The Alpha Faked Depression to Win My Love Chapter 07

The Alpha Faked Depression to Win My Love Chapter 07

LYRA 

She asked me to meet her at night on the grass 

beside the academy track. 

Mira wore a black dress. 

The moment she saw me, light entered her dull 

eyes. 

She recognized me at once. 

I recognized her too. 

I could not have mistaken the small mole between 

her brows. 

Mira had been the class representative in Rowan’s 

high school class. 

Once, she had asked me to give him a set of guitar 

tabs she had copied out by hand. 

The song was Last Summer. 

Rowan’s favorite. 

I remembered Mira because that had been the 

only gift to make his eyes light up that year. 

He had loved it. 

She sat beside me on the grass. 

Across the field, a circle of freshmen were singing 

together. 

A faint smile touched her mouth. 

“I used to sit here and watch Rowan sing.” 

“There were so many more people around him 

then. I had to look through the whole circle just to 

find one angle where I could see the side of his 

face.” 

Longing softened her features and her voice. 

For a moment, I could almost see Rowan sitting in 

the center of the field two years ago, playing guitar 

and singing one of his own love songs. 

But as the noise around us rose, Mira’s expression 

darkened. 

“I regret it so much, Lyra.” 

“I’ve loved Rowan for six years.” 

“I followed him all the way to Blackthorn Academy. But before he left, I never once confessed to him 

properly.” 

“Sometimes I think… if he had known there was 

one more person in the world who loved him, 

maybe he would have wanted to leave a little less.” 

Her voice broke as she told me the secret she had 

carried alone. 

I lifted a hand to comfort her. 

Then I realized how frighteningly thin she was. 

There seemed to be nothing beneath my palm but 

bone. 

Mira looked back toward the students. 

Something in her eyes turned cold. 

“Do you know Marcus Voss? The man on the 

academy board?” 

My heart jumped. 

I nodded. 

“He killed Rowan.” 

“I went to the commercial performance Rowan 

attended during the second semester of freshman. 

year.” 

“I wanted to stop him afterward and finally tell him. 

how I felt.” 

“But I saw him and the rest of his band get into 

Marcus’s car.” 

“Marcus told Rowan an entertainment company 

wanted to sign him. He said they were going to 

have dinner and discuss a contract.” 

“But after that…” 

Mira could not stop trembling. 

The night wind lifted the hem of her dress. 

She wrapped both arms around herself, but tears 

kept falling. 

“After Rowan died, I investigated Marcus in 

secret.” 

“I knew he had something to do with it.” 

“I learned that he often ate with other members of 

Blackthorn’s board at the Voss Hotel.” 

“So I got a job there.” 

“Two years, Lyra. I waited for two whole years.” 

“Then one night, he got drunk. I finally recorded the 

proof.” 

She searched through her bag for her phone. 

Her movements knocked a bottle of medicine 

onto the grass. 

My throat tightened the moment I saw the label. 

I knew exactly what it treated. 

Rowan had taken the same pills. 

So had Kieran, or so I had once believed. 

With one skeletal, shaking hand, Mira opened an 

audio file. 

She passed me one earbud. 

At first, all I heard was the noise of a crowded 

room. 

Several men were flattering one another. 

Then a deep male voice rose above them. 

“The one they sent me this time was boring.” 

“You’re too hard to please, Mr. Voss. That young 

celebrity looked good enough to me.” 

“Not even close. I’m not lying when I say the best 

one I’ve had in years was that singer from the 

school band.” 

“I’d wanted him since I saw him at the freshman 

welcome show.” 

“Later, I told him Starfall Entertainment wanted to 

sign the whole band. That was the only way he’d 

come to the dinner.” 

“I put wolfsbane extract in his drink to suppress 

his wolf before I got him into bed.” 

“But that soft skin was worth the trouble.” 

“Which singer?” 

“The one who killed himself later. What was his 

name?” 

“Rowan. That was it.” 

“His suicide scared me for a moment. I made the 

academy start those mental health lectures 

immediately.” 

“He really couldn’t take much. Otherwise, I might 

have brought him for all of you to share.” 

The voices in the background faded. 

Only a thin current of static remained in my ear. 

I did not return to myself until I tasted blood. 

I had bitten through the inside of my mouth. 

My chest rose and fell violently. 

There was no air in my lungs. 

No words in my throat. 

With shaking hands, I pulled a plastic bag from my 

purse and held it over my nose and mouth. 

On the day Rowan died, I had stopped breathing properly in the ambulance. 

The doctor said panic had driven too much carbon 

dioxide from my blood. 

He had taught me what to do in an emergency. 

I had remembered. 

Mira saw what was happening. 

She put away the phone and crouched beside me. 

As my mind slowly cleared, every shattered piece 

of Rowan’s final months came together. 

Sabrina had told him about the performance. 

When Rowan woke afterward, he must have 

believed his fated mate had conspired with her 

father to deliver an Omega into an Alpha’s bed. 

He never told anyone what had been done to him. 

He only used the cruelest words he knew to drive 

Sabrina away. 

Then he sank into depression alone. 

The violent change in his diary. 

The darkness in his paintings. 

His sudden hatred of Sabrina. 

His breakdown. 

His determination to die. 

Now they all had an answer. 

When she saw awareness return to my eyes, Mira 

threw her arms around my neck and sobbed. 

“But what can we do?” 

“Even with this recording, we can’t fight Marcus.” 

“He has money. He has power everywhere in Los 

Angeles.” 

“We have nothing.” 

Nothing. 

Rowan must have felt the same despair. 

What chance did an Omega without money or 

family have against an Alpha at the top of the 

world? 

Was swallowing the pain his only choice? 

One recording and one dead victim could never form a complete chain of evidence. 

Even if Marcus were convicted, would the 

punishment ever be enough? 

More likely, he would escape it. 

I looked toward the sky. 

Thick clouds moved slowly across the moon. 

Then I lowered my head and wiped away Mira’s 

tears. 

I smiled at her. 

“You’ve worked so hard all these years.” 

“On Rowan’s behalf, thank you.” 

“Thank you for loving him for so long.”