Page 29 of Alpha's Revenge Luna

“Why do you care?” he asks after the longest minute. I carefully think over his words. Do I care, or is it just morbid curiosity? I shrug, not knowing how to answer without angering him further.

“Rogues didn’t kill my Anastasia, your father did,” he states.

“No, rogues did, you said it yourself at the ball,” I remind him.

“Because your father told them to,” he reiterates, clearly irritated at me.

I sigh heavily, reaching for the conditioner. “Now, why would my father order rogues to kill your mate?” I ask, slightly annoyed.

“Because your father is a very sick, depraved man is why. Enough about Anastasia, and my son. I don’t want to fight with you right now,” he growls.

“Fine! So how do you know Ellie’s father?” I ask him, detouring the conversation slightly.

“From when I was rogue,” he answers, and the conditioner bottle slips from my hands at his words. Dion moves like lightning catching it.

“Thanks,” I move to take it from him, but he squeezes some in his hand, then sets the bottle back. “Turn aroun d,” he orders.

I do, not bothering to try to fight the command, instead hoping he will tell me more when I feel him start lathering my conditioner through the lengths of my hair.

“You didn’t know I was rogue?” he asks me.

I shake my head. “You said your parents abandoned you? Is that when you were rogue?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything else.

“My mother abandoned me, I don’t know who my father is,” he tells me.

“How old were you?” I ask him now, fully invested in this conversation. I’ve heard rumors from the maids at the pack house and guards, but none ever mentioned him being a rogue before he was Alpha. And how did he become an Alpha when he was rogue?

“I think I was two, maybe three? Time is different for me. It’s hard to keep track of since I don’t age, my earlier memories are a little fuzzy,” he admits.

I try to remember what I was doing at three, I can hardly picture myself that young, let alone being abandoned.

“Your mother gave you up for adoption when you were three?” I ask, wondering how a woman could love a child for three years then abandon them. I try not to judge, not knowing the circumstances when his next words shock me further.

“She didn’t place me in an orphanage, Emery. She threw me off a waterfall. I’m sure she was hoping it would kill me,” he answers, so matter-of-factly. I find myself glancing at him over my shoulder.

“When you were three?” I ask.

“Or two, as I said, it’s a little fuzzy, but I remember the falling part, that I will never forget. Also remember how cold the water was,” he tells me, like this is just some normal conversation, not something traumatic.

“And you lived?”

“No, I’m a ghostly apparition that came back just to claim you as my mate,” he chuckles and I roll my eyes.

“That’s not what I mean, I’m just shocked,” I admit.

“I’m not a liar,” he states, and I peek up at him, but he pulls me under the stream of water, rinsing my hair before I can answer him.

“I may have died if the wolves didn’t pull me out. I couldn’t swim, I nearly drowned,” he admits.

“A pack found you?” I ask him, while rubbing my eyes to clear the water from them. “No, normal wolves, at first. I thought they dragged me out to eat me,” he chuckles.

I wait for him to burst out laughing, this sounds very Jungle Book to me. Only when he doesn’t, I turn around to find him stuck in some memory. I touch him, bringing him back to the present.

“I think they could sense I was a werewolf; werewolves can tame wild wolves, turns out one of the local packs was feeding them. They stayed with me until one of them found me,” he shrugs.

“Which pack were you raised in?” I ask.

“None, I ran away a few days later to look for my mother,” he tells me, and my stomach sinks at his words. “Even after what she did?”

“She was my mom, I was a child. I probably thought she dropped me. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized she intentionally threw me off,” he answers.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him to be abandoned by the one person who was supposed to love and protect him.

It makes me want to hold him and offer him some comfort. But I know better than to try that.

“So, how did you become Alpha if you were rogue?” I ask, changing the subject again.

“It’s a long story,” he says.

“I’ve got time, since I’m not going anywhere,” I reply.

He sighs heavily, as if considering whether or not he wants to tell me.

“After my mother threw me off the waterfall, and I escaped the pack I was in, I wandered around for a while until I stumbled upon a group of rogues.”

“They raised you?” I ask, but he shakes his head, reaching for the soap before lathering up his hands. He then starts washing me. I step away from him. “What, you’re just standing there,” he laughs, stepping closer.

“I can wash myself,” I tell him, trying to reach the soap, but he crowds my space instead, refusing me.

“Stop acting virginal; I’ve touched you plenty of times, I am capable of controlling myself,” he states.

“I am a virgin!”

“For now,” he says with a devious smile. “But you’re not untouched,” he chuckles. I roll my eyes at him.

“So is that a yes?” he asks.

“Only if you keep telling me what happened after you met the rogues.”

He exhales loudly but grips my waist, tugging me closer.

“I stayed with the rogues for a while, then I kept looking for my mother, and would either be by myself or in different settlements I came across.”

“How long did you look for her?”

He shrugs, his hand caressing over my breast. “Until I was a teenager.” I stare at his face, and I can tell he doesn’t like telling this story.

“How did you become an Alpha, then?” I ask again.

“I challenged the former Alpha for the position,” he answers simply.

“Did he fight back?” I ask incredulously.

“He did. He almost killed me, I won in the end though,” he tells me matter-of-factly. “I’ve been Alpha ever since.”

“Why did you challenge him?”

He swallows, his eyes darting to mine briefly. “He wasn’t a good man, a man like him shouldn’t be in a position of power,” he states, and I crease my brows.

“I don’t follow, you said you weren’t part of a pack, so how could you judge if he wasn’t a good Alpha?”

“Because I saw what he did to the rogues,” he tells me. When he finishes rinsing me off, he turns off the shower head and steps out.

“Come on, let’s get out before we turn into prunes,” he says, reaching for a towel.

I follow, wrapping the fluffy towel around myself.

Dion moves toward his huge walk-in closet while I stand there debating whether or not I should put the clothes I had back on.

Before I can decide, he comes back out in a pair of boxers with a shirt in his hand.

“Here, wear this. Tomorrow, I will take you in so you can pick some clothes for yourself,” he tells me. I take the shirt and slip it on; it barely covers me, and I am very aware of my lack of underwear, not that he cares for underwear.

Dion then moves toward the far wall and presses his hand on it. A panel pops out, and I wander closer to see what it contains when I realize it is a fridge. He glances at me over his shoulder.

“Thirsty?” he asks me, and I chew my lip then nod. He hands me a glass bottle of coke. I take it when I hear him curse.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“I’m out of blood, it’s fine,” he runs his fingers through his wet hair before retrieving a beer from the fridge. He pops the cap, drinking it while I move toward the bed. Pulling the blanket back, I set my drink down and climb under the blanket to see him finish that one before grabbing another.

“Are you planning on getting drunk?” I ask him as he pops the cap on the new one. “No, but it makes me not want to drain you,” he laughs hauntingly. I gasp at his words when he closes the fridge.

“Maybe grab another then,” I blurt, not wanting to be a Hybrid midnight snack. He raises an eyebrow at me but shuts it, wandering over to me. By the time he reaches the bed, he’s finished the second bottle.

“I may want to drain you, that doesn’t mean I will,” he answers when another question comes to mind.

“How do you get blood when all of your pack are werewolves?”

“From my pack, they have weekly donations, though I think some of them were hoping you’d stop those.” My blood runs cold and I try to picture him feeding off Tara. It puts a sour taste in my mouth, and I am surprised at how angry it makes me.

“You feed on them?”

“No! I don’t treat them like blood bags, and I highly doubt their mates would be okay with me making their mates high and aroused,” he tells me.

“They’re okay with having a Hybrid for an Alpha?” I ask while fixing my pillow. I lay down only to be tugged against him. He shoves me on my side, tucking me against his hard body and chucking his leg over mine.

“Of course they are, I saved them,” he tells me.

“From the previous Alpha?”

“He was Alpha, but this place I would hardly call it a pack. Every member of my pack was rogue at one stage until they were taken and sold,” he tells me, and my stomach sinks somewhere deep inside me.

“Sold?” I whisper, the words barely audible.

Dion buries his face in my neck, inhaling my scent, and I shiver as his nose grazes my neck.

“Tara was rogue?”

“Yes and no,” he murmurs against my skin. “Tara was born and raised in captivity, so were a few other women.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, not liking where this story is going. “She was a sex slave, all the women were. A lot were stolen from rogue communes. The men were collared and used, but not in the same way the women were.”

“How were the men used?” I ask, not sure if I really want to know the answer.

“Mostly by humans, they would be used as slaves, beaten, some tortured for their buyers’ amusement. Whereas the women were merely toys passed between men in power. The Alpha of this pack was one of the worst of them.”

“Who was he?”

“Doesn’t matter, he’s dead now.”

“So that’s why they give you blood because you saved them?”