My Fated Alpha's Cruel Game (Elena and Marcus) novel Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Chapter 5 Heart Torn Apart

Elena’s POV

I looked straight into Alpha Marcus’s intense eyes. Despite the anger burning inside me, my body betrayed me. I placed my hand over his. Instantly, I realized that because of our mate bond, my pain was fading. That clean heat poured down my arm, settling into the cast around my wrist, and the throbbing quieted by a degree.

“This is what the bond does,” he said briefly. His voice had gone flat. “An Alpha with his mate. Touch accelerates healing. The closer, the faster. Hospital beds are built wide for both of us for a reason.”

I stared at our hands.

“Why are you telling me this.”

“Because you should know what you are. What we are.”

“We are nothing.”

His fingers tightened on mine. Not cruel. Just there.

And then I caught it.

Under the clean hospital soap. Under his cologne. Under the leather of his coat.

Perfume. Sweet. Expensive. A woman’s skin.

Viviana.

My stomach turned over. Tara let out a long, low whine that had no words in it, only hurt.

I pushed him away.

I stood up. My ankle screamed. I kept my face blank.

I walked to the cabinet over the sink. Reached up. Pulled down the pack of cigarettes my mother hid behind the sugar. I took one out. I did not light it. I held it between two fingers and looked at him over it.

“Get out.”

“Put that down.”

“Get out of my house.”

He didn’t move.

“You smell like her,” I said. The words came out level. I was proud of that. “All over your coat. Your hands. Your mouth, probably. You sat in my hospital room and held my hand and went straight from me to her.”

“Elena.”

“Your own rule, Alpha.” I rolled the cigarette between my thumb and finger. “You said I was not allowed to have anyone. You said I was to be exclusive. You made me promise it. So break up with her.”

He went very still.

“Break up with her,” I said again. “Tonight. Or your own rule is a lie and we both know it.”

“No.”

Just the one word.

I almost laughed. It came out as something worse.

“No,” I repeated.

“We have been together a long time. Her uncle—”

“I don’t care about her uncle.”

“You will care when war comes to this pack.”

“Then break up with her for a week. A day. An hour. Long enough to come to me without her on your skin. Long enough to pretend I am worth the inconvenience.”

His jaw worked. Green. Amber. Green.

“I will not leave her, Elena.”

“Why.”

He looked at me.

He looked at me for a long time. And then he said it, soft and clear and cruel, the way a man slides a knife in so you don’t notice until the bleeding starts.

“I love her.”

The cigarette snapped in my fingers.

It hit me like a physical blow. I felt it in the soft part under my ribs, the place where Tara lived, and Tara folded in on herself and howled in pain.

I shoved her down. I locked the door on her, suppressing Tara’s pain.

“Mom,” I said, shifting the topic. “Listen.”

“Mm.”

“I got the letters back. From the werewolf colleges across the country. I got accepted into a few of them.”

She lifted her head.

“I want you to leave the pack with me.”

“Sweetheart—”

“Listen. Please. The waitress jobs out there pay double what you get here. Double, Mom. I checked. You could work fewer hours. You could finally get some rest.”

Her eyes filled. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

“Your father’s grave—”

“I know.”

“I visit every week.”

“I know, Mom.”

She was quiet a long time. Her hand found mine.

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered. “I will. I promise I’ll think about it.”

She kissed my hair. She stood up, slow, like every bone in her hurt. She went into the bedroom to sleep, and shut the door. A few minutes later I heard what I hear every night. The muffled sound through the thin wall. A woman crying into a pillow on the empty side of a bed.

I lay down on the couch that served as my bed.

I stared at the ceiling.

I thought about the secret mate bond I was keeping. That Alpha Marcus’s father was the reason my own father was dead. That if I told my mother any of it, the last thread holding her up would snap, and I had to stay silent to protect her.

I closed my eyes, eventually drifting into a restless sleep.

Suddenly, I was jolted awake in the dead of night by a devastating pain in my stomach. It came from deep inside, a twisting, tearing heat that did not belong to any bruise I had. It was worse than being beaten by five werewolves, worse than anything a fist had ever done to me.

I fell off the couch, dropping to my hands and knees. I grabbed my pillow and shoved my face into it, muffling my agonized screams.