Chapter 71

Alex

I wanted to hate him. God, I wanted to. It would’ve been so much easier if Weston were still the monster from my nightmares—if he still looked at me like I meant nothing, if his hands still wrapped around my throat instead of holding me gently.

But he wasn’t. Not anymore. He knelt before me: the most powerful Alpha in the world, the King of Alphas, a man who commanded thousands with a single word. And he was looking at me like I was the only thing that mattered.

I hated that it still affected me. My heart remembered him when my mind only remembered the pain.

Because I didn’t see the man who hurt me. I saw the man who’d held me together when I felt like I was falling apart. The man who noticed I wasn’t eating and quietly started making me oatmeal every morning. The man who stayed awake through my nightmares, promising I’d never face the darkness alone. The man who treated me like something sacred.

But the wound was still there. Love didn’t er