AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Everly
Valen returns a few seconds later with a towel before marching into the bathroom and shutting the door, muttering under his breath. I hear the shower start and sigh.
He has a point, though. The media would go insane over two mates—especially one holding status in the city—living apart. The scandals it would lead to! I can only imagine the speculation it would cause, and the rift once everyone finds out I am, in fact, Alpha John's daughter.
That’s another thing I’m worried about because itwillcome out; secrets always do—they never remain hidden—and I know it will all come out when they dig into my past.
Yet, the thought of having to answer to someone irks me. And if I’m living with Valen, I know I’ll have to, plus he could pull rank over me. Yet, the stories that would be in the papers… I can already imagine the headlines:
‘PACK RIVALRY KEEPING MATES APART’
‘VALEN’S CHEATING WAYS, Trouble With The Notorious Alpha’
Stupid shit. And that would be stacked on top of the ones saying:
‘EVERLY — THE GOLD DIGGER TRAPPING THE ALPHA’
Fuck! I never thought of the different scenarios, and now they appear endless.
Valen walks out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He ignores me, and I can feel he is upset.
I chew my lip before getting up off the couch, wandering down the hall toward his bedroom, and pushing the door open. Valen is getting ready for bed pulls the sheets back.
“If you’re coming in here to tell me you don't want to live with me or to give more bullshit excuses, Everly, I don't want to hear it,” he says, climbing in bed and tugging the blankets up. He turns away from me, facing the wall, and I sigh before showering myself and returning to the room.
After rummaging through his closet for a shirt to wear, I climb in bed with him. Through the bond, I can tell he’s still festering over our argument and very much awake, though he’s keeping his back to me.
“You said earlier you wanted to be my Luna. How do you expect to do that if we live separately?” he says. “The Alpha meeting is in two days. What do you expect me to tell everyone? ‘Everly and I are mates, but it's complicated’? This isn't like updating a Facebook status, Everly. I get you don't want me to mark you yet, but at least fucking try.”
I remain quiet, pondering my thoughts and his words, when he rolls over to face me.
“What are you afraid I’ll do that you keep refusing to try to make this work?” Valen asks.
There are plenty of things I’m afraid of: Valen taking control of everything in my life when I only just got some semblance of the normal back in it; him taking my son; losing the hotel and everyone who relies on that place; I’m worried about the rogue woman losing everything when they have no jobs because I failed them.
But most of all, I’m afraid of ending up back in a shitbox car, living in the train station parking lot with Valarian. I’m scared of losing everything, just like I did before—going back to having nothing and no one. At least with how things are now, he can't control everything. He can't take it from me.
“Anything I say will sound like an excuse,” I tell him, and he sighs.
Unless you’ve lived with the hopelessness of failing at everything and having no one to rely on, you can’t understand how terrifying it is to allow someone else to have even the slightest bit of control when you worked so hard to get where you are. Moving in with Valen would be trusting him not to break me again, not to take everything I worked hard for away from me, trusting him not to throw me away like trash like my family did.
“Try to explain. I want to understand, Everly. No bullshit, just tell me,” Valen breathes, frustrated.
“I lost everything for our son—everything, Valen. I had no one, only him, until I found that place. No one helped me until Valarie. My father couldn't bear the sight of me. Society displayed me as some vile, home wrecking whore; I lived with that. The other rogue women lived with that. I won't lose it all. I won't go back to that place where I let myself think I would have help, only to find out I wouldn't and that everything could be taken away from me in the blink of an eye,” I answer honestly.
I used to use the excuse it was his cheating, the fact he didn't recognize me; but deep down it has nothing to do with that because he’s here now, he proved he would stay. It’s my own thoughts that ruined everything. I know it’s toxic, and my own safety mechanism, but it’s the truth. Until you hit rock bottom and claw your way back, no one can tell you not to fear ending up back there again. And that thought terrifies me—I have too much to lose now; I would lose everything, including my son.
“But no one is taking anything from you, Everly.”
“You did. I know that it's in the past, I know you want to make up for it, but it fucking haunts me. Do you have any idea how lonely it is when you have a baby relying on you to keep it alive and fed when you have nothing and no one to help? Then, to feel so selfish for forcing that life on a child? Choosing yourself over your own kid because you can't bear the heartbreak of giving them up? You can't bear the thought of letting someone else raise them? I lived with that guilt of thinking I was destroying my son, so I damn near killed myself to earn the right to be his mother—one he deserved. I created a life for us; I won’t lose it,” I tell him.
“You do deserve him, and none of that will happen again; I’m here now,” Valen says.
“Yes, you are, but what happens once you mark me? You make me give up the hotel? Take it from me—from them? Before Valarian, I was oblivious to how this city was run, like any other Alpha. Shunned the rogue whores until I found myself one of them. Zoe, Macey, and I, we built that place. I won't allow you to take it from us—from those that work there. I won't just quit because you want a Luna. And I know you expect that. You expect that because it’s what’s taught to us. Luna's abide by their Alpha; The Alpha has control. No one should have that kind of power over someone else.”
“You think I’ll make you give it up?” Valen asks.
“Yes. But I’m also worried about what they’ll think when I become one of those that suppressed them in the first place. You marking me doesn't just affect me; it affects them when I become what society wants. What you want,” I tell him.
