamming me like a spear through my middle. I yelped as I awoke and sat straight up in the bed. Another pain.

My confusion fled. That monster was cheating on me again, uncaring of the pain he was causing me. Selfish prick! I didn't care as much as a mate should have, but my wolf howled in the back of my mind with her despair at her unfaithful mate. She was devastated.

Another pain wracked through me, and I gritted my teeth, wondering how long it would go on for. Again and again. I could beg him to stop, but I refused to belittle myself after everything. I had told him it hurt me, he knew I could feel it. I fumed.

On and on it went and my hatred grew with each wracking pain. I could endure this, because I had endured everything else he had done to me.

And then the unendurable happened.

Gradually I noticed wetness between my legs, warmth that should not have been there. I looked down, and I saw blood. I should have called for help then, but I did not think to do so. Maybe it was my isolation. Stonemason was not my pack. They were all my enemies and my captors. Even the kind Marie obeyed my enemy mate, her alpha.

Instead, I struggled to the washroom, and another pain hit me. I was losing the baby. I cried and finally called for help, but no one came. Why didn't the guards respond?

"I'm losing the pup!" I screamed at him in my head.

No response.

I wished he was dead.

Or that I was.

Neither of my wishes came true. It was the little one I lost that night.

Unbeknownst to me, he had heard my cry and sent help, but it had been too little, too late. By the time the doctor got there, the pup was already gone.

Once the room and I had been cleaned up, he finally showed himself, still stinking of Levenia. I did not acknowledge that I knew he was there, even though I wanted to scream at him.

He didn't say anything, but he finally left. I cried.

I spiralled into black depression after that. My days were the same as before, but what little appetite I had was gone. I didn't even know how much time had passed, and I almost never saw the face of my oppressor. All I knew was that I had lost everything and it had been his fault. Even my wolf understood that he was responsible for the loss of our offspring, although she felt hurt rather than enraged as I was.

As the days stretched into weeks, I began to wonder what the point of living was. I didn't want this life, and if there was no escape, why continue? I knew I had to live on in the memory of the people of Glenhaven who had not survived, but what sort of existence was this?

I was sitting on the window ledge the next time he came to me. I didn't speak to him.

"Things can't continue this way."

"Why not?" I asked him, my voice flat and cold. I did not look at him. Every time I heard his voice my anger welled up at his betrayal. I knew he had not intended what had happened, but he was still to blame.

"You're wasting away."

I shrugged. I hoped it happened fast if it did.

"Stonemason needs an heir."

I laughed coldly. "Screw Stonemason."

"Mate."

I ignored him.

"Kylie."

"Oh, so you do know my name, hmm? If our child had miraculously survived your cheating, we probably would have named him ‘Heir’."

"Please, be reasonable." His tone was a flat order and my anger flared through the darkness of my depression in response.

I spun away from the window and met his flickering eyes. "Screw you! You want a replacement heir so badly, then why don't you just rape me? Or better yet, force me with an alpha command? For the good of your damn pack!"

"I'd never rape you. My wolf doesn't want to hurt you."

I scoffed and tried to steady my shaking hands. "Yeah, right. Like you didn't force me every time, Alpha."

"You liked it."

"That doesn't matter! You and cornered me, coerced me, and I did what I had to do to help other innocent people survive. Are you really insane enough to believe deep down I wanted to sleep with the person who murdered my family, right after it happened!? I'd rather die than have you touch me again. I don't care how good it feels. You make me sick!"

"Kylie—"

"And then, if that was not enough, you killed our pup! It's your fault! You're a psychopath, and a murderer, and even our child wasn't safe from you. I'm done. Go back to Levenia. Or maybe you'll kill me, too, and put me out of my misery."

He didn't say anything else. I heard the door close and the lock click behind him.

I lay in the bed that he never slept in any longer, and thought about everything I had said to Alpha Gavriel. The only thing I regretted was that he had survived the attack on his pack so many years ago when he had been a boy. If he had just died, then so many lives would have been spared, and I would never have found him. I might have yearned for that unknown mate, but that pain would have been nothing on what I now endured.

I needed to escape and he still was insistent on keeping me imprisoned. I truly would rather be dead than spend more time locked in this room.

How funny that the only person he wasn't willing to kill was the one who wanted to die.

No. I didn't really want to die, not deep down. I wanted to escape.

And the perfect idea hit me. I smiled, but it was a bitter smile with no happiness underneath. I was going to leave and he was not going to stop me, because I had the perfect leverage.