The Shadow Alpha

Chapter 24: Surrender

Chapter 24: Surrender

Holly

I sit still for a moment as my brain works to process what I just heard. The air has been sucked from my lungs and I can't tell if I'm thrilled or terrified—maybe both? The cocktail of emotions swirls through me and I'm almost dizzy.

"I..." I hear myself start to speak but the words just disappear, and I sit up just a bit so I can look at River's face. Did I just imagine that he said that? Or did he really? I can't tell if I'm dreaming this whole thing up.

"You don't have to say anything, just..." River sits up now on his elbows, angling his body so he can hover over me. "Hear me out for a minute, please."

Okay, so that answers that: this is real.

Holy. Shit.

I've never heard his voice like this. Sounding so vulnerable, so raw, like he is at my mercy right now. I can hear his heart too beginning to hammer hard in his chest. He's so nervous—genuinely anxious about this.

"Okay." I respond simply, unsure if I can even form real sentences right now. River's eyes look over my face with such tenderness, his jaw set as he swallows hard before speaking.

"You know that I...I never really thought this was going to happen for me." He begins. "Generally, Alphas find their mates so early, so soon. When it didn't happen for me by the time I'd turned twenty-one, I just decided there was no hope. No chance of ever knowing one of the most incredible experiences our kind gets to have." He explains, his expression looking rather pained, sad, even.

"River..." I murmur, feeling his heartbreak as if it were mine. Feeling destined to be alone, to forever watch others get to have what you so desperately long for yourself...

"I'm sure you can understand why throwing myself into the role of Shadow Alpha came so naturally. It was all I had, all I cared about. My pack, my land, spreading our power and movement...It was everything, and I lost myself in it." He pauses, looking away, his eyes now looking far off as if he is re-living those years now. "I've done some truly horrible things, Holly. I've killed, tortured, captured. All in the name of the movement, but I think there were times when I did it simply because I could. Because I knew no one would stop me, no one could stop me."

I swallow back the lump in my throat, wondering just how many lives River took when he didn't need to. When he could have chosen to walk away. But for the sake of the Shadows' mission, the need to uphold their brutal reputation, and now it seems also just because River was so hurt, he didn't. He lashed out like a wounded animal and whoever was within range was considered collateral damage.

"I'm not proud of the person I was for those years." He admits, looking back to me now, his brown eyes truly dejected. "I did the pack proud, sure. Took more land than we had in decades, acquired more members than ever before...The movement was thriving, but the only thing driving it was my unrelenting desire to fill a void. The void left behind by the conclusion that I just wasn't destined to love, or be loved, by anyone else aside the family I was born into."

I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling tears prick the backs of my eyes, my heart truly not able to take hearing how alone River was. How alone he felt he would continue to be until the end of his days. I can't find the words I want to say to him, they're all still jumbled up and nonsensical in my head as I work to process all of this.

"But then you came along," River chuckles softly, shifting so he can brush some wet hair off my forehead, behind my ear. "Literally slamming right into me like a ton of bricks." He smiles, perhaps the most wholehearted smile I've ever seen from him. "I thought I was having some insane hallucination...It's only because every other person in the square was looking at you that I knew you had to be real." His hand caresses my cheek, his fingers warm and gentle against my cool skin.