Clara was fully aware that she was trembling violently but her feet felt rooted to the ground. Every part of her screamed that she should run, should head for the door and escape. Anything to get away from the cold look of derisive hatred her father was pinning her with.
“I bet you both enjoyed deceiving me for all those years, didn’t you?” he went on, his voice barely above a whispered growl. “A sweet little mother-daughter plot, a pact to lie to me—me! Neros Pitino!” He took a step closer and Clara had to force herself not to grip her phone too tightly, praying that Evander hadn’t hung up. That he could hear the conversation and work out what was happening.
That he would come to her rescue.
“I would have expected nothing less from Vita—my supposed mate.” His tone was scornful, filled with loathing. “She had just one purpose, and she couldn’t even fulfil that properly. She gave me one child. A daughter. A fucking Omega, as it turns out!”
The fear which had frozen Clara in place was suddenly overtaken by a wave of anger so powerful, she feared she might explode. “Don’t you dare speak about my mother that way!”
“We kept trying, you know. I wanted a son. Needed a son. At least one. Every month, we tried. Oh, Vita put up a fight, tried to resist me.” He barked out a mirthless laugh. “But as everyone knows, Omegas are weak. Pathetic. Powerless. There’s a reason why Alphas are built to overpower them physically.”
Clara closed her eyes, hot tears of impotent fury scalding her cheeks as she tried unsuccessfully to banish the terrible images from her mind of her sweet, kind mother being forced every month by this… monster. Perhaps her premature passing had been a blessing after all.
“But it was no use,” Neros went on. “You were getting older, and turning out well, for a girl. Excellent grades—an attractive, docile child. Aside from your size, you displayed all the typical Alpha traits, so I figured I would make it work. When the test confirmed you were an Alpha, I wasn’t in the least surprised. I should have asked to see the results myself and not taken your lying mother’s word for it.” He expelled a breath, and Clara forced herself to open her eyes and look at him.
“I already told you once: you do not talk about my mother that way,” she said, rage giving her voice strength.
Neros scoffed. “Vita was my mate and I’ll talk about her any way I choose.”
“She deserved so much better than you!” Clara spat. “Had you had a single ounce of kindness or compassion in you, we might have been able to tell you the truth—about me, about my test results. But you always made it so clear what you thought of Omegas. You didn’t give us any choice but to lie to you.”
Neros’s dark eyes were glittering now, his entire body radiating danger. “I had such high hopes for you,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Even though you were female, you went on to be successful. You were able to charm my acquaintances as no son would have done. And I figured you’d find a mate—an Omega—and give me plenty of grandchildren. Male grandchildren. Your mother, on the other hand…” His thin, cruel lips twisted into a sneer. “She was no longer of any use to me. There would be no more children, and I always preferred taking Alpha women to bed. They’re feistier, and you know they’re with you because they want to be, and not because their hormones are steering them—”
“Shut up!” Clara shrieked, clapping her hands over her ears in the vain hope she could prevent herself from hearing his words. A part of her knew his cold, mocking tone would echo in her mind forever.
“Far better that she get sick… and die,” Neros carried on, regardless. “I’ll be honest with you, daughter, the only thing I felt even an ounce of guilt about was watching you try so desperately to come up with a cure—when I knew nothing you did would ever help her. I didn’t want to have to draw it out so much, to poison her so slowly, but it had to look like an illness. It had to be believable.”
Clara felt as though every last bit of air had been squeezed from her lungs. Her vision turned blurry, and dark around the edges. Her father’s face was weaving back and forth, as if she’d had too many glasses of wine.
“You, on the other hand, well… what can I say? I can’t have an Omega for a daughter. What will people say? What will they think? They’ll talk about me behind my back. There goes Neros, they’ll whisper, the pathetic fool who was duped by his own daughter. Whose only child lied to everybody on the Hill for over a decade! You know the best thing about your mother’s death?”
Clara shook her head mutely, the tears still flowing freely down her cheeks.
“The sympathy,” Neros said. “I got so much sympathy—special treatment, gifts, beautiful women bringing me food. It will be the same when I lose my daughter. When people find out that she despaired of ever finding a mate and flung herself off her balcony… well,” he expelled a breath, “I save face—and I bet I’ll get a lot more of that sympathy.”
“Why now?” Clara croaked. “Why not come here earlier if you were so suspicious?”
He let out a mirthless chuckle. “I was waiting for you to get me in with Arius, of course.”
Clara was too overcome with emotion—fury, terror, sadness, shock—to resist as Neros rushed toward her, his face twisted into a mask of pure evil.
As he wrapped his huge hands around her throat and began to squeeze, she closed her eyes, resigned to her fate. There was no use fighting. He would overpower her easily.
The last thing she heard was her phone hitting the floor with a clatter.
Evander had never known such fury. His phone glued to his ear, he’d listened in horror as Neros revealed he was aware of Clara’s true identity. Even before the steely hint of danger became apparent in Neros’s tone, Evander had whirled around and begun the—suddenly endless—trek back to his mate’s apartment.
Nothing mattered except getting to her in time. Nothing else even existed. White spots danced in his vision as he ran, his long legs eating up the distance, barreling people out of the way in his haste to get to Clara.
Once he was inside her building, it took what felt like an eternity for the elevator first to arrive, then to begin the long ascent to the twenty-third floor. Evander clutched the top of his head, drumming his fingers impatiently, still holding the phone to his ear with his other hand, ignoring the way an elderly woman trapped with him in the small space was staring at him. Let her look. It was all he could do to refrain from putting his fist into the wall.
If he so much as touches one hair on her head, he thought, ice-cold shivers traveling down his spine as he listened to Neros explain how he’d poisoned Clara’s mother, I will not only kill him, I will do it slowly. I will make him suffer for months, make him rue the day his fucking great-great-great-grandfather was born.
At last, the elevator doors slid open and a moment later, Evander was outside Clara’s front door. He was tempted to simply kick it down but a mere moment ago, she and her father had still been talking. Using his key to open the door quietly might give him an advantage if he needed the element of surprise.
Almost panting with the strain of controlling his white-hot fury, Evander unlocked the door with trembling fingers and opened it to reveal his worst nightmare: Neros throttling his daughter with his bare hands. The fucker was so intent on his task, he hadn’t even noticed Evander’s entry.
Grabbing a knife from the block on the kitchen counter, Evander let out a roar of rage and hurled himself at the man who was threatening his mate.
Such was his ferocity, Evander had managed to stab Neros in the back three times before the man turned, a look of stunned anger on his face. “The fuck—” he began, then gurgled, blood dribbling down his chin as Evander plunged the knife into his chest, then his thick, sinewy neck.
Neros sank to his knees, his eyes flickering with recognition for a brief, awful second before he slumped to the ground, a pool of blood spreading quickly around him like scarlet glass.
His bald head had barely hit the floor before Evander was by Clara’s side. She, too, w
as lying on the ground, her eyes closed, her long lashes sweeping her skin, her face terrifyingly pale.
“Sweetness,” he said desperately, patting her cheek, “please, please wake up.”
Her neck was swollen and red, with little half-moon marks where Neros had dug in his fingernails. Evander swallowed down his anger and tugged Clara into his arms.
Her eyes fluttered open, and as she looked up at him, he let out a broken sob of relief. “Evander?” Her voice was raspy and she grimaced.
“If it hurts to talk, don’t,” he said. “I’m calling a doctor.”
Without waiting for any kind of response, he picked her up off the floor, clutching her to him, breathing in her scent, his eyes filling with tears at the thought that he’d so nearly lost her.
“My…” She swallowed, made a face, then tried again. “Father…”
“Hush, sweetness, don’t worry about that. He won’t hurt you anymore. He can’t hurt you anymore. Now you just rest while I get help.” Not wanting to keep her in the same room as Neros, Evander took her through to the bedroom and laid her down on the bed, as gently as if she were made of porcelain. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, before going to hunt for her phone.
He found it on the ground, close by. It was broken, the screen cracked, a tangible reminder of Clara’s attack. Evander frowned, trying to remember what he’d done with his own phone. He’d had it when he’d exited the elevator, then slipped it into his pocket when he’d—
Yanking it out of his pocket, he marched straight back into the bedroom and dialed the emergency number with one hand while sitting down beside Clara and stroking her cheek with the other.
As soon as the emergency doctor had been notified, Evander made a second call.
Arius answered, his voice thick with sleep.
“You need to come help me,” Evander said, hearing the tremor in his voice and realizing he was still shaking with adrenaline. “There’s been an incident at Clara’s apartment. She’s been attacked. I’ve already called a doctor.”
To his credit, Arius didn’t hesitate or ask a bunch of questions. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said. “Do I need to bring some people I trust?”
Evander closed his eyes, unable to banish the sight of Neros in that spreading pool of blood from his mind. “Yes.”
“Is Clara all right?”
“She will be.” Evander took her hand with his free one, gripping it tightly. “She has to be.”
“I’m fine,” Clara said softly, then began to cough.
“See you soon,” Evander said, then hung up. “I told you not to speak, sweetness,” he scolded her gently, his heart almost exploding with joy when she smiled.
“Like I ever do what you tell me,” she rasped. “My father… is he…”
“He’s dead, Clara,” Evander said, as gently as he could. “I’m sorry.”
All manner of shadows flickered across her beautiful face as she absorbed the information. Evander’s heart ached for her. To learn such awful things about her father, whom she’d spent her entire life trying to please… only to have him try to kill her… and to have her mate murder him in turn. She could easily be forgiven for losing her damn mind at this point.
“Try not to think about it right now,” he went on, gathering her into his arms. “You’ve been through so much, and you need to rest. We’ll deal with it all later. Together. I’m here for you, sweetness. I always will be.”
“Promise?” It was barely a whisper, but she was gazing up at him with such adoration, a lump came to his throat.
He rolled his eyes to hide how moved he was by this sudden show of absolute vulnerability. “I promise. You’re my mate, Clara. I claimed you for a reason.”
“Good. Because I love you,” she whispered, her stunning green eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“You do?” Evander wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly and was desperate for her to say it again.
“I do. I love you.”
“Oh gods, sweetness, I love you too. So, so much. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” He would have given anything to kiss her in that moment but didn’t want to risk hurting her, so he contented himself with pressing his lips to her forehead.
Evander held Clara until the medics arrived, gazing down at his mate, unable to even begin to process the events of that day. Even if she was given a clean bill of health, he knew they had a long road to recovery ahead of them—not to mention the more immediate issue of Neros’s death.
But she loved him, and in the end, that was all that mattered.
They could overcome anything, as long as they were together.
Epilogue
One month later…
Clara couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she let herself into Evander’s apartment. She had moved in with him the same night Neros had attacked her, unable to spend one more moment in the place which held such awful memories.
“My love,” she called, “are you here? I had the best day at work!”
“In here,” Evander’s deep, throaty voice floated in from the dining room. “We have visitors.”
Dropping her bag beside the sofa, Clara made her way next door. Arius and Saskia were sitting at the table, their hands clasped, their faces wreathed in smiles.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Evander said, rising to greet her with a brief but passionate kiss. “Come sit down.”
“We have some news,” Saskia said, glancing first at Arius, then back at the two of them. “And we wanted you to be the first to hear it.”
They were radiating such joy, it was impossible not to feel the same way in their presence.
“I’m pregnant,” Saskia went on. “Can you believe it?”
“Already?” Evander said, his eyebrows shooting up. “That’s so fantastic!” Rising from his chair once more, he went to his best friend and enveloped him in a bear hug. “I can’t believe you’re going to be a father, man!”
“I know!” Arius said. “I can hardly believe it myself!”
A lump formed in Clara’s throat, and tears pricked her eyelids. Getting up herself, she moved around the table to hug Saskia. “That’s such wonderful news! Congratulations.”
Once Clara and Evander had returned to their seats, Arius cleared his throat. “There’s something else. We wanted to know whether you would be the baby’s Protectors.”
This time, the tears did escape her lashes, sliding down Clara’s cheeks. “Are you sure?” she breathed, glancing at Evander, who had gone very still.
“Are you sure?” he echoed, gazing intently at Arius.
“Absolutely sure,” Arius said firmly.
“It’s a huge honor. Thank you,” Evander said.
“Let’s get some wine to celebrate,” Clara said. Suddenly her minor breakthrough at work that afternoon didn’t seem so important, but she was still buoyed by the discovery of a new enzyme which might well be the reason for long-term suppressant use often proving fatal. It was still early days, but this was a new and exciting lead.
“Just water for me,” Saskia said, already cradling her still-flat stomach. “Wine makes me nauseous at the moment.”
“Three glasses of wine and one water, coming right up,” Clara said, getting up and heading to the kitchen.
Evander came up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist, nuzzling her neck. She giggled, almost spilling the wine she was pouring.
“I love you,” he growled. “And as much as I love having our friends here, I can’t wait for them to leave so I can get you naked.”
“Soon,” she promised. Then, “Can you believe they asked us to be the baby’s Protectors? I would have thought they’d have so many people to choose from.”
“They do,” Evander said. “But they still chose us.”
“So what exactly does that entail?” Clara went on. “I know Protectors are optional, that not all kids have them. I never did.”
“Neither did I. It’s kind of morbid, actually—we’re basica
lly agreeing to raise their child if anything ever happens to both Arius and Saskia. If the child is orphaned.”
“Oh.” Clara suppressed a shudder at the thought.
“But it’s not just that. We get to be there for all the kid’s milestones—birthdays, graduation, that sort of thing. Almost like being an extra set of parents.”
“I love that idea!”
Evander chuckled. “I think it’s adorable how you agreed before you even knew what you were agreeing to.”
Clara rolled her eyes and handed him two glasses to carry. “As you once told me: they’re the royal couple. We don’t refuse them anything.”
Saskia and Arius stayed for another hour, laughing and chattering excitedly, looking for all the world like a young, carefree couple in love rather than the king and queen they were.
Clara watched them quietly, wondering whether they had been coming to this apartment more often than inviting her and Evander to the royal suites because here, there were no servants, sycophants, or any other reminders of their status. Here, they could just be Saskia and Arius.
The last month had been both incredibly difficult and the happiest of her life. She could never have imagined it was possible to feel such contrasting emotions so deeply at the same time.
There were moments when she still couldn’t believe her father had actually tried to kill her. Despite everything, she never would have thought him truly capable until she felt his huge hands around her throat, squeezing, squeezing…
Sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like she was choking, tears streaming down her face, but Evander was always there to hold her, to purr until she fell back asleep.
Clara glanced sideways at her mate, at the man who had upended her life. Who had taught her about herself. Who had claimed her. Who had killed for her. His thick, russet hair gleamed and his handsome face was animated as he regaled Arius and Saskia with an anecdote from his youth. With a huge smile on his face, he didn’t look capable of killing anybody, but she knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving. And there was nothing more dangerous than an Alpha whose mate was being threatened.
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