The Alpha Faked Depression to Win My Love Chapter 02
LYRA
Kieran and I both went still.
His expression changed.
We turned at the same time.
A young woman in a lace nightgown walked toward us.
Kieran hurried forward to block her.
“Why did you come out? I’ll bring it inside. Be good and go back.”
She clearly had no intention of obeying.
She stepped around him and smiled at me.
Recognition flickered in her eyes.
So did contempt.
“Is this…”
Neither of us answered.
Her smile deepened.
She slipped her arm naturally through Kieran’s and tugged the pale pink neckline of her sheer nightgown a little lower.
Red marks covered her neck.
The thin fabric hid almost nothing.
She leaned against Kieran as if she had no bones.
The scents of two Alphas tangled in the doorway.
Kieran looked at me uneasily.
I turned my head and closed my eyes.
Sweat had glued my hair to my face. Pain beat against my temples.
Even I was not stupid enough to misunderstand what the scene suggested.
I had thought I was only the unlucky girl caught in a rich man’s game of pretending to be poor.
Apparently, I was also a little seasoning in a love story between two wealthy heirs.
Disgusting.
I bent to gather my delivery bag.
I wanted to leave.
The woman stopped me.
“Wait. Are you the slum girlfriend Kieran plays with off campus?”
“I didn’t recognize you in that delivery uniform. You’re Lyra from the art program, aren’t you?”
I froze and turned back.
It took me half a minute to place her.
Sabrina Voss.
The Alpha one year ahead of me at Blackthorn Academy.
Beautiful. Rich. Worshipped wherever she went.
We already had history.
Sabrina had used her family’s influence to take away my Omega scholarship and hand it to someone she liked.
That was why I had never flattered her the way everyone else did.
When she saw recognition on my face, her grip on Kieran tightened.
She gave a delighted little laugh.
“Kieran, do you remember last year when I casually mentioned an annoying girl in the art program who acted too good for everyone?”
“You asked me a few questions, and then you actually went after Lyra for me.”
“I have to admit, it was brilliant.”
Her eyes cut toward me.
“You made Blackthorn’s precious art prodigy run in circles like a dog.”
My hands slowly curled into fists.
The cold air from the mansion touched my skin.
I felt no relief.
To people like them, an ordinary person’s future, love, money, and sweat were weeds growing beside the road.
They did not merely ignore them.
They crushed them beneath their shoes and spat on what remained.
Sabrina kissed Kieran’s cheek like she was rewarding him for a game well played.
Then something strange and almost manic entered her expression.
“Lyra, did Kieran tell you he had depression?”
I frowned but did not deny it.
Sabrina bent over laughing.
The words that came out of her mouth turned my blood cold.
“I told him your brother killed himself because of depression.”
“I said that if Kieran claimed he had the same illness, you’d be stupid enough to fall for him.”
“And you did.”
For one second, the world stopped.
Only the cicadas remained.
Then something exploded inside my skull.
I bit down on my lip, tore off my delivery helmet, and swung it at Kieran’s face.
If I swallowed this too, I might as well open a dumpling shop tomorrow.
At least then all that swallowing would pay.
“Depression, huh?”
I hit him again.
“Poor, huh?”
Again.
“You like digging into people’s wounds?”
My chest heaved.
“No wonder your parents never loved you, you bastard. No wonder your father beat your mother in front of you. Why didn’t he beat you to death too?”
“I’ll do it for him today!”
During the year Kieran and I spent together, some of his confessions had been real even if everything else was an act.
I knew the wound he could never release.
His parents’ indifference.
The childhood in which no one had loved him.
Now I used that wound as a weapon.
I struck him again and again before either of them could react.
Rage stole my breath.
Months without sleep made the world tilt beneath my feet.
The moment Sabrina mentioned Rowan, the little control I had left shattered.
My brother was the one wound no one was allowed to touch.
Kieran never fought back.
By the time Sabrina dragged me away, blood covered the hand pressed to his mouth.
“Kieran, are you all right? I’m calling the police!”
Her voice broke with outrage.
“This crazy bitch attacked you! I’ll have my father ”
Kieran caught her wrist.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Don’t.”
“I owed her that.”
He smoothed back the hair I had knocked loose and walked toward me.
Then he pulled a gold bank card from his pocket.
“The PIN is your birthday. I know I can’t undo this, but…”
He stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him and laughed.
There was nothing left in me but cold hatred.
“Go to hell.”
I tore the card from his fingers and walked away.