Ruin Me, Alpha-Chapter 52: The Red Dress

DEVON

Twenty-three days.

I cut into the steak on my plate, the silver knife slicing through the rare meat with a satisfying slide. Blood pooled on the porcelain, mixing with the peppercorn sauce.

Twenty-three days since Voltage dragged her out of my house. Twenty-three days of silence. Twenty-three days of watching the clock on the wall tick down toward my damnation.

I chewed slowly, savoring the metallic taste.

In less than twenty-four hours, the loop would seal. The window was closing. The witch had been clear about the parameters: make her love me, or get stuck in this hellish repetition for eternity. If the clock struck midnight tonight and Irene didn’t look at me with something other than murderous hatred, I was trapped.

I swallowed and took a sip of the bourbon I’d poured for breakfast. It burned going down.

I didn’t mind being trapped. I didn’t mind the hell. I just hated losing.

The heavy oak doors of the dining hall swung open, banging against the walls. I didn’t look up. I knew who it was by the frantic, heavy steps. Only one wolf in this pack dared to interrupt my breakfast without knocking.

"Devon."

Gamma Zane stopped at the edge of the long table, his chest heaving. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. His outfit was rumpled, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"Sit," I said, not lifting my eyes from my food. "You look terrible."

"We have a situation," Zane said, ignoring the chair. He gripped the back of it, his knuckles white. "It’s your father."

I took another bite of steak. "What about him? Did he finally choke on his own ego?"

"He’s dead, Devon."

My hand paused mid-air. I looked up. Zane was watching me closely, waiting for a reaction. Waiting for grief. Waiting for the shock of a son losing his patriarch.

I put the fork down. I picked up my napkin and dabbed the corner of my mouth.

"When?"

"Last night," Zane said, his voice dropping low. "Heart failure. The healers couldn’t do anything. He was gone before they even got to the room."

"Efficient," I muttered. "I suppose congratulations are in order. I’m officially the Alpha now, without the shadow of the old man looming over the council."

Zane blinked, clearly taken aback by my coldness. "Devon, he’s your father."

"He was a tyrant and a fool. The world is lighter without him." I reached for the bourbon bottle and poured another glass. "Did he leave a dying speech? He loved the sound of his own voice too much to go quietly."

Zane shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. "He did. His last words... they were for you."

"Enlighten me."

"He said you must marry Andrea," Zane said, reciting the words like a curse. "He said it was the only way to secure the Southern alliance. He made me promise to tell you. It was his final command as Alpha."

I laughed. It was a dry sound that bounced off the high ceilings.

"Of course it was," I said, swirling the amber liquid in my glass. "Even from the grave, he tries to leash me. Andrea. That vapid socialite with the personality of a wet napkin."

"It’s the Southern alliance, Devon. We need—"

"Burn the will," I interrupted, my voice sharpening. "Ignore the request. I’m not marrying Andrea. I’d sooner burn this pack to the ground than tie myself to a woman I don’t want."

"Devon, be reasonable—"

"I don’t care about the politics, Zane!" I slammed the glass down, the sound echoing like a gunshot. "I don’t care about the alliances or the legacy or my father’s corpse rotting in the morgue. There is only one thing that matters today. Where is she?"

Zane sighed, rubbing his temples. He knew better than to push me when I got like this. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and slid it across the polished mahogany table.

"It’s happening today," Zane said softly.

I stared at the paper. It was an invitation. Heavy cream stock, gold leaf lettering.

The Royal Wedding of King Voltage and Lady Irene Harvey.

Today. Noon.

I checked my watch. 8:00 AM. Four hours.

"She’s tying the knot," Zane said, his voice grim. "Voltage moved the date up. He’s paranoid. He knows you’re coming for her. He wants to seal the deal before you can make a move."

I picked up the invitation. The paper felt expensive. It felt like a tombstone.

"She won’t do it," I said, though the doubt was a razor in my gut.

"Devon, she’s with him. She hates you. You kidnapped her, you drugged her, you threatened her family. Why wouldn’t she marry the man offering her safety?"

"Because safety is boring," I snapped. "And Irene doesn’t want safety. She wants fire. She wants to burn."

I stood up, walking to the window. The grounds of the Silverclaw estate were covered in a fresh layer of snow. It looked peaceful. It was a lie. Underneath the white, the ground was frozen and hard. Just like this timeline.

"You don’t understand, Zane," I said, looking at my reflection in the glass. "You think this is just obsession. You think I’m chasing a skirt."

"Aren’t you?"

I turned around, leaning back against the window sill. "I’m chasing a ghost. A ghost I created."

Zane frowned. "I don’t follow."

"There was a woman," I started, the words spilling out of me. I hadn’t told anyone. But what did it matter? The loop was closing. "I loved her. I loved her so much it drove me insane. I let her kill me, Zane. Did you know that? I stood there and I let her slice my throat because I couldn’t bear to live in a world where she looked at me with that much pain."

Zane took a step back, his hand instinctively drifting toward his belt. "Devon, you’re not making sense. You’re alive."

"I’m alive because I’m being punished," I continued, my voice rising. I paced the length of the table. "I pulled her into the frozen world. I dragged her into the space between life and death because I couldn’t go to hell without her. I was selfish. I am selfish."

I stopped in front of him, my eyes wild. "She saved me. She sacrificed her own existence to bring me back, and the universe punished her for it. It threw her into a time loop. A prison of repetition. And I couldn’t let her be there alone."

"So... you’re saying..."

"I broke the rules!" I roared, slamming my fist on the table again. The silverware rattled. "I interrupted the cycle. I forced my way into her punishment. And now, I’m stuck in my own loop. This day? This twenty-three-day countdown? It’s my cell, Zane. And if I don’t make her love me by tonight, the door locks from the outside."

Zane stared at me. He looked terrified. He looked at me like I was a stranger wearing his Alpha’s skin.

"You’re talking about magic," Zane whispered. "Dark magic."

"I’m talking about love," I corrected, my voice reducing to a harsh whisper. "Obsessive, violent, consuming love. I had faith in it. I thought... I thought if I just showed her, if I just pushed hard enough, she would remember. She would remember the frozen world. She would remember that we are inevitable."

I laughed out a dark sound. "But I failed. Voltage has her. She’s putting on a white dress for him right now. She thinks I’m the villain. And maybe I am."

I walked back to my chair and downed the rest of the bourbon straight from the bottle.

"But you know what?" I wiped my mouth. "I don’t care. Even if the loop closes. Even if I’m stuck here repeating this failure for eternity... I’ll live in this hell happily. Because in this hell, I have the memory of her hatred. And her hatred is more real, more passionate, than anyone else’s love."

Zane stood there for a long moment. He clearly thought I had snapped. He thought the grief of my father’s death had broken my mind.

"Devon," he said carefully, like speaking to a frightened animal. "I don’t know who this woman is. I don’t understand half of what you just said. But... if you love her that much, maybe you shouldn’t force it. Maybe you should let it happen naturally."

"Naturally," I scoffed. "Nature wants us dead."

"Let her go, Devon. If she marries Voltage, let her. Maybe that’s the way out."

"Get out," I said.

"Devon—"

"Get. Out."

Zane held up his hands in surrender. He backed away toward the door. "I’ll handle the funeral arrangements for your father. Take the day, Alpha. Clear your head."

He turned and left, closing the doors softly behind him.

I was alone again.

The clock chimed the quarter hour.

I looked at the invitation on the table. King Voltage. The man was a pompous weakling. He didn’t know how to handle a woman like Irene. He would bore her to death before the honeymoon was over.

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

If this was the end of the line, if this was the last day before the loop sealed me in, I was going to go out swinging. I would crash that wedding. I would tear the church apart brick by brick. I would slaughter every guard Voltage had hired.

I would take her. Again.

I walked to the sideboard where I kept my weapons. I pulled out a sleek black handgun, checking the magazine. Silver bullets. Standard issue for a wedding crash. I holstered it at my hip. I grabbed my long black coat, throwing it over my shoulders.

I felt cold. Ruthless. The despair from earlier had hardened into a resolve.

I turned toward the double doors, ready to march out to the car, ready to start the war.

The handle of the dining room door turned.

I paused. Zane coming back to nag me? Or maybe my father’s guards coming to demand I marry Andrea?

I rested my hand on the butt of my gun. "I told you to leave me al—"

The doors jerked open.

The words died in my throat.

The air left the room. The air left my lungs.

It wasn’t Zane.

She stood in the doorway, framed by the dark wood like a painting of sin.

Irene.

She wasn’t wearing a white wedding dress. She wasn’t wearing the modest, elegant gown of a future Queen.

She was clad in a dress the color of fresh arterial blood. It was a mini-dress, scandalously short, tight enough to cut off circulation. It hugged her hips and her breasts, leaving nothing to the imagination and everything to the desire. Her red hair was pulled back into a severe, messy bun, exposing the long, elegant line of her neck.

She looked furious. She looked beautiful. She looked like the end of the world.

I stood frozen, my hand still hovering near my gun. My heart, which I thought had turned to stone, slammed against my ribs.

She stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind her with a booted heel. She marched toward me, her amber eyes blazing with a fire that could scorch the earth.

She stopped three feet away from me. I could smell her—vanilla, rain, and rage.

I lifted my gaze, meeting hers. I forced my face to remain impassive, forced the shock down into the pit of my stomach.

"Have you come to kill me?" I asked, my voice steady, betraying none of the chaos inside me.

She stared at me. She looked me up and down, her gaze lingering on my mouth, then my hands, then my eyes.

"No," she said, her voice rough and breathless.

She took a step closer, invading my space, tilting her head back to look me in the eye.

"I want you to fuck me."

I blinked. My hand dropped from my gun. For the first time in twenty-three days—for the first time in my entire existence, including the time loop that was mine and the one I invaded—I was completely, utterly taken aback.