Page 5 of Celestial Alphas

“Why would I ever hate you?” I rest my head on his shoulder, wondering how bad this training is going to be. Mum wouldn’t really hurt me or kill me over and over. They love me, and you don’t hurt those you love, so they must have another idea.

He is silent for a long time as we watch the city filled with humans. Humans who don’t have to run from their people. “One day, I think you’ll hate us both, and I hope I’m alive to tell you I love you and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, my beautiful daughter.”

The memory, the last good one with my dad, disappears like smoke as I wake up on the cold stone floor. I don’t know how many hours have passed, how long I was unconscious for, or whether it’s just been minutes, but there is so much pain from that damn, fucking rune. I’m used to pain. It’s an old friend of mine, but this is cruel. I can’t breathe, I can’t think through it. I have no one to imagine saving me. My mates put me in here, andthere is literally no one else left who gives a damn about me. The pain of that thought hurts just as bad as the fucking rune.

My body’s covered with sweat, and I can taste blood in my mouth where I’ve bitten my tongue from screaming. The rune sends out waves of pain every three hundred seconds, and right now, it’s fading for a moment. I can’t even get up off the cold floor. I’m shaking as the door opens. I don’t even register who’s there, who picks me up. Not until a hand wraps around the rune, and then the pain stops. It just disappears.

“Fucking bastard,” a familiar voice mutters near my ear as I’m carefully placed on a bed. “Tell me you’re okay, Gwenieve? Tell me you hate me and you want me fucking dead. Anything. Try to kill me. I won’t even fucking stop you this time…come on…”

Who is that? My Nexus is silent, too beaten from the rune to even come out, and I don’t care anymore. They can kill me. Or try too. At least the death darkness I go to for a bit will be silent and pain free. The room is spinning as I crack my eyes open, tasting my tears in my mouth as I see my rescuer and wish I hadn’t. Severi. How is he not dead?

With the little strength I have left in my body, I crawl backwards across the bed. My back hits the cold stone wall, and I wince. I swear he winces with me. I must be imagining things, because Severi only cares about himself. I put my shaky hand up between us. He steps back, holding his hands up at his side with a smirk that doesn’t meet his eyes. “Not here to hurt you…this time.”

“Oh, so torture’s just a thing in our past, then?” I demand. He looks different. He has always been tanned, but now he looks paler than usual. That chirpy American accent from the south is still the same, but there is none of his usual humour. His dark hair is cut short, almost spiked at the top of his head, and it only makes his handsome face more defined. His dark brown eyes arestill the same, but they are creased at the corners, and he is tired. I hate that he’s handsome. It’d be easier if he was ugly. My Nexus perks up at the feeling of one of her mates nearby, only to begin whining like a broken wolf when she realises which one. I don’t blame her.

He grunts and leans against the wall on the other side. “I think you’ve been tortured enough for today, don’t you?”

“How the fuck did you get in here?” I demand. The room is still spinning, and I want to throw up. Hopefully, I aim well and throw up all over his tight black jeans and crisp black shirt.

“The new Supreme Alpha and I are friends.” He winks at me. When I don’t respond, he glances around the room. “This room is pathetic and cold. They say the Vian are monsters, but we give our prisoners more comforts than this.”

“Oh, so you don’t just drain their powers and kill them, then?” I snap. He ignores me and picks up a piece of bread from a tray of cold food by the door before taking a bite. “You’re really eating my food when it’s all I get all day?” I’m being petty, as I’m not eating it, but still…it’s the point.

“Someone might as well. Food shouldn’t be wasted.” He watches me again. Still eating the bread. He doesn’t touch the mystery-flavour brown soup though.

“What do you want, Severi?” I ask, tired. “If it’s to hurt me, bad luck, I’m already hurt and tired.”

“You should be healing by now.” He taps the wall. “Let me guess, the room makes your Nexus weak and stops healing? Tough shit. You’ll have to heal like a human, then. I’ll see what I can do to make him stop with the runes of torture, but you need to promise not to let that pretty little Nexus out here and cause a lot of murderous trouble…for now. You already killed a shit ton of my people, and she should be sated for a bit.”

She is, but I’m not agreeing with him. “You kidnapped me after blowing up a house and killing someone who was a brotherto me! Yeah, sorry about wiping out your murderous friends. It’s a shame you escaped!” I grit my teeth. “Do you still have Annie?”

“There she is, the mate who hates me. I like it when you get mad.”

My eyes widen. “You’re deranged!”

“Oh, I know. It’s a winning personality trait of mine.” He smiles and I shake my head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile, not in all the time we spent together. He was always talking, never shutting up like now, but smiling? It’s weird. This change of behaviour is weird too. “You asked why I’m here. For you. You need training. As for Annie, yes, she is with my people, and no, I won’t just let her out, but if it makes you feel better, I was sworn to keep her alive and unharmed.”

At least she is safe. I can’t help her in here. I wince. “You’re here to train me? You mean more torture? More people I have to kill for sport?” I laugh, but it’s hollow. “Bad luck. I don’t care about anything anymore, and everyone I loved is dead. So good fucking luck with that. As for Annie, if she ends up dead, I’ll let my Nexus destroy everything. I’m so close to doing that already.”

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t say a word. “You never gave up.”

“Well, shit changes,” I mutter, lying down on the bed. I close my eyes and just pretend he isn’t here. I don’t have the strength to fight him, and what is the point anyway?

His footsteps echo across the room, but he doesn’t leave yet. “Get some sleep, Tulip.”

I turn to glare at him. “Only my dad got to call me that. You killed my parents, you tortured me, you made my life hell. For a long time, I hated you just as much as I felt sorry for you. Even then, you could never get my Nexus to come out and see you. Not even when it was a choice between revealing my Nexus or my parents’ life. Why do you think coming here would be any different now? If anything, as I grow older, my Nexus andI are more in tune with each other.” It’s a complete lie. She’s a psychotic bitch, and I have no idea how to reason with her. My Nexus huffs in my mind at that insult but doesn’t disagree. We both know it’s true. “What’s different now, Severi? Something is.”

“Everything’s different. You need to learn how to control that Nexus of yours and actually defend yourself properly. Not the bullshit fighting techniques your father taught you, none of the shit that the other weak mates have taught you at that academy. No, you need to learn to fightwithher, the actual true weapon you wield. Then maybe I’ll tell you some truths.” He crosses his arms.

“I don’t want you to come back,” I snarl. I hate him. I’m terrified of him, but I also very much hate being alone in here. I’m scared and I haven’t been truly scared in a long time. “Not unless you’re going to get me out.” His lips tilt up, like the devil he is.Traininghas to be his code name for torture, and at some point, he will kill me. When he learns the truth and learns that he can torture me again and again, kill me over and over, and I just come back? Well, I’d be an endless weapon for him. Not to mention what he’d do if he learned that I can endlessly kill in my Nexus form. Both as a wolf and as my other shift. “When my Nexus comes out, the first thing she’ll do is kill you, so you might as well focus all your attention on getting me out, and I’ll disappear again. It’s better for everyone if I’m out of Starlight.”

“None of that is true.” He smiles. “I know you’re struggling, and I’m not giving up on you.”

“Everyone does.” I watch him carefully. “And you’re nothing to me.”

“I’m your mate and you haven’t rejected me yet.” He grins. “And you won’t be anytime soon. I was told your first trial has been moved to tomorrow due to your Nexus draining the spells on this shithole you’re staying in. Stay alive, Tulip. Don’t pissthem off, and lie through your teeth to survive. You should be used to that last one, at least.”

I don’t know what it is about my Nexus and him, maybe because he’s my mate, but she is terrified of him just as much as I am. Never the others, but him. After what happened…after all the torture, this attitude is just confusing. He finally leaves, the door opening for him and shutting the second he is through. I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling and try to sleep. I’ll need all the rest I can get before the trial tomorrow when I have to face more than my past—my mates who betrayed me too.

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