Chapter 15 - Cassandra

Impulsive decisions have always been my saving grace in the past. The first time I left Mysthaven, I’d struck gold with an offer from an overseas company. It was like walking away from Mysthaven, and my life as a Moon Shine wolf opened up the doors of abundance that I needed at the time.

This time around, I’m not so lucky. I can’t help but wonder if this is some punishment from the higher-ups.

Was it a foolish decision to leave again? Was I mistaken?

My impulsive decision to leave Mysthaven has only been met with resistance from my outside world. First, I willingly submitted both my body and mind to the Alpha of the Moon Shine Pack. That was my first mistake.

I don’t want to call my decision to leave again without breathing a word to anyone a mistake. But it’s beginning to feel like one, and I can’t go back on my decision.

It’s not like I can go back now with my tail between my legs. It’ll only give Cyrus the leverage he needs to ruin my life, as he always seems to ruin it.

Grunting under my breath, I make my way into the diner, where Kenji awaits me at a table in the corner.

“I know that look…” he comments warily as he greets me with a hug. “Lemme guess… It didn’t go well.”

“You’d think that someone with my skills would get a job like that,” I snap my fingers with a grumpy groan, plunging onto the chair grimly. “It’s like these Americans don’t see my worth.”

“Jeez! Easy there, Ms. Chikara,” Kenji chuckles. “You almost sound like a foreigner now.”

“I feel like one,” I grouch with a roll of my eyes. “I feel so out of place here.”

Those words have never been truer. Ever since I left the small town of Mysthaven, I’d been struggling to find my footing in the world.

I’d missed my chance of pocketing a quarter of a million dollars because I’d been too kind.

Too giving to a man who had no intention of treating me like the refined woman I am.

I’m not just any she-wolf, and I’m not a measly human girl who settles for a simple one-night stand.

If I were, I would have lost my virginity a long time ago.

“No, you wouldn’t…” my inner wolf voice interrupts, reminding me that I’d been keeping myself for one man, albeit subconsciously. It was a grave mistake on my part.

He only uses women to quell his baser desires. He was never looking for something serious. I don’t know what I was thinking, as if I was special enough to change the Alpha of the Moon Shine Pack.

Shrugging my indifference at my inner wolf, who never fails to remind me of the candle I’d been holding out for Cyrus, I lift my eyes to Kenji, who’s become my roommate ever since I found myself jobless and homeless at the same time.

My latter disposition is only because I refuse to stay in Mysthaven and risk showing the Alpha my face.

“Any luck on selling your parents’ house?” Kenji asks casually, perusing the menu while he pretends to be disinterested in my response.

I know he’s worried about me, especially since I can’t reclaim my job in Tokyo. It’s been a rough two weeks of rejected resumes in every company that has no ties to Rudolph Inc.

I don’t want to risk Cyrus finding me. If, at all, he’s even looking. I hate that I care enough for a frisson of hope to spark deep inside.

I don’t care.

I shouldn’t.

I sigh, our waitress coming over as if on cue to take our order. When she leaves, Kenji throws me a worried look with one brow lifted.

“I can’t sell the place…” I begin, another heavy-hearted sigh escaping my lips as my shoulders slouch. The cottage in Mysthaven isn’t a property I’m allowed to list on the market. It belongs to the pack, like the rest of the town. Technically, the Rudolph family owns the entire town. It’s how things in the pack work. Each of us has our own little space as long as we’re a part of the pack.

Since leaving, I can kiss the property goodbye for good.

It’s not like I need it, even if the small cottage holds many memories for me.

“... Too many memories,” I lie to Kenji, only because he will never know the truth about my identity. It’s better this way—pack rules demand that humans don’t learn about our mystical identities, protecting ourselves and the pack from any harm.

I don’t know why I still feel a stroke of loyalty toward Moon Shine. The pack has always been the source of my misery.

Scratch that.

Cyrus Rudolph has always been the source of my misery.

“I understand,” Kenji sighs, a hopeful look in his eyes. “I know you’ve been struggling to find work out here, but what about…” he leans in and mouths the word, “Asuka?”

I bite my bottom lip in deep contemplation. “Let’s do it,” I say at last. The only reason I’d been holding off from taking hacking jobs was to secure something more permanent.

It seems like the States is too littered with graphic designers in these parts. I could use the money from undercover work and get a place of my own. I could have used the money from Cyrus’s job, but I’m too adamant to stay off the radar so that he never finds me.

“I already have a job in line,” Kenji reveals with a sly grin, leaning back and giving me some time to let the excitement kick in.

“Tell me more,” I say, leaning back, too, a smirk growing on my face.

***

Two weeks away from Mysthaven has given me some time for introspection. Checking my reflection in the mirror, I twirl in the black dress that I’d previously bought for the meeting with a client who turned out to be Cyrus.

I’d always been self-aware, my ample curves bringing about an abundance of torture and scornful words from the Alpha of the Moon Shine Pack. Back then, he was only next in line as the Alpha’s son. Still, his words cut deeply and had me fleeing from the pack and leaving the country.

With the nine years away, I was able to reclaim my power and feel confident in my own skin. When I returned for Mama’s funeral, I didn’t have an ounce of insecurities weighing me down. I was confident that I could dispel any oncoming attacks from the Alpha’s poisonous tongue.

I wasn’t counting on that tongue administering the most heated seduction. He probably realized that I was deaf to his bitter words and decided to use another tactic to disarm me.

Why is he always out to get me? I think woefully, realizing that this feeling of insecurity has nothing to do with my body.

He didn’t break my self-esteem this time around.

He broke my heart.

Taking a deep breath, I steel my spine and square my shoulders in preparation for tonight’s meeting. Equipped with an earpiece hidden beneath the curls framing my face, I tap the device to check in with Kenji.

“Testing…”

“I can hear you loud and clear,” comes his confirmation through the earpiece. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes,” I concur with a firm nod at my reflection. It isn’t for Kenji’s sake, but mine. It’s easier soldiering through battered self-esteem than it is fighting through the dull ache in my chest.

I only have myself to blame since I’d willingly surrendered to the Alpha that night on the mountaintop. It was so much easier to take his cruel words from one ear and out the other.

The exchange of bodily fluids has seemingly created some kind of energetic tie that touched my heart—the one thing I worked hard to protect.

Only mildly convinced that I could make it through the night, didn’t help that this dress was a reminder of the heady look of lust I’d witnessed in Cyrus’s eyes that night.

How foolish of me! I think scornfully, recalling everything else I witnessed that very same night. He was flirting with a human in the restaurant, but it slipped my mind when he exercised his charms on me outside my cottage. I should have seen it coming—that he was only going to use me for my body.

The ride to the restaurant is quiet, my palms sweaty on my lap while I stare out the window, the street lights flashing by like white streaks in my vision. A faint, distant echo of white noise fills my ears, but I relegate it to the simple fact that I’m doing this for the first time in nine years.

Cyrus’s meeting doesn’t count since it turned out to be a bust.

Gosh! Why am I thinking about him so much tonight?

And why does this dress suddenly feel like it’s stifling me?

I brush away the unwelcomed thoughts and enter the restaurant, providing a fabricated name to the hostess at the front. A waiter shows me to the reserved table, its emptiness indicating that I’m earlier than my fake “husband.”

Ordering a bottle of the finest wine the restaurant has to offer, I get comfortable in the plush seat as I wait for the client’s arrival.

“I’m in position,” I whisper between my palms so that it isn’t obvious that I’m speaking to the mic tucked between my breasts.

“Great. The client’s on his way,” Kenji replies. “He knows that he’s Mr. Harris for tonight.”

I giggle under my breath. “Please choose better names next time. These are so bland.”

On the other end, Kenji chuckles sarcastically. “Next time, you pick a name that doesn’t draw attention to you.”

“I—”

“Mrs. Harris…”

The humor I was feeling a second ago gets wiped out of existence the moment I hear the familiar voice call out the name Kenji invented for me tonight.

The smooth, intoxicating ripples of the husky tone enter my eardrums and heighten the white noise, turning it blaring now. I snap my head around, my breath hitching in my throat as if I’d just been knocked in the chest. It’s almost as if I’d been calibrated to his deception, his ruse to pose as my newest client. That explains the trepidations I’d been feeling on my way here and why the noise filled my eardrums, as if my intuition became heightened.

I wasn’t tapped into it well enough to foresee what was coming.

“Cyrus…?” I murmur in disbelief, only catching myself when he clears his throat and fixes his tie.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, honey,” he says calmly, taking a seat across the table and turning to our waiter. “Please give us a moment to decide on the menu.”

“Of course, Signore.” The waiter bows curtly and disappears, and there’s a part of me that wants to call him back.

To save me from this disaster.

What is he doing here?

I want to scream at Kenji right now. Did he not cross-examine our client? Doesn’t he know that we don’t deal with the same client twice?

Didn’t I make it crystal clear that we’ll never take work from this particular client?

“Cassie…” Cyrus calls out to me, his voice a gentle, coercing whisper that’s only fitting for the ambiance of the cozy Italian restaurant.

“What do you want?” I snap bitterly, the dark tendrils of anger clawing to the forefront and having me forgetting where we are for a fleeting second. I glance around the room to make sure I wasn’t too loud, then drop my voice and ask, “What are you doing here?” without meeting his eyes.

I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.

I didn’t want to see him again.

Pursing my lips, I grab my purse from the side of my chair and hastily throw the strap over my shoulder.

“I can’t do this,” I admit, despite how much I’m trying to be strong enough not to cave. I get to my feet when a strong pair of fingers wind around my wrist and cuff me in place, stopping me from walking away. All I can do is stare ahead of me, eyes clouding with the emotions I refuse to feel in his presence.

I’d spent every night since I left crying myself to sleep, feeling so helplessly idiotic for everything that’s happened. I should never have given in, knowing Cyrus’s ways.

The moment it was confirmed that he’d never change, by his mother, I knew I had to remove myself from the messy situation. It all happened so quickly that I hadn’t realized that I wanted more. I needed more because that’s just who I am. I wasn’t going to give myself to him if I thought that he’d only use me.

I’d allowed myself to be heartbroken, and I’m not willing to admit the error of my judgment.

Another error in judgment is the one sitting beside me right now, his fingers scorching my skin as he clutches my wrist.

I didn’t think he’d look for me. Yet he’s here now.

“Please,” he begs, the tone of his voice maintaining its desperate coercion and softness. “Just hear me out.”

I sigh discontentedly, avidly avoiding his eyes as I pull my hand away and take my seat again reluctantly.

The blaring white noise is interrupted when Kenji’s urgent voice can be heard through the earpiece.

“Cassandra?! Are you okay?! What’s happening?!”

I sigh and remove the mic from between my breasts, holding the tiny device to my lips deliberately.

“I’m fine, Kenji. Don’t come for me,” I say into the mic before tapping the power switch and laying it on the table.

A million questions race through my mind while hope sparks in my chest. Cyrus’s mere presence tonight, along with his determination, means that there is hope. Still, I can’t overlook what I know to be true.

All I can say is, “Talk.”