Amira is forcefully woken up from her deep sleep by a searing hot pain in her neck as someone presses down into her wound through the bandage. Her eyes flash open and she cries out, trying to sit up with her wrists tied to the bed, keeping her from sitting up completely.
"You're finally awake."
She stiffens at the familiar-sounding voice, afraid to turn around and confirm his face, but Evander does her the honour and walks around with the same stupid grin he always has, except this time it looks a little more maniacal than before.
"What in the hell are you doing? Where am I?"
He scoffs. "Can you really say you're that surprised to find out this much about me? It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you've been uncomfortable with me from the start, it's called intuition, and you clearly have a good one but ignore it. If you hadn't, you might have saved yourself a lot of trouble in life."
"What do you know about me? Yeah, I got a bad feeling about you from the start, but it didn't mean I once thought you were a murderer." She tries to glare viciously at him, but his snort of laughter tells her it isn't coming off that way.
"Would you say the same about your beloved mate?" he asks.
"Of course not, I'm well aware he has killed before. He doesn't have to tell me that, just looking at him I already know."
Evander narrows his eyes. "Is that supposed to be some sort of insult to my appearance?"
"No, it's an insult to you as a man, I can hardly even look at you as one. I suppose you're doing all of this because you're jealous of Calix and want petty revenge on him, but you're unable to face him one-on-one, so you resort to using his biggest weakness."
His temper looks like it just flares.
She chuckles. "Am I right?"
Evander grabs her by the throat, causing her to cry out when his fingers press into her neck wound and she feels the flesh starting to tear again.
"Keep in mind, I'm the only one keeping you alive right now," he growls before letting go. "Look around you, Amira. I might have kidnapped you, but I brought along all the life-saving machines you need right now, and –," he pauses and pulls up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal small needle marks. "I am the only one who can provide you that rare blood you need so much."
"What the hell? You're the anonymous donor?"
He nods. "It's quite the story, how you and I have come to share the same blood. But you're pretty smart, I'm sure you can figure it out. You're right, I am going to use you as a part of my revenge scheme for Calix, but that is a whole other revenge plan besides the one I have for you and your family."
"What in the world could we have possibly done to you? I've never met you before in my life!"
He starts laughing maniacally. "Oh no, we haven't met before now, but I know your mother rather well."
Amira's heart drops. "Do…do we share the same mother?"
"Close, but not quite. We share the same father, my father was a pureblood werewolf and an Alpha at that, though he never got to succeed after my grandfather. Since we have a lot of time and the narcotic in your IV bag should be kicking in soon, I'll tell you a bedtime story."
"What? You're knocking me out again?" she cries.
"Quiet now, this story will benefit you greatly, I promise."
She rolls her eyes. "Like I haven't been told that lie before."
"Would you not like to know who your birth father was?"
As much as she doesn't want to play his mind game at the moment, her curiosity about their shared blood gets the best of her and she nods slowly.
"Well, once upon a time there was a family called the Barlowe family, and they are the true Alpha rulers of the Highmoon Pack. That is until a pompous and overly confident wolf came to challenge him for the position of Alpha and resorted to fighting dirty to get the victory. He killed my grandfather in cold blood and left my family to perish rather than showing us mercy as innocent bystanders and allowing us to live comfortably. We were piranhas everywhere we went in the pack; no one wanted to sell or deal with us."
He pauses as if picturing that time perfectly in his mind and travelling back to that moment.
"I fail to see where my family and I come into this," Amira says.
Evander snaps out of his trance. "Your mother comes into play when the new Alpha Volkov made a proposition to my father for a large sum of money. He was to make a deal with a local business and if he was able to land the deal, then he would keep the commission that came with it. Your mother was the businesswoman he dealt with, and he fell head over heels for her despite having his mate, my mother, for over 10 years. He of course had an affair with her and used the excuse of business dealings to have his hook-ups, but my mother soon found out and my father insisted on leaving her for your mother, but Alpha Volkov forbid him from ever seeing her again, and that drove my father mad."
"What happened to him after that?" The question flies out of her mouth before her mind comprehends it.
He chuckles. "What do you think happened? He completely lost it, and I think it was because he already had an idea that your mother was pregnant with you, and he had no choice but to just leave her. The project deal was cancelled, and he was forbidden from ever leaving pack territory again, our lives and the threat of being marked as traitors were held above him. He was an empty shell of a man, which meant he gave up on his duty to take back the honour of our family, he became a coward!"
Evander kicks his chair across the room and huffs around in circles for a few seconds before calming down.
"Why is it my family's fault that this happened? And what duty are you speaking of?" She rolls her eyes and groans. "You are all over the place with your story, it's actually keeping me awake." She says this, but her eyes are beginning to feel heavy.
"My father was supposed to challenge Alpha Volkov in the name of my grandfather and take back what was stolen from us, but just as he was at the peak of his training and planning, Alpha Volkov happened to send him on this business journey to meet this woman, and our lives are falling to shambles yet again. My mother suffered greatly from watching my father, her mate, chase and love another woman when she had devoted her life so far to him, giving him the son he claimed he always wanted, but in the end, he craved the have the woman and child he could never be with," he scoffs, looking at her as if she is covered in filth.
"A daughter, nonetheless. He wanted to live a life with you both so bad, that he was willing to throw away everything he worked years to get, and what my mother made many sacrifices for to give him. She ended up dying from a literal broken heart, her body breaking down once she no longer had the will to live. My father ignored the banishment threats and left to find you and your mother, but he was never heard from again. That left me no choice but to fend for myself, with both parents gone, I was the last member of the Barlowe family to be labelled a traitor and banished from the pack." He stops and throws his hands up, the manic grin back on his face.
"But what are the chances, the two people I have come to hate the most in this forsaken world have been connected by fate. The gods couldn't be shining their grace on me more than they are in this time, to have given me such a beautiful gift. The phrase 'killing two birds with one stone' really comes in handy."
Her eyelids begin to droop, no longer having the strength to keep them open against whatever drug he is pumping into her IV.
"Since it looks like the drug is finally starting to take effect and chances are you won't remember much when you wake up, I'll tell you my plans for you," he says and leans down close to her ear. "I'm going to fight dirty against your boyfriend, using you to take the final blow. See you in the morning."