Chapter 11

• I followed him; my head bowed a little, and my shoulders sagged in sad resignation. The tears wouldn’t stop rolling even though my eyes hurt and I demanded rest from spilling warm, salty liquids. But they weren’t just tears; they weren’t simply produced from my eyes. These were my pain and agony, overflowing from a deep, dark place of despair. I was oppressed, and there was nothing I could do. This was humiliating for me, but there was still nothing I could do. These unfair humiliations and undue oppression were more than I could handle, but there was nothing I could do. The fear of being thrown in the dungeon lurked in my mind like an impending doom waiting to happen if I took the wrong step or made the wrong decision. There is no curse; Mama Mia’s words rang in my ear. If there was no curse, as she’d said, then what was it that I saw in her eyes? Why did she say I could control this wicked Alpha? I knew everything she’d told me and shown was hard to believe, but I didn’t expect her to just repudiate her words. But maybe it was true, I reasoned within. Maybe there truly was nothing special. Maybe she just wanted me to believe I could help the Alpha, and that would make me agree to live with him. But if that were the case, why did she deny it? If she wanted me to believe that the Alpha was truly cursed and that I was the one to help him just so I could agree to this deal, then why deny it now? Or maybe the Alpha didn’t know what we'd discussed. Maybe he wasn’t aware of the things she’d told me. Maybe this was her plan all along. To make me live under the Alpha’s roof because it was probably her only way to keep me safe and alive, just as Mama Mia had told her. Maybe everything I had seen in her eyes was all planned and arranged by her; after all, she was a very powerful werewolf and she could do anything. Maybe the Alpha wasn’t aware of this and was only doing it for her. He hated me, so why should he willingly agree to this? Everything kind of makes sense to me now. I had a strong conviction that Mama Mia was behind all this; it was the only way she could protect me. She’d probably told him to threaten me with the dungeon, or maybe that was all he did; I couldn’t tell, but if what I had witnessed in his eyes when he’d made that threat were any indication, I couldn’t afford to gamble with my life like that, and maybe I had made the right, albeit heartbreaking, decision to live with him because Mama Mia hadn’t said anything about it. I raised my head to see myself in a very wide, open entrance hall, but he was nowhere to be found. My heart missed a beat; where was he? When did I even enter here? I had been so engrossed in my sorrowful thoughts that I hadn’t noticed me reaching here or seen the Alpha disappear from sight. The sun had retired for the day already, but light flooded everywhere. I roamed my eyes, trying to figure out where he had gone and which of the rooms he had entered. I jerked when I heard his voice.
• "What are you doing standing there?"
• I lowered my head immediately.