Page 56 of A Chance at Redemption for the Alpha
Chris throws his head back and laughs before putting his arm around my shoulder. “This is a wolf-only party. Normal rules don’t apply. Don’t worry, I am here and will watch out for you.”
He indeed doesn’t leave my side, even introducing me to some of his and Elijah’s friends. One of them is Ava, the gamma’s daughter. She usually always sneers when she looks at me, buttoday she is friendly. I feel like I am letting my guard down slowly, feeling more and more comfortable at this party.
Chris keeps the drinks flowing, until I feel myself getting dizzy. Things turn into a blur from then on. I remember suddenly being in a bedroom with Chris, and he is undressing me. I don’t want this. I am not ready yet. I try to say no, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. I feel like I slip in and out of consciousness, barely able to grasp what’s going on. I wake up hours later, feeling sick and with an ache between my legs.
Chris lies stretched out next to me, looking content. When I raise my eyes, I notice someone else standing in the room. Elijah is looking at me with a phone in his hand, snapping a picture. “Are you not ashamed?” he asks me. “To seduce the future beta. What will the alpha say when I tell him? What will the pack say when I show them the pictures?”
Something in my stomach drops, my chest clenching painfully. I… I seduced Chris? But I was drunk! I can’t even remember… and Elijah is going to leak the pictures? “Please don’t,” I whisper.
I feel Chris stretching next to me, putting a hand on my back. “Don’t be so hard on her,” he tells Elijah. “I forgive her.”
“Well,” Elijah frowns. “Maybe you can earn my forgiveness, too?”
“How?” I ask.
“Well,” Elijah sits down at the edge of the bed. “I didn’t get lucky today.”
It takes a while to sink in. “Oh…” I whisper.
“Chris is right,” Elijah says, stretching out his hand to touch my face. “You are certainly pretty. It’s that warm-colored hair of yours, and these waves. Even Ava thinks you are pretty.”
His voice is soft and gentle all of a sudden. What am I going to do? He is the alpha’s son… I try not to recoil from his touchwhen he pulls me closer. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” he reassures me. “Can I kiss you?”
I feel sick to my stomach, yet I find myself nodding.
It was the night of my downfall. Ever since that night, Chris made sure to hook up with me here and there, and Elijah made sure to dangle the video and photos he took over my head. I didn’t understand it back then, but once I did, it was too late. Elijah made me hook up with some of his rivals at school to make sure they get a bad reputation. He wanted to get back at them for being with a girl he liked, or for just not kissing the ground he walked on. By the end of high school, my reputation was stained as the whore I was.
Then I met Andy, my mate, and the tides turned. I was honest with him, and to my surprise, he accepted my past. I was so stupid. I believed everything he told me, so eager to be loved and to have someone who would finally protect me. I didn’t see the red flags, and I didn’t recognize him as who he was. He was living as a lone wolf, but not a rogue, telling me he liked to be alone because his pack used to bully him. What I didn’t know was that his cousin was one of the guys Elijah had tried to ruin. Once Andy humiliated Elijah, he was done with me and rejected me. No one wants to be mated to a whore.
I thought I would get killed for betraying my future alpha, but someone intervened. I don’t know who it was, but Alpha Ezra was alerted, and he saved me and took me in.
It’s all my fault, though. I was stupid and naïve. I believed them. Of course, Andy didn’t want me. Who wants a girl who’d been used like I had? Who wants someone that stupid and pathetic? There was nothing redeeming about me. I slept with Chris, although I shouldn’t have. He flirted with me, and I felt so happy and flustered that I got drunk and had sex with him. And then I even betrayed my future alpha.
Since Alpha Ezra saved me from being killed by my own pack, I have done nothing but anxiously wait for my fate to be decided on. Although he told me I can leave the packhouse to my liking and stroll around, repeating over and over again that I am not a prisoner, I stay in my room. I only talk to Percy, the young guy I met here when we both were saved from our fates. The poor kid had been used and tossed aside by his alpha and his pack.
It seems our fates have been decided, though. Alpha Ezra has chosen a pack for us to live in, and their alpha is coming today to check on everything. I just hope he won’t kick me out immediately.
“Dolores,” Percy peeks into my room. “I think they’ve arrived.” He pauses. “Can I come here and wait with you?”
“Sure,” I smile at him, hoping it will chase his anxiety away. He is so young. I can’t believe his pack used him the way they did. Poor kid. He has no one.
“Do you think they are nice?” he asks me when he sits down at the edge of my bed. The look in his eyes is deeply worried, something I can sympathize with all too well. “I saw the alpha.”
“You spotted Alpha Marcellus?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“And?” I can’t stop my voice from trembling slightly. “What’s your first impression?”
“He is tall,” he says. “Like really tall, much taller and stronger than my former alpha.”
“More than Alpha Ezra?”
“He looks more serious,” Percy admits, brushing some strands of light brown hair out of his face. “I am scared,” he admits quietly.
I look at him shortly, not sure how to diffuse his tension, as my own is skyrocketing. “Me too,” I admit after a while. “At least you were obviously used by your pack as a scapegoat. You are innocent. Me… not so much.”
“Lori,” he says quietly. “That’s not true.”
