Page 63 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
His face lights up with genuine happiness. “Soon. Very soon. I just need to get a few things in order first.”
Luna chooses this moment to leap down from my shoulder and begin sniffing around the inn’s entrance. Andrew’s eyes track her movement, and his expression shifts slightly; something cold flickers across his features, but he hides it.
“About that,” he says, his voice still warm but with an underlying edge. “The cat’s going to have to go.”
I blink at him, certain I must have misheard. “What?”
“The cat,” he repeats, nodding toward Luna. “She can’t stay with us. You’ll need to get rid of her.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. “Get rid of her? Andrew, Luna is—She’s family. She’s all I have left from my old life.”
“That’s exactly the problem.” His smile doesn’t waver, but there’s something calculating in his eyes now. “You’re starting fresh, Astra. New life, new beginnings. You can’t cling to the past forever.”
“But you always asked about her,” I protest, bewildered. “In all our conversations, you seemed interested in meeting her. You said—”
He cuts me off with a shrug. “I was being polite. Look, I’m not an animal person. Never have been. They’re dirty, they spread disease, and frankly, I don’t want one in my home.”
The casual dismissal of something so precious to me makes my chest feel hollow. “Andrew, I can’t just abandon her. She saved my life on the journey here. She has been my only companion—”
“And now you have me.” His voice takes on a patronizing tone, like he’s explaining something obvious to a child. “You don’t need a pet anymore, Astra. You have a man who loves you, who’s going to take care of you.”
“It’s not the same thing,” I say, my voice small but firm. “Luna isn’t just a pet. She’s my friend.”
Something flashes in Andrew’s eyes—annoyance, maybe even anger—before he forces his expression back to gentle understanding.
“Look, I get it. You’re attached. But marriage means compromise, and this is important to me.” He reaches out to touch my arm. “There are plenty of farms around here. I’m sure someone will take her in, give her a good life. Somewhere she can chase mice in a barn.”
“I won’t abandon her,” I say, crouching down and pulling Luna protectively into my arms. “I can’t.”
Andrew’s jaw tightens slightly, but he keeps his voice calm. “Well, we’ll talk about it more tomorrow. You’re tired from your journey, not thinking clearly. Once you’ve had time to rest, you’ll see I’m right.”
The condescending tone gives me a cold feeling in my stomach, but I’m too exhausted and confused to fight anymore.
“Let me get you settled,” he says, guiding me toward the inn’s entrance. “We can work out all the details later.”
Three days pass in a strange sort of limbo. Andrew visits every day, each time bringing up “the Luna situation,” as he calls it. Each time, I refuse to budge, and each time, his smile gets a little more strained.
“You’re being unreasonable about this,” he says on the third day, his voice taking on an edge I’ve never heard before. “It’s just a cat, Astra. There are more important things to worry about.”
“She’s not just a cat to me,” I repeat for what feels like the hundredth time.
“Fine.” He holds up his hands in surrender, but there’s something in his eyes that makes me uneasy. “We’ll figure something out.”
But I can tell he’s not happy about it. And with each passing day, Andrew seems less like the gentle, understanding man I remembered and more like someone I don’t recognize at all.
When he touches me, I feel nothing. No spark, no flutter of excitement that I used to imagine love would bring. Just emptiness where there should be warmth. But that will come, surely. Once we’re married, once we’ve had time to really be together.
It has to.
One evening, as I’m rummaging through my knapsack, my fingers brush against something smooth and cool. I pull out thesmall vial I found tossed in the woods the morning my leg finally started to heal.
The bottle is elegant, made of clear glass with intricate etchings around the rim. I hold it up to the lamplight, and the liquid inside glows with a faint, silver sheen. This is military-grade healing tonic, the kind used by royal armies and elite warriors—far more valuable than anything I could ever afford.
I knew immediately where it had come from, even though neither Lucian nor I ever even admitted we knew of its existence. The craftsmanship, the complex scent of rare herbs when I uncorked it to examine the contents…This was Lucian’s doing. He’d carelessly tossed the bottle away like it was nothing more than trash when he should have known it was worth more than most people see in a lifetime.
I said nothing about it at the time, and neither did he. We maintained the fiction that my sudden recovery was natural, that my body had finally started healing on its own. But I kept the bottle anyway, unable to throw away this tangible proof of...I don’t know what.
Now, sitting alone in this dingy room at the inn, I turn the vial over in my hands, my brow furrowed in confusion.
