Sold to the Alpha With Silver Eyes - Chapter 58: Chapter 58

*Eden*
The door to my new makeshift cage seems to be a revolving one, spectators coming in and out to gawk at the crazy daughter of high-ranking rebel leaders. It’s eerily similar to how it felt before being carted away to Jerome’s shit hole of a pack.
I may not have been able to see or smell the people constantly coming to glimpse me, but I remember the weight of their stares all too keenly. This is no different. Funny how moments like this can come full circle.
Only this time, this visit from a strange person has me turning to look and face my dear dad. He looks like he has aged ten years in the past two. His once vibrant green and life filled eyes are tired, colder.
I wait for him to speak, laying on my side, food still untouched as I watch him eye it with a frown. He shoves his hands into his pockets, sauntering to the bars and then stopping. A look on his face that proves he has forgotten how to speak to me.
“You aren’t going to ask how Alpha Jerome is?” He asks, no hint of warmth in his voice.
“He is no longer an Alpha since he deserted his pack when it was attacked.” I respond, just as dry and lifeless.
“He fought valiantly to keep his pack.” He scoffs, defending the asshole he entrusted me with. The one he clearly doesn’t know as well as he thinks.
“Hmmm. Okay.” I roll my eyes and twist to show him my back. In the two years I had dreamed of seeing my family again, finding out they were alive by some miracle. It was supposed to be amazing and happy and we would hug and cry and regale each other with stories over a fireplace.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Emotionless, distrust, and a constant throb in the hole where I stored my cherished memories of them. All the good times seem to fade away, harder to recall now that they continue to betray me.
Could they not have given me the time of day to speak to them? Would it have been so awful to just spend time with me before announcing my presence to everyone like Jerome?
“Do not turn your back on me, Eden Marie.”
“You mean like you turned your back on me two years ago?” I shoot at him, using the echo of the walls to volley my words louder.
“It wasn’t like that.” He whispers the first real emotion I get from him shining through. Guilt. I whip around, pushing myself up to sitting as I glare at him.
“So you knew…” the words barely form before my voice cracks and he looks like he may break down. “Oh, fucking hell…you did. Seriously, you knew I wasn’t going to meet you at some meet up point. Why would you lie?”
His hands come out of his pockets, outstretched like he will be able to calm me, and the motion just makes me want to cry. What I wouldn’t have given to run into those arms just a day ago. Now the thought of them open to me makes me ache for the memory of them and not the truth of the selfishness they embody.
“I knew you were going to be safer with Jasmine taking care of you. Her father is high enough to make sure you ended up with a good pack and alpha.” He says and I finally snap. An audible crack and pop in my ears as I finally break.
I wanted to keep silent, not bombard them with the shit I went through for their betrayal. Hell, I didn’t want to make them feel guilty, but the guilty need to live with their sins, whereas I shouldn’t have to. My pain will now be for them to bear, not the other way around.
“I was beat every fucking day by Jerome. It was his favorite activity to creep on me, beat me to a pulp and starve me for bleeding on the floors I had just scrubbed clean from the earlier beating.” I growl out, rising to my feet, my lips in a sneer.
“I don’t believe that —” He whispers, but I can see how my words cut through the trust in his friend.
“You don’t get to have an opinion on it.” I laugh dryly, shaking my head. “I am done listening to you spew back the lies he and his bitch have told you. When the pack was attacked, alpha ordered me to stay back and fight the rogues. Want to know what happened after that, dad?”
I place emphasis on the name I have called him all my life, making him feel the rage and pain he has brought out in me.
“Eden…” his face is pale and hands dropped at his side and I know he isn’t ready to hear all this, but fuck it. My filter and ability to hold back the truth any longer is gone.
“I was taken and put in a breeder’s auction where I was SOLD! Men, alphas, and rogues, they all fought over me and my virginity.” I’m pressed to the bars now, ignoring the pain that stings the palms of my hands and cheeks while I reveal my truth.
“I couldn’t even fight to defend myself because my ribs were showing through my skin. Weak doesn’t even come close to describing how sickly I was and yet I couldn’t bring myself to commit suicide. And everyday I hated myself for being too much of a coward to end it.”
His eyes scan over me as if he is looking for the weakness I spoke of. But regardless of how much I want to hate Dev, he saved me and gave me a strength no one else could. He gave me hope and light for a while, which is more I realize than what my family gave me.
“Jerome hit you?” My dad asks, an urgency in his voice that makes me tilt his head.
“He abused me physically and mentally. I ate scraps from their table after they were done eating. It was only me that was treated that way, no one else.”
He says nothing more and turns, walking out the door, closing it behind him and leaving me in the room alone with my anger. It feels like I wait forever, pacing back and forth near the bars while my palms and cheek heal. After a while, I settle.
Back against the wall, my knees up and hands resting on them, eyes glued to the door. Then, ever so slowly, it opens and a tall, dark-haired man enters the room, watching me with interest.
“What?” I snap at him. “Come to gawk at me like everyone else?”
He doesn’t respond, not a flinch or even an acknowledgement that he heard me. Instead, he pulls the stool up and takes a seat, assessing me in silence. I saunter over to him, taking a seat on the ground, crossing my legs in a pretzel style, titling my head in challenge.
He chuckles slightly, the corners of his lips twitching before he exhales heavily and leans forward. He is an alpha, that much is certain, which means he has a pack and has no reason to be here. That is, unless he is a part of this little merry band of rebels.
“So you are the reason Alpha Deverauax gave up his title.” He muses. I don’t mean to react, but his words catch me off guard and I snap my gaze to meet his. Dev did what?
“What he does has nothing to do with me.” I clear my throat, trying to play it cool, but I can’t help but feel a flutter in my chest.
“What that boy does has everything to do with you, Eden.”
“What do you want from me?” I ask, forcing his words to the side, though I know I will circle back to them later and overthink everything he has said.
“To know how you can make people in high places want to protect you.” He murmurs. “Take, for example, my daughter.”
I furrow my brows, looking at him like he has lost his damn mind, but then I see the similarities in his nose and high cheeks. Jasmine.
“You are Jasmine’s dad?” I ask, shocked. I never was lucky enough to meet him.
He didn’t live with Jasmine as she was raised by the alpha of my pack, her uncle. Sent away to learn responsibility and not become spoiled by her dad’s ranking in the main city. But if he is here, in the rebel base, then it may have been more for her own protection rather than for her to be a better or more selfless person.
“She has always had such nice things to say about you and your intelligence.” He says, then he sighs in disappointment. “Though I haven’t met you before, I am questioning much about you.”
“You could ask me instead of coming up with your own conclusions.” I scoff, annoyed that he seems to think there is something special about me or that I am doing something special to gain attention or care from higher ups.
“What did you do to Dev?” He asks, pointedly. No false pretense and straight to the questions he wants.
“I did nothing. He saved me from a breeder’s auction and I was stuck with him for a while.” I shrug and he narrows his eyes.
“And?”
“And, what?” I frown.
“He is a man of honor and does not break promises, Eden. Not once in his life have I known him not to do what his father wished for him or for him and yet,”
“Yet what?” I throw my hands up, standing. “I left him behind so he could mate with Jasmine. He made it very clear that was his plan and his choice.”
He smirks and drags his hand over his face, and then he smiles wide.
“And now I get it. You are just as virtuous as he is, and clueless. Though it seems he is more of a hopeless romantic than you might be.”
“Can we not discuss Dev?” I scowl at him.
“What would you prefer to discuss?” He asks, seeming intrigued.
“Perhaps getting me out of this fucking cage?” I snark.
“You attacked a higher member of this organization, and the elders have decided it would be best if you stay here where you can not cause damage.” He shrugs.
“And what do you think?” I ask him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Since you seem to be perceptive enough to see the truth in things.”
That makes him grin, and he wipes his hand over his mouth, nodding slowly.
“I think you experienced a lot over two years, and in one fell swoop, everything you knew was upended again. Trauma is easily recognized when you have lived your own as well.” He stands and moves toward the cage door, then produces a key, unlocking the chains, keeping it closed, and then he pushes it open, gesturing for me to follow him out.
“You believe me?” I ask, shocked, and he shrugs.
“If Dev will abandon his throne for the sheer desire of keeping you safe, then it is in my favor to keep you safe for our future king.” He says.
“But won’t the others be upset?” I ask, bewildered.
“I sort of run this place.” He smiles with ease.
“So I can leave?” I ask, eager to escape my family. He walks me out to the floating walkway in silence, and then he sighs.
“You must stay.” He admits. “There is no one who will let you leave, not even me. We need you here for now.”
My eyelids slide closed in irritation. The last thing I want to do is address my family again. Maybe talking to Travis wouldn’t be awful. But mom and dad? I could do without speaking to them for a good long while.
“I am no one but the daughter of a Beta who is a traitor.” I mutter.
“Your father is loyal to the true crown, Dev’s father’s vision, not this warped dream King Cedric has put in place.”
“Traitor to the crown or not, he still betrayed me.” I tell him, and he looks solemn.
“In time, things will come to light that will look terrible, and as we age and grow, we learn to understand that sometimes our parents make mistakes and trust the wrong people. It doesn’t make them a bad person, just a bad judge of character.”
I lean on the rope railing, looking down at the ground and shaking my head. Maybe he is right, but maybe he isn’t and I am finally getting to know the real side of my parents. That’s what scares me the most, realizing I made them up in my head to be something more than they ever were in real life.