Alpha’s Hybrid Cinderella
Chapter 71

Evan left Claudia's side exactly twice.

The first was when he presented himself at the trial to decide the traitors' fates. Matthen Joseph and the Glily family faced the judgment of the pack three days after the end of the Scarlet pack siege, and the judgment came swift and harsh. Matthen Joseph was sentenced to death, although that was probably preferable to the lifelong agony he would have had to suffer otherwise thanks to the gruesome injuries he suffered at Evan's hands in the fight. They had been so severe his werewolf healing had failed to regenerate them properly. When he stared blankly around the Quad where the entire rest of the Scarlet pack had gathered, glaring at him as they would any enemy, he quietly accepted his execution.

Evan was not the one who rendered it. He had spilled enough blood, and Claudia had wanted him to leave things up to the natural majority, not take lives at a whim. It was a little thing. He could do that for her. Instead, the Scarlet pack handled the affair. As for Flicka, she was young... Her father and mother were also idiotic accomplices conned by the smooth-talking Matthen Joseph, not exactly maliciously evil like him. But they were still disgraces and they had made their bed; now they had to lie in it. They along with Flicka escaped execution, but they lost all of their wealth, all of their power, and were sent out of the territory as rogues. For as long as they lived, no pack would ever accept them, not with the shame they carried on their shoulders. It was more than Evan would have ever allowed them had he been the same man he was before. But he wasn't. And all he wanted was for Claudia to come back.

The second time he left Claudia's side was to visit Peelle's grave.

"I don't know what to do," he said. "Why did she do that? She knew I wouldn't want this for her. She knew I would give anything to keep her safe. I would die for her, I don't care, as long as she's safe... Why did she do that? Why did she..."

Peelle never answered. Of course he couldn't. Evan buried his face in his hands as he slumped on the grass, forearms lying heavy atop his knees. Claudia... Who else would understand how much she meant to him? Why did Peelle have to die? Why did he have to leave Evan alone to bear this weight, unable to make anyone else understand?

Claudia... He couldn't lose her, too. He would break into a thousand pieces, and the wind would scatter him like dust. He couldn't live without her touch, without her smile, without her fingertips tracing his face so gently.

Why had she done that? Why had she given her life for his, going to the very edge of death just to save him?

How had she been able to do that in the first place?

It wasn't fair. This should never have happened. Evan stumbled away blind.

***

Ornby sighed and wiped his glasses before setting them upon his face. "Alpha Evan, I'm sure you've seen the report already, but I wanted to make sure you understood Cleudie!

***

Even.

He stirred.

Little one. Alphe who hed to grow up too quickly. Little one, weke up.

Evan waved at him and continued to stare at Claudia in her hospital bed. Ornby sighed again and resumed speaking.

"The healing power she seems to have does have consequences. The tests we've finished running all confirm it. Six months of extensive study and... we don't have a good answer. What looks like healing ability is really the ability to transfer her living energy to others. Plants take far less of it. But a full grown adult such as yourself, especially a powerful Alpha whose constitution demands more power to fuel it... Claudia strained herself greatly. Still, have hope. She's still with us. Maybe in sleep, but she's still alive. Don't give up yet, Alpha Evan... She wouldn't want you to."

Evan said nothing. Only stared.

"It seems it's a matrilineal trait. When she awakes, perhaps she will want to investigate who her mother was, really. It seems that our Claudia, instead of having human and werewolf blood as we thought, is actually something close but not quite. Werewolf and elf, if we use the old terminology. A subspecies thought to be wiped out a few centuries ago, but it appears they still linger. Wouldn't Claudia be excited by that? I'd imagine so. She would be eager to replace out more."

Evan remained silent. He never acknowledged Ornby's comfort or small talk, not once.

Ornby left.

***

"Wake up, Claudia," he begged, voice soft. He stroked her forehead and brushed her hair back. A gentle kiss traced along her brow. "Come back to me, Claudia."

He placed his head on her shoulder. How long had it been? How much longer could he stand this? "Come back to me."

***

A flutter met his fingertips. Evan's eyes shot open, and he sat up straight like a lightning strike had passed through him. He grabbed Claudia's hand that he had been resting his head upon, and he tested the pulse with new desperation. Had he imagined it? A reaction? The quickening of blood, the hastening of the pulse, life flowing in her veins, real life, not the stagnant half-death she had entered and never left? Evan's eyes widened.

There! There!

He almost collapsed. Alpha Evan, conqueror, warlord, the werewolf who had pulled together the entire city and brought the Scarlet pack back under his control, the mighty leader no one had ever seen panic, ever - nearly lost his mind. "Claudia! Claudia! Open your eyes, I'm here! I'm here, come back to me!"

She didn't answer. She remained motionless on the bed.

But he had felt it. He knew.

She had been there for a split second, peeking into this world from her dark sleep.

Claudia!

***

Evan.

He stirred.

Little one. Alpha who had to grow up too quickly. Little one, wake up.

Evan awoke to replace himself in a strange void. There was light, and yet there wasn't. The world was an abyssal thing all around him, but under the surface teemed countless energies so powerful Evan suspected he couldn't feel them simply because they were too overwhelming, like becoming numb in a blizzard.

What was this?

Was he dreaming?

Little one. You have changed much since I last saw you.

Wait. He knew this voice.

"You're the Moon Goddess," he said, and his voice echoed a hundred times into the gloom. "What's happening? Am I dying?"

Far from it. The life you live is too precious to take from you. You understand where it came from, don't you?

The woman he saw before him hadn't been there a second ago, and yet she always had been. His eyes had simply been opened so he could see her. And there she floated in all her glory, woman and goddess and spirit and thing, all at once. Evan stared. This was the Moon Goddess. He had met her once before, so long ago he couldn't even remember when...

No, he remembered. It was when she had cursed him, condemning him for his violence and wickedness. That story he had told Claudia long ago had come back to haunt him. He had even stopped believing it had truly happened, a little.

But here the Moon Goddess stood, once again.

This time, with a different softness in her eyes.

You changed much, little one. You have earned redemption. You should thank your mate, little one, for the strength she gave you to change your fate.

"My mate?"

Did you ever really think she wasn't your fated one? Evan?

He breathed out every shard of pain that had buried itself inside him. They left him like leaves on the wind.

"I knew it. Claudia... She's my mate, isn't she? She really is."

Always. And now she has saved you three times. The first when you were a child, the second when you found her and allowed her to change you. And then again, when she brought you back to life at the cost of her own.

"You can bring her back to me. Don't let her do it. I'll give anything to let her live. Moon Goddess-"

I need nothing. What you are willing to sacrifice proves you are a good man now, and that you have chosen love over blood and glory, but what she has done exceeds even that. She has earned her own life, little one. Fear not. You know better than anyone she has much to do in this world still, don't you?

Evan almost wept. His chest was shattering, tearing open. His heart had already burst and melted like the sun, turning to magma in his body and setting him alight like a great blaze in the sky.

"I knew it," he said again. "She's my mate. She was always my mate."

And she always will be. Go to her now. She comes to you at last.