21. Phaedra

PHAEDRA

R andall didn't come back for a few hours until after the sun had set. Selene had snuck away, and Penny and I started on our work. For once, I was actually making some decent progress on the stacks of requests and work orders. The door slowly opened, and Randall appeared in the doorway, his face grave.

"What is it?" I asked, my heartbeat quickening. Had he told Connor we were planning a coup?

"Have you made a decision?—"

"I'm not here to talk about that," he said, interrupting Penny. "Connor wants to see you in his rooms, Phaedra."

A spear of anxiety slammed into my chest, and my wolf's hackles raised. What could he possibly want all of a sudden?

Penny slammed down her pen, startling me. "Well, go back and tell him we're busy," she snapped. "We're?—"

"I wish I could," he interrupted again. "But it's not up to me, nor you. The alpha has commanded it."

Oh… Connor had likely used an alpha command to have Randall bring me to him. I couldn't talk my way out of this. I saw Penny come to the same conclusion as I stood from my chair. But what did that mean? Was Randall more on our side than he was at liberty to say? He didn't exactly look happy to be there.

"I'll catch up with you tomorrow, Pen," I said as I followed Randall out into the hallway. I stared at his wide shoulders, my anxiety growing with each step. "Can you tell me what he wanted to see me about?" I asked.

"He didn't say, just ordered me to bring you to him."

"I see." What else could I say? Randall was in the grips of the alpha command, even if he wanted to reveal more—and I still wasn't sure if he was planning on helping overthrow Connor or not—there wasn't a lot he could tell me. Even saying that much clearly took effort for him.

As we reached the alpha's wing, I smelled cider and whiskey on the air, and it grew stronger as we stopped in front of Connor's door. Great. He was drunk.

Randall knocked, and Connor snapped, "Come in! Stop knocking so loud."

As Randall pushed open the door, my nose scrunched before I could control it. It was as if Connor had doused the whole room with liquor. Two empty whiskey bottles lay on their side on the table by the window, the liquor spilling over onto the carpet.

The room looked like it hadn't been cleaned for days. The bed was unmade, with dirty clothes piled in a corner, and a row of beer bottles stood on the windowsill. Connor had never been this messy before, but it seemed things had changed since he became alpha.

Connor walked around, clutching a glass as he stared hard at me like I'd messed up his rooms. "You can leave, Randall."

Randall bowed slightly, and as he turned to leave, he made purposeful eye contact with me. I wasn't sure what that look meant, but it was strangely comforting.

"What is it, Connor?" I asked. "Why are you drunk? It's only Tuesday."

"I am the one asking the questions, Phaedra," he said, taking a quick sip. "I want to know why my men told me that you were seen walking through the gates with that maid the other day?"

My wolf began to growl low in her throat, and I narrowed my eyes. "She's my personal maid, Connor."

"So? Does that mean you spend your free time with her? Your servant?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business. I was on my own time?—"

"You don't have your own time," he snapped. "You are my chosen! When people see you hanging out with the fucking staff, how do you think that makes me look?"

I took a step back from him, my hands clenching at my sides. "What does it matter to you? You're the alpha, Connor. Who cares what people say about you?"

He scoffed. "You of all people should know how damaging talk and rumors can be." He ran his free hand through his messy, blonde hair and took a deep breath. "Why does every conversation have to be like this, Phaedra? Why can't you just answer my question?"

"You make our conversations this way, Connor," I said. "Your tone is always so aggressive or accusatory."

"So what? Can't you tell that it comes from a place of caring?"

"Frankly, no, I can't. You treat me more as a possession than a mate."

"You are mine. " There was a slight growl to the words, and his eyes flashed the venom green of a predator.

I opened my mouth, shaping the words "I am not", but I stopped before I voiced them. This was getting out of hand. His wolf was already so close to the surface. If I kept getting defensive, he could escalate. I wasn't ready to confront him—we were still in the earliest stages of our plan. If anything, I should be relieved he was only asking me why I was hanging out with Theo, and that he knew nothing about our secret meetings.

I fortified myself and tried to quell some of my wolf's indignation. "I'm sorry, Connor," I said, adding a curtsy because I hadn't shown him that respect when I entered his room. "I'm sure this isn't the way you wanted this conversation to happen."

"No, it isn't," he agreed, his eyes returning to their usual color as his wolf receded. "I just want a simple answer to my question."

"I met her before she became my maid," I replied. "She invited me to have dinner with her family, and I accepted because I missed them. They were good to me while I was… you know." I looked away as if I was embarrassed about my past. I wasn't, but Connor might see it as an explanation to my defensiveness.

He sighed, and the ice in his glass clinked as he took a long sip of his drink. "Phaedra, even now you've found your wolf, you're still so softhearted. You feel some kind of loyalty for these people who are so far beneath you. It's my fault for rejecting you prematurely."

I wanted to push back against that so badly, but I held my tongue. "That's all it was, Connor. I promise you."

"I believe you." He walked over to the table and set his glass down, leaning against the table. "But there's one thing I still don't understand."

"What is it?"

"How can you be so kind to everyone else but have no sympathy for me?"

I blinked at him, making no attempt to hide my surprise. "What do you mean?"

He didn't answer for a few moments, instead pondering the pool of whiskey that had collected on the table.

I was beginning to think he wasn't going to respond at all. "Connor, it's getting pretty late, and I think I should turn in before?—"

"Maybe I shouldn't have killed my father." He spoke those words with a combination of bitterness and pain. "There. Is that what you want me to say? Is that what I have to say to change the way you look at me?"

I was so taken aback by that sudden admission, I had to scramble to come up with a response. Unfortunately, I didn't come up with anything before he slammed his hands against the table. It was eerily similar to the way Penny had done it, but he was much more aggressive, sending one of the bottles off the table and smashing into tiny pieces on the floor.

"You spend all of this time with my sister, and you both look at me with such disdain, but what else could I do?"

"You could have spoken to him! You could have asked him why he?—"

"What the fuck does it matter why? He was a traitor. The man everyone believes was the best alpha the Wilcox pack had seen in decades was secretly allowing his enemies to gain power, then sending me to intercept them every time. He could have eliminated them at any point, but he chose not to. I don't need to know why he did it."

"You'll never know why," I said, though I knew why. Asher was his nephew, but I doubted Connor would be able to react calmly or rationally to that information, especially not right now. "No one will know the truth because there was no trial."

"Trial?" he repeated, then threw his head back and laughed derisively. "Could you imagine that? Putting my father on trial for the entire pack to see how fucked up he was? How he betrayed them? Could you imagine the unrest that would have caused? Could you imagine how they would question my authority, being the son of a traitor? No one could live with that kind of a stain on their reputation."

He was wrong. Asher had had to step up after his father's death. He'd had to bear the weight of his father's stained reputation, manage a curse that affected him and his pack, and deal with a sudden fated mate mark all on his own. Not to mention his own pack challenged him for the alpha position almost constantly. Somehow, that man had managed to make do, and he did it without embarrassing, shaming, or irreparably damaging any of his challengers.

What Asher had managed to do at his age made him an even better alpha than Edgar in my eyes. Connor could never match up to Asher's strength as a man, nor could he understand the fierce love Asher had for his pack. Connor didn't have one redeemable bone in his body.

I'm not sure what expression was on my face, but Connor suddenly whirled and stormed me.

"S-stop," I said as my back came flush with the wall. "Connor, don't?—"

He stood in front of me and reached above my head. I flinched, but all he did was grab another bottle of cider from the shelf beside the door. He smirked as he pulled the cork free with his teeth. His Adam's apple bobbed as he took a deep swig.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "If things were different… if I was the one betraying the pack, Dad would have done the same thing." He must have been pretty drunk to say something so ridiculous.

"You really think he would have killed you, Connor?" I asked in a whisper. "His only son?"

He paused, the fury flashing in his eyes. "All right, fine," he snapped. "He wouldn't have killed me, but he would have swept it under the rug. He would have pretended that I never made that mistake and acted like everything was fine in front of his advisors and friends. But secretly, he would have hated me. He would have regretted the fact he made me his heir instead of Penny. I know he would have hated me for it."

I couldn't argue with that. Edgar would have protected his son. It was wrong, but not as wrong as patricide.

"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked, desperate to get away from him now. He reeked of alcohol so much that it burned my nostrils. It terrified me when he got like this. I couldn't predict what he was going to do next.

"Why?" He took another long pull from the bottle. "You don't understand me at all. You're so smart, but you can't see that I'm ensuring our future and the future of this pack. Why can't you look at me the way a woman is meant to look at her mate?"

He leaned toward me. I turned my face away from him, but his free hand gripped my jaw and turned my head until I had no choice but to look at him. It was just like that time in the hall when Trevor interrupted us. The terrified rhythm of my heart drowned out even the sound of wolf's growls. There was no one to interrupt us this time. I felt more like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a wolf. I didn't know if he was going to toy with me or hurt me.

"I did what I could for my father's honor, Phaedra—I really did. I kept what he did a secret from my pack. I let them continue to believe he was a hero and a mighty alpha even at the expense of my own reputation, but that isn't enough for you or Penny. Why not? Why can't you care for me the way you do my sister or that servant girl? Or Asher?"

I struggled against him, but he tightened his grip on my face, his finger digging into my skin. My lip gloss smudged across my cheek beneath his palm.

"You still love him, don't you? You still think of his hands on you even now when I'm the only man in the room with you. Aren't I good enough for you?" He leaned in, holding my face still as he pressed his lips to my throat and breathed deeply. "Goddess, you smell good."

"Connor, please," I said, my voice muffled. "This isn't proper."

"Nothing I've done has been proper. Maybe the only way to prove my worth to you is to be bolder."

"I don't want this," I snapped, voice trembling with a mix of disgust and fear. "I-I will fight if you go any further."

He grinned, his gaze becoming hungry with lust. "As if you could. But you won't. You will stay still while I kiss you, Phaedra. " Those words were spoken in his alpha voice. Just like the last time he'd used it against me, I felt the tug of control on me, but it didn't take hold.

My wolf howled at me to fight, but how could I fight him without revealing that his alpha powers didn't work on me? What if he went so much further than a kiss? Tears pricked my eyes as he slowly leaned in. What could I do? How did I stop this?

And then, I felt another tug within me. This time, it came from inside, and rather than pulling me down, trying to force my limbs to be still when I wanted to move the way Connor's command did, it pulled me upward, as if I was standing on my tiptoes.

My wolf howled again, and the bottle in Connor's hand shattered, dousing both of us in cider.

"Shit!" He hopped back a step. The glass had cut his palm, and his blood dripped onto the floor. "What the fuck?"

Desperate to get as far away from him and this awful room as I could, I yanked open the door. Not aware of my own strength, I popped one of the hinges free, sending the metal and screws careening down the hall.

Randall had been waiting by the door, the sleeves of his shirt wrinkled where he must have gripped them. He took one look at me and the tears streaming down my face, then nodded.

"Phaedra, get back here!" Connor roared.

His voice jumpstarted me, and I started running, sprinting out of the manor.

"Phae—"

His voice suddenly cut off, but I didn't look back to see what had happened. The walls and décor became a blur around me as I made a beeline for the front doors. I realized just as I reached them that I didn't have the pix powder yet, that I would be seen as I stumbled outside. But like a blessing from the gods, the sky was black, and rained poured down in full force. Hopefully, it would provide enough cover for me to get where I wanted to go.