Chapter 52: Chapter 52

There is no more innocence in her eyes. Ryder ran a finger down Alecia’s pale cheek, feeling dampness- evidence of her tears. His hand trailed to the bandages over her wrist, covering the ten stitches it took to close up the wound. A deep sob formed in his throat . He pushed a fist into his eye, trying to push the pain away, but it only grew. What had he done? He had destroyed her.

He turned from where she lay on the bed, covered in his black silk sheets, and walked into the hallway as a voice as soft as the wind beckoned to him. Leave, it called. Whenever he stopped to listen to it, it vanished like a ghost exposed to light. He walked outside of his Manhattan penthouse to the balcony, and placed his hands on the rail of the deck – the cool dry air floated around him – feeling like an omen. From this view he could gaze at the tall skyscrapers that pierced into the night sky, as if trying to prove their dominance. Car lights shined like moving stars, down dark narrow paths. His father wanted to give him the world. But what would it matter? He was going to lose his soul.

Ryder closed his eyes as images blurred in his mind; images of a future he knew he was destined for. Already, he could feel the heat spreading over him, seeping into his inner being. He didn’t want this world. He wanted to be back at Carli State University, before he broke her – a place he’d never get to again.

With his hands, Ryder clamped down on his head – pushing hard. How could he continue this life? He had made a promise. The moment she had breathed, he knew he had to listen to what that voice wanted, and that voice wanted him to follow it. He just wished he knew where.

Dropping his hands to his sides, Ryder opened his eyes and looked up at the night sky, void of stars. If I give in, what do I do?

Leave, the words echoed in his mind as if someone whispered in his ear. But where?

Ryder dug his hands into his pockets and walked into the apartment. He couldn’t stay. He was no longer the same person. The little pieces of his old life had started to be chipped away, bit by bit. His old thoughts, goals, and agenda vanished a little more every day. He walked into his home office, and pushed his shoulders back, looking at the bookshelf full of books she had collected over the years. But what could he do? If he left, his father would destroy him—use her against him. Hadn’t he said once, he’d slice her pretty throat if she caused problems? The only reason she still lived was because she carried a child in her womb. A child who could possibly be the next Hendrix heir. But maybe the voice would protect her. He could obviously overcome death.

Ryder walked to her desk, which sat opposite his, and picked up her iBook. Just as long as the voice protected her and the child, he would be fine with whatever happened to him.

Ryder pushed the iBook, full of her various works in progress, under his arm and strolled to a closet, taking out a duffle bag and slipping the computer in along with her Kindle and a photo album of her family – all items he had begun piling against the wall over the last week.

Hopefully, these items wouldn’t remind her of him. For it would be best if she never thought of him again.

He tugged at his collar, adjusting his tie, while he poured over a contract between two major oil corporations – a document that didn’t contain one bit of truth. The pen in his hand rattled back and forth before he let it fall to the oak desk. Something once so easy now seemed so hard – impossible. His father walked by his office, fixing that famous cavernous black glare on him, and Ryder felt like the child he once was before he began slipping into the man his father wanted him to be.

He nodded and then looked away as his father’s retreating steps announced his departure.

He knew. He must be waiting for the right moment to strike. Would he take down his only heir? Ryder stood and walked to the office door, and looked out at the vast, open office space. The secretary had gone home, and now only a dim light covered the desk and chairs. He looked towards his father’s office. A lifeline waited in that room – documents he could use to keep the man at bay, but Ryder knew he’d sign his wife’s death warrant if he took one piece of paper.

He needed something. But what? He turned back around and grabbed his coat, slipping it on. Walking out, he closed the door as the feeling that he had just left that office for the last time swept over him. If there was just something he could take with him, every document he had at his apartment had somehow mysteriously disappeared. No doubt, Sose had visited before he brought his wife home from the hospital.

“Ryder.”

Ryder stopped, and turned to look at the large, imposing form draped in a dark suit that blended in with his coal-colored hair. A chill sliced through him, as his father’s glare seeped right through him.

Ryder folded his hands at his waist. “Yes, Father?”

“Has the McCormick, Inc. case been corrected?”

He meant falsified, but Ryder wouldn’t mention that. “Everything is in order.”

“Go home,” he said before turning back to his office.

Ryder tiptoed back as he turned and walked out of the office, taking slow steps down the stairs that led out of the building. Once reaching the bottom, he pushed open the steel door leading to the basement parking lot as a coldness filled him. His gaze darted around the large, almost-empty lot with only two vehicles, his silver Bugatti and his father’s gray Mercedes. No soul seemed to occupy the place, but that didn’t mean Sose hadn’t blended in with the walls.

Ryder gripped his keys and pushed the button, making the golden lights on his car blink.

Just keep her safe, he whispered as he pushed from the door, racing to his vehicle as if rushing to home plate. He gripped the handle of the driver’s side door, yanked it open and threw himself into the car seat, jamming his shoulder on the center console. Pain shot up his arm, but he barely felt it. His hand immediately smashed the lock button. His gaze once again darted around the enclosure, noticing no shadows lurching towards him. All he saw were grey concrete beams, revealed by a golden light.

His chest rose and fell in deep gasps as he fumbled with his keys, trying to find the car key. His father better not do anything to her. If he tried…. Ryder gripped his key and jammed it in the ignition. He would…. What? He turned the key, making the engine roar to life. Talk to the press. An idea flickered in his mind. He reached for an iPad from his leather suitcase. No, he couldn’t take any documents, but he could use everything he knew about the untold history of Richard’s rise to power in order to keep them safe.

He loved Alecia.

As Ryder stepped out of the building and flagged down a taxi, it was as though his entire life with Alecia was being played out in front of him – they were the best moments of his life, the times when instead of drawing her into his darkness, she had drawn him into her light.

He remembered when he had first seen her in campus, innocent, inexperienced, and breathtakingly beautiful, yet it had not been mere her beauty that had drawn him in, it was that innate goodness she had within, that purity – and he had taken it away from her.

What was it about boys who swore never to end up like their abusive father? Boys who watched in anger, horror and fear as their father beat up their mother, swearing to their little selves that they would treat their own woman like a queen when they had one, but then they only ended up turning into an even worse monster than their father.

His wolf called out to him, rebelled against his decision to flee. Wolves did not run, they stayed and fought, but what was he fighting for?

To flee was to fight his base nature, that nature that demand he serve his own selfishness at all cost. To flee was to protect Alecia, from his family – from himself.

He understood now why her family had been very much against the Werewolf domination, why they had warned her against becoming a protected – fvck it! That was a mere political word. Why her family had warned her against being a slave.

That was really what it was, humans being confused into believing they needed to sign themselves up as slaves for protection – protection from the same people they were offering themselves up as slaves to, because according to the accord, Werewolves did not get involved in ‘petty human struggle’ which meant that a protected, a slave could literally get murdered by another human being, and his or her Werewolf master or mistress would not even bat an eyelid.

How had he not seen how toxic, how vile the entire Werewolf domination plan was. Humans were better people than they were, at least, they were not so power hungry, so greedy.

He got off on a random street, and paid the driver with cash. His father had taught him well, he himself had needed to track Alecia once. He was going to get on seven different taxis going to random locations, before he even thought about where he wanted to go.

He had no where to go. All his friends were – not really friends. He did not consider them fake friends, because they had been there for him in his semi – trying moments, but – he was very sure they would not choose him over the Werewolf dynasty, except –

Taylor may want to help him, she had helped Alecia escape him and his father after all, -- Alecia had told him, the thing was, he just did not want to put her in trouble. He had had enough, enough of hurting the people who truly cared about him, enough of putting them in danger.

He had put Alecia in danger by mere noticing her, by pursuing her when she should have been left alone to follow her innocent small time dreams.

Ryder could just picture her teaching, taking charge in that efficient yet kind hearted way she had always done when he had given her the chance, when he had allowed the light that was her to shine.

Why the hell had he done it! Taking something so beautiful, so pure, and turned her into an empty shell. He felt a tear slip down his cheek as he got into the next taxi. That was a first, and he was grateful for it, the ability to cry.

He remembered the first time he had ssx with her – the first time he had made love to her. She had been so innocent, trusting, her huge beautiful eyes staring up at him in amazement at her own emotions, fear at the intensity of them, and yet trusting him, because she loved him.

He had tried to capture that exact picture, get it frozen into time, something that could never be taken away from him, sacrificed like the rest of his dreams, his life, so he had made her wear a white night gown every time he wanted to fuck her, but he should have known only too well, Alecia wasn’t an object to be stored away in some freezer, she was a person, precious, a human girl, innocent, vulnerable.

Ryder made a silent bow to give Alecia her life back, as he got down from the seventh taxi that day. He needed a haircut and contact lens. He was going to ground. Hopefully, in about a years time, if his plans worked well, Alecia and a other humans would be free from the menace of the ruling Werewolves, and only then could he try to win Alecia back, only then could he hope she would give him another chance.

For now, he hoped that the fact – he knew that the fact that she was pregnant with the future heir to the Hendrix dynasty was enough to keep her alive and safe. He loved her.

. THE END

Some stories don’t end in happily ever after. Ryder loves Alecia, and he has now chosen her over his family dynasty.