Sold to the Alpha With Silver Eyes - Chapter 41: Chapter 41

“She wasn’t safe when I found her a few weeks ago,” I mutter, dropping my head into my hands the room spinning as I try to find something to focus on other than this fucking mess.
“When you ‘found’ her? Wait, where was she before here?” She asks, taking a seat on the ground in her fluffy pajama bottoms and oversized shirt.
Minnie, or as Eden knows her, I guess Jasmine, is nothing like Eden. She is sure of herself, a brilliant light that shines and brings a cheery mood to everything. And that is why I will never love her, never want her.
Eden is a quiet light, the kind that starts off timid and in need of oxygen in order for its flames to grow. I wanted to be that oxygen, breathing life into her flames and watching her out burn everyone out there. Now that seems so far away, an impossibility.
“Eden was in the breeder’s auction. I was breaking up.” I exhale. “She was being sold–”
“What?” Her word is filled with anger and heartache as her voice breaks at the end of the word. “Did they…has she…” Minnie covers her mouth and her eyes tear up. “Did the fuckers hurt her?”
“We got to her in time and saved her from a life as a breeder. It turns out it really is quite easy to break a breeder’s bond.” I tell her and she furrows her brows with more questions forming.
“Uh, not sure why you would know that information, but I guess I will take your word for it.” She murmurs.
“I bought her. As a breeder, not on purpose and not to breed her.” I rush out, hands up as I watch her face morph into one of murderous rage. “It was the only way to save her and buy time for the team to arrive.”
“That is…a lot to process. No wonder your uncle is angry with you.” She exhales and pinches her brow. “But at least the bond is broken, and it’s not complicated.”
“My uncle has been angry with me since I came home, but he does not know the truth of Eden’s reasoning for coming with me home.”
I can see the small look of relief peeking through as she processes everything. But the moment she looks up and meets my eyes, I frown at her.
“But it is very much complicated. I am in love with her.” I tell her truthfully. “Eden is all I think about, the only damn person I want to be around or exist with…”
My words don’t seem to offend her as she chews on the inside of her cheek, then looks at the ground and nods.
“Then we have to loop her in on this plan. If you want to be with her, she has to know we aren’t a real thing, that we have a plan to make you king and let me find my own mate.” She says with a conviction I lack.
“You don’t understand…It’s far more complex than that.” I say, standing as I make my way to the door, flipping on the main light to the right of it, hating the intimacy the side lamp provides for someone I have zero desire to be intimate with.
“How? Oh, you mean because she saw us kissing? We can explain that, and yeah, I guess it won’t be pretty, but I will back you up.” She insists and I chuckle softly, losing control of it as it takes over my chest and it grows to a sardonic laugh.
“Think harder.” I finally get through my laughter. “Perhaps to my first meeting with her, after I ordered her family dead by fire.”
Minnie’s brows shoot up into her hairline, her mouth forming an ‘O’ as she winces and then tries to shrug it off.
“Okay, but you didn’t choose the type of execution and, if I remember correctly, you were against it and wanted to conduct your own trial.”
She isn’t wrong, but it doesn’t change the outcome or my reason for being there. I was the execution, the proverbial axe to her family, and the downfall to the life she knew and loved. No amount of flowery words can cover up that level of scaring.
“And you think me saying I’m sorry, I tried will be enough? Fuck, Minnie, she doesn’t even know who the hell I am…”
A light knock sounds at my door, alarming me as I reach out and pull it open. My stomach rises to my throat when I see a delightfully, beautiful furious Eden staring at me, hands on her hips. She looks around before pressing her index finger into my chest and shoving me back into the room, unaware of our audience.
“I can’t sleep, and so I figured it’s only right you don’t either.” She says, jutting her jaw in rage. “You said you wanted to explain what I saw earlier, so please. Explain.”
Damn it, there she is, the spitfire that has been hiding in a shell for so long. I expected her to avoid me for days, but instead…she is here. Her eyes narrowed in fury. This is the version of her I am so afraid she will shut off after everything comes to light.
“Eden…” Minnie says, her voice soft and eyes full of excitement as she walks toward Eden, hands outstretched like she is expecting a hug.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss at her, trying to shield Eden from her.
“J-jasmine?” Eden chokes on the name, taking three steps back away from her as if she has seen a zombie rise from a shallow grave. “What the hell…why are you…wait.”
She shakes her head, her hands flying to her hair as her brows shoot into her hairline and she connects dots.
“You are the special guest.” She whispers, “You are Dev’s special guest…I knew there was something about you when I saw you arrive.”
“I always told you I was friends with the future king.” Jasmine jokes and I groan, wincing as I look away. Fuck. Eden scoffs before she barks out a single heart wrenching fake laugh.
“The future king? As in Dev?” she asks, pointing in my direction and I chance a look at her. Eden has me pinned with her demanding stare, trying to force the truth out of me. She can read it in my lack of response and guilty gaze as she shakes her head, her brows pulling together as she stutters for words.
“I couldn’t tell you…” I whisper.
“Couldn’t or didn’t want to?” She is on the verge of crying, her voice trying to remain steady as she huffs. “Why would telling me have been so bad?”
“You would have left.” I say, my hands up, trying to calm her, “After breaking the breeder bond, you would have just disappeared and never given me a chance.”
“And that should have been my choice to make, not yours.” She argues through tears that cling to her lashes.
“At the time I just wanted you to be safe, to trust me and let me help you…” I plead with the truth and she chews on her lip, rubbing her forehead.
“So, everything, all of it…was a lie?”
It’s not a question. It’s a fact she is staying for herself so she can process. I want so fucking hard to tell her it’s not a lie. But the only truth I have to offer her is how I feel about her, but how the fuck can she trust that when she didn’t know who I really was? When I hid the fact that I was intended to mate with another, even though I have always been against it and intended to change it for her.
“He loves you,” Minnie tries to help me, but Eden whips her fury at her instead.
“And you…why do you think I fucking care what you say?” She seethes, her anger and hurt oozing from her pores as she looks between us in utter disgust.
“What the hell did I do? I saved you, didn’t I?” Minnie looks like a wounded dog, uncertain of how to take the words from Eden as they flow forth from her with ease.
“Saved me?” Eden snorts before she stalks toward Minnie slowly. “Do you have any idea what it is like to know everyone you loved was dying? To hear their screams of agony and be forced to live with those being your last memory of them?”
“Minnie, perhaps you should leave.” I say, motioning toward the door as she stands dumbfounded.
“No need for her to leave. I am happy to leave and never see either of you again.” She says, turning and rushing out the door.
My body acts on instinct, following her and grabbing her elbow, spinning her around. Eden falls back, pressing into the wall as I press against and stare down into those eyes that say so much more than her words ever have.
“Please…” I whisper, the words a plea from my lips as much as my soul. “Please, don’t go.”
Eden just stares at me, no change in her expression until she blinks and then her fierce demeanor falls away, and she melts into the wall. It breaks me in a way I have never broken to see her looking so defeated as she looks down at the ground.
“Why?” she asks.
One word and I struggle to find a good enough answer. Nothing is strong enough, deep enough to shake her from the pain she is trapped in. And knowing all I have to give her with the truth is more pain makes me want to recoil. But I can’t. I need to touch her, to inhale her, even if it’s for the last time.
“It’s not enough to say that I love you. The words seem too small, too insignificant in the face of what I feel for you. Stay because I need you, stay because I can’t think without you…”
She doesn’t look up as I lean in and press my lips to her ear. “Stay because I am begging you with every fiber of my being…”
“Every reason you have given me is for you, not for me.” Her voice is quiet and silky smooth, like she has sobered from the raw emotions and found her stance. “I needed a reason to stay for me, Dev. You have hurt me time and time again, so back and forth and now you have lied to me. Trust…is not something I give often, and now that it’s gone between us…”
“No, no. no.” I rush out, cupping her cheeks. “Stay because you love me back, stay because you are ready to fight for this…please. Eden, stay and let me earn your trust back.”
She meets my gaze, her bottom lip between her teeth again, and it gives me hope.
“Is there anything else you should tell me but haven’t yet?” She asks, and it feels like a slap. I blink at her, shocked how she can read that in me.
“What?” I swallow and she frowns, reaching up and gently removing my hands from her cheeks.
“I’m going to stay with Leoni until I figure out my next move,” she whispers, then she turns my palm to her and presses a kiss to the center of my hand and nuzzles her cheek into her, locking her eyes on mine. “Please, give me space and keep Jasmine away from me. That’s what you can do for me, if you truly love me like you say.”
She slips away, physically and emotionally, as I watch her defeated shoulders slump and she disappears, turning down the hallway. Pain tears through my fist and I look up, shocked to find my arm wrist deep into the wall, the eggcrate providing sound proof to my room ruptured. Whatever I do, the next move has to be remedying every situation.
Like the one brewing between me and my uncle, the resistance I can feel to him giving me my throne growing as I watch the only woman I want at my side slip away. On top of that, I need to pummel something my lycan at the brim of breaking free. A run will do nothing to tame him. So I extracted my hand and made my way to the dungeon. Maybe Paxton is still in the dungeon…