Previously On: Alphas
Digitalis purpurea, better known as foxglove, was a popular garden ornamental. It was a stately and striking perennial plant, known for its tall spikes of tubular, bell-shaped flowers. Each flower was composed of several layers of delicate, tissue-paper-like petals that ranged from pure white to deep purple, with many shades of pink, lavender, and spotted or speckled variations in between. Their deceptive beauty belied an unpopular truth about the plant. Consuming any part of the plant could result in vomiting or diarrhoea. Sucking on the flowers could cause a heart attack. And when mixed with titanium dioxide, from say, a tub of lipstick, it causes death in seconds. All you would need was a cunning delivery method.
Candy acted quickly, hauling his lifeless body onto the bed and flinging the sheets over him so it looked like he was just sleeping. Then, she began searching his drawers for a weapon. It would take at least five minutes for Thorn’s men to arrive. Until then, she was stuck in the lion’s den and defenceless. Well, not completely defenceless. She glanced at the plain silver ring Cain had given her.
She found a gun but no bullets – not that it mattered, she had terrible aim. After rummaging through his clothes, she found a small dagger. It would have to do.
She placed a chair under the handle of the door and sat on the bed, waiting. She’d scarcely begun to kick off her shoes when there was a loud knock at the door.
“Alpha Finn?”
She recognised Elder Roth’s voice. He may have been in his dotage, but Candy didn’t think she could win in a fight against him. There was only one other thing she could think of to keep him from wanting to walk in.
“Don’t stop baby,” she moaned loudly. “Ah, that’s right. You feel so good, baby.”
“Faster,” she cried out, face burning in mortification at the fake desperation in her voice. “I’m going to cooooome.”
She kept up the charade even after she heard his receding footsteps, stopping only when she was certain he was out of earshot. She glanced at Finn. He looked like he was asleep. Except this wasn’t the kind of sleep he would wake up from. She should have been more bothered by the fact that she was sharing a bed with a corpse, but Candy felt rather blase about the entire ordeal.
She was still sitting on the bed when she heard the explosions right outside the window. She didn’t react to the commotion, folding her hands in her lap with the dagger next to her while she waited. After several minutes of yelling and gunshots, someone kicked the door open.
Candy stood, holding the dagger in front of her as a shadowy figure emerged from the smoke.
“Thorn,” she cried out, letting the dagger fall out of her hand as she threw herself at him. Only then, did her tears begin to fall.
~
Two weeks later
Thorn
“You need to get dressed if we’re going to make it in time for the funeral.”
Thorn’s words snapped Candy out of her spell. She’d cried throughout the drive to the Alpha Tower but after settling in her room, she had turned into a zombie. For the past several days, she had laid in bed, staring blankly into space, even rejecting all of Thorn’s romantic advances. He didn’t want to push her, but he knew how much she would regret it if she didn’t attend Finn’s memorial service.
Thorn couldn’t deny the love between his mate and her ex. Even though at last, she had found the strength to do what was necessary, it was clear she was struggling to accept what she had done. Finn hadn’t given her an option though; he had wanted both her brother’s and her mate’s lives.
Her eyes were soulless when she turned to look at him. Without a word, she threw off the sheets and walked into her closet. Thorn paced the room while waiting. After ten minutes of wearing out her carpets, he heard the door open, and she came out. She had donned a tight black pencil skirt with a matching baggy blouse tucked into its waist. Her wavy hair was unconfined against her shoulders. She hadn’t bothered with jewellery or make-up and the dark circles around her eyes made her look raccoonish.
Despite his best efforts, he had only managed to force her to eat a few bites in the past two weeks and already she had shed a lot of weight, looking sickly as she slipped on her black pumps.
He stood in front of her, blocking her path. “You need to eat.”
“I drank soup yesterday,” she said flatly.
“Only a few spoons,” he argued. Holding her hand, his eyes softened, and his voice turned pleading. “You need to eat, Candy. If not for yourself, think about our boys.” His hands went to her belly, cradling her tiny baby bump. It would be a while before anyone noticed that she was with child.
Tears filled her eyes at his words. She wiped them away and side-stepped him without saying anything. The elevator ride to the ground floor was undertaken in terse silence, Thorn trying to figure out a way to draw Candy from her stupor. Two weeks should have been enough time for her to come back to her senses, but she seemed stuck. It was her first kill – he understood what that was like. It had taken months for the nightmares to stop after he murdered his father. But he had had Lady Trudy. And Candy had him.
He wouldn’t give up on her.
Candy
Finn’s memorial service was held at the beach in the backyard of the Alpha Tower. Like Candy, it had been his favourite place when they were children. Many summers were spent building sandcastles and splashing in the blue water, making sand angels and racing against each other.
As much as she hated to acknowledge that winter was fast approaching, all it took was a glance at the bare trees and gunmetal-grey skies to see that the darkest season had arrived. The beach was windswept, the sand dusted with a light layer of snow. At the water’s edge, where the waves gently lapped against the shore, a large, driftwood sculpture stood as the focal point. It was crafted from the gnarled remains of a fallen tree and draped with strands of delicate, icy-blue crystals, catching the faint winter sunlight. Interspersed among the crystals were clusters of dried, silvery-grey seaweed.
As the service began, the attendees found their seats on simple wooden benches, their coats and scarves providing a muted colour palette that blended seamlessly with the natural setting. The sound of the waves, punctuated by the occasional cry of a gull, created a haunting, melancholic soundtrack that underscored the solemnity of the occasion.
She barely heard two words of the sermon, her gaze resting entirely on the sculpture. Suddenly she heard clapping around her and someone slipped a paper into her hands while another person prodded her towards the stage. It was time for her tribute. As Candy stepped up to the podium, her hands trembling slightly, she gazed out at the sombre faces gathered for the funeral. She recognised most of them, except the military men in the back rows.
Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she began to speak, her voice wavering with emotion at first. “We may have gone our separate ways, but Finn Brown will always hold a special place in my life. He was...he was such a kind, generous soul, always putting the needs of others before his own.”
Candy paused, blinking back tears. “There were ups and downs, of course, but through it all, he never lost that spark - that infectious enthusiasm that drew people to him. His smile could light up a room, and his laugh...oh, his laugh. It was a sound that could instantly lift your spirits, no matter how dark the day might be.”
She clutched the edges of the podium, taking another steadying breath. “I know we had our differences, and that’s why we ultimately went our separate ways. But I never stopped caring about him, and I will forever be grateful for the time we shared.”
Glancing down at the written tribute in her hands, Candy’s expression softened. “He made some mistakes, just like we all have. But I choose to remember Finn as a hero – a man who did his best with the shitty card life dealt him. He deserved better. I’m sorry, Finn.” With that, she stepped away from the podium and walked towards the sculpture.
“May your spirit live forever,” she whispered, pushing it into the occasion.
The crowd burst into a thunderous applause, parting as she walked away. With each step she took, she felt her grief being shed like layers of clothing until she felt light enough to be carried away by a gale. Her eyes searched for her mate, relief filling them as she met his charcoal grey ones. Candy drank in her mate’s form. Thorn looked impossibly handsome in black. His blond hair was slightly unruly, and his face was all shadows and angles in the wintery sunlight, almost giving him the appearance of a beautiful angel. A beautiful fallen angel. They gravitated towards each other until there was hardly any space between them.
He opened his hands, and she stepped into his embrace. It wasn’t the normal way people hugged. It was some next-level ridiculously intense hold she had only ever received from her mate. He met her gaze, and she felt like she’d been slapped in the face with feelings – love, admiration, longing. When he kissed her, it was in reverence, slow and painfully sweet. They clung to each other, oblivious to the snow falling around them.
