Ruthless Alpha, and his Curvy Saint-Chapter 77

Angel’s POV

"So you’ve been spying on me," I said.

"I’ve been protecting you." He said it without defensiveness - straightforward, like he genuinely couldn’t see the problem with the distinction. "There’s a difference, Angel."

"Is there."

"Yes." He took one step further into the room, and Lyra moved forward in response, but he paid her no particular attention. His focus stayed on me. "Spying is gathering information for leverage. What I did was put eyes on a woman who had been dropped into a situation she didn’t understand and surrounded by people who weren’t being honest with her." Something moved through his expression. "I was trying to make sure that if something went wrong - if anyone tried to harm you - I would know."

"You could have just told me the truth," I said, and I heard the edge in my own voice and didn’t smooth it. "You had plenty of opportunities. You were in my room this very morning, Merrick. You sat in that chair and we talked - you kissed me - and the entire time you knew. You knew who Uriel really was. You knew everything."

He didn’t flinch from that. I’ll give him that much.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I did."

"Then why didn’t you..."

"Because Terrell threatened me."

He had lowered himself - I hadn’t noticed when, exactly - so that he was crouched beside me rather than standing over me, one knee on the old straw-scattered floor, his silver eyes level with mine. It changed something about the dynamic. Made him look less like someone delivering information and more like someone offering something.

"The moment you arrived at my castle," he said, "I knew the situation was wrong. I knew you didn’t understand what you’d walked into. And I wanted to tell you..." He stopped. Gathered himself. "But Terrell came to me privately and told me in terms that were not at all subtle that if I interfered with his Luna, if I exposed what he had and hadn’t told you before he was ready to tell you himself..." Another pause. "He’s my brother, Angel. And he’s also the Alpha. Those are two different categories of do not cross this line."

I looked at him.

He held the look steadily.

"I kept quiet," he continued, "because I didn’t want to make things worse for you by escalating a confrontation between Terrell and me that you’d inevitably get caught in the middle of." He exhaled. "I’m not proud of it. I should have found a way sooner. But I’m here now. And I want to make it right."

"Make it right," Lyra said from behind him, "And how do you intend to do that, exactly? What does making it right look like to you?"

Merrick looked at me rather than her when he answered.

"Terrell’s guards are closing in," he said. "They’ve been searching in widening rings since she was found missing - they’ll have covered the village proper by now and they’re moving outward. This shelter is an obvious candidate. A disused structure near the eastern wall, outside the village boundary - any experienced tracker would flag it soon enough." His voice was calm and unhurried, which somehow made it worse. "You need to leave before they arrive. And you need to go somewhere Terrell won’t look." He met my eyes. "Come with me. I know a place - outside his territory, beyond his reach. Somewhere you can be safe while you decide what you want to do next."

Silence.

Lyra made a sound that was not quite a laugh. "You want us to follow you. The brother of the man who has been lying to her since the moment they met, who just admitted he has been having her watched, who also lied to her by omission for weeks..."

"Lyra..."

"No." She stepped forward, putting herself squarely between Merrick and me, and pointed at him with rather impressive directness. "You are his twin. You grew up together. You share blood. Why in the name of anything holy would we trust you over him?"

It was a fair question.

It was, honestly, the right question.

I looked past Lyra’s shoulder at Merrick’s face and I asked my own, quieter version of it.

"She’s right," I said. "You’ve been lying to me too, Merrick. Not the same lie - but a lie of silence is still a lie." I felt the truth of it settle as I said it. "You knew who he was. You knew what he’d done to my family. You sat across from me and smiled and - and kissed me and the entire time you knew that I thought Uriel was one person when he was another. How is following you into the unknown better than what I’m already in?"

He didn’t try to argue.

That surprised me.

"It’s not a perfect answer," he said simply. "I can’t give you one. All I can tell you is that I have never wanted to see you hurt - not once. And right now, staying in this shed is the most dangerous thing you can do." His eyes didn’t leave mine. "You don’t have to trust me completely. You just have to trust me enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Enough to run."

I opened my mouth...

"Quiet."

Merrick’s voice dropped to nothing. Not a word, barely a breath - just one quiet syllable.

We all went still.

The silence in the shelter became deafening.

Merrick had turned his head slightly - that particular angled attention of someone using a sense that wasn’t sight. His jaw was set.

Beside me, Lyra had gone the specific motionless that meant she’d heard something too. Her face had changed entirely - the argumentative energy gone, replaced by something focused and afraid.

"Lyra," I whispered.

"I can hear them," she said.

And she said it in a voice that made my own blood go cold.

Boots on ground. More than one pair. Moving with purpose.

My heart launched itself against my ribs.

I cannot go back. I cannot go back. I cannot get caught and be taken back to that room and that man and that impossible...

"Angel." Merrick was on his feet in a single motion, hand extended to me. "Trust me."

I looked at his hand.

I thought of my family’s tragic death.

I thought of a thousand years of a man waiting and the terrible weight of being the thing he’d been waiting for.

I thought of the miserable life I’d live if I get caught.

I took Merrick’s hand.

His fingers closed around mine, and he moved, pulling me toward the broken doorframe at a pace that made me stumble before my legs remembered how to keep up.

"Now," he said, and we went through the door and into the pale grey afternoon light at a dead run.

Behind me, without a moment’s hesitation, I heard Lyra’s feet hit the ground running.

The clearing flashed past. The treeline rushed up to meet us. Branches closed around us like a door swinging shut.

And behind us - close enough that I didn’t need a wolf’s senses to register it - the sound of men moving through undergrowth, converging on a stone shelter that would be empty by seconds.

Merrick’s hand tightened on mine.

"Don’t look back," he said.