Captive of The Beast Alpha: Drugging the CEO Was a Mistake.-Chapter 30: Naya: The aftermath

The chair I’d wedged under the handle last night, the one that was supposed to keep Hansel out and keep me safe, lay in two perfect pieces on the floor near the entrance.

The wood had been cut so cleanly that it looked like someone had used a saw to divide it exactly in half.

"How did that happen?" I asked, staring at the broken chair with confusion and a little bit of fear.

Hansel didn’t answer.

He just kept watching me with his dark, unreadable eyes that somehow seemed different now after my dream. Now that I’d seen another version of him looking at me with such love and devotion.

Instead of explaining about the chair, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and held it out to me.

I eyed him warily, pressing myself a little harder against the headboard. "I don’t need it."

"You need to clean your tears before they dry on your face," he said quietly, his voice still carrying an unexpected gentleness.

My hand flew to my cheeks automatically, and I let out a small exclamation of shock when I felt wetness there. I’d been crying.

In the dream, I’d been crying too as the villagers tore me away from Hazem. What the fuck was this?

Was that how parallel the dream world was to the physical world?

I used my hands to wipe roughly at my face, refusing to take the handkerchief even though part of me wanted to. "I’ll just wash my face instead. It’s fine."

Hansel nodded slowly and tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. He stood there for another moment, and I could see him struggling with something. It was as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t figure out how to phrase it.

"You didn’t change out of your dress?" he finally asked, his gaze sweeping up and down my body.

I lowered my eyes in shame. "My clothes are still wet and soggy from being in the rain. There was nothing to sleep in."

He didn’t say anything in response, causing me to sneak a look. When I looked up, I saw him watching me with a strange expression. As our gaze met, he looked away, clearing his throat.

Ok! What was this awkwardness?

It has never been this awkward between us. Why was it happening now?

Or did he know about my dream? He did mention that I was screaming. Did I scream out his name again or kiss him without his knowledge again?

Finally, he broke the silence with a question that seemed to come out of nowhere. "Have you seen the news today?"

I blinked at him, thrown by the sudden change in topic. "What? No. I just woke up. Why?"

His expression darkened, something troubled crossing his face before he locked it down behind his mask of cool indifference he wore so well. "You should probably see it. Get cleaned up and come to the living room when you’re ready. There’s a lot to deal with now."

Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the broken chair behind him like a silent testament to whatever strength had allowed him to snap thick wood in half without even breaking a sweat.

I sat there on the bed for a moment after he left, my heart still racing and my body still humming with leftover arousal from the dream.

My mind kept replaying the roses, his hands in my hair, the way he’d looked at me like I was his entire world. And then the fear and anger in the villagers’ faces, the feeling of being torn away from him, the absolute certainty that I would die before I let them hurt him.

My mate, I’d called him. He’s mine.

What did that even mean? Why would I call him my mate like we were animals? Only animals could use primitive terms like that right? And when I’d called him that, I’d meant it with every fibre of my being, with a possessiveness that went beyond logic.

Plus, the villagers had something about asking Hazem to leave the ’Pack’. That was even more confusing. I looked around the room, searching for my purse that had my phone. I could ask the internet.

I saw the purse on the bedside stand and immediately opened it, taking out my phone. I tried to turn it on and noticed the battery was down, and my charger was not with me. It was in the duffel bag that I’d dropped in the laundry room last night.

Anyways, I’ll take care of that later, but for now, I need to understand why that dream felt too real to be just my imagination. Those clothes and that time period, I knew nothing about. That name—Hazem—that had felt so right coming from my lips.

And why did Hansel’s face fit so perfectly into that dream, like he’d always been meant to be there?

I shook my head, trying to clear away the lingering images, and forced myself to get up. My legs were shaky, and the wetness between my thighs was uncomfortable, reminding me with every movement of exactly what kind of dream I’d been having before the ending turned violent.

I needed a shower.

I need to wash away the sweat and the confusion and the strange sense of loss that had now settled over me.

But first, I needed to see whatever news Hansel was talking about.

Something in his expression told me it wasn’t good.

And after everything that had happened in the past week, I was starting to expect that nothing would ever be good again.

***

A while later, when I walked into the living room, wearing the oversized shirt and jogger pants I’d seen in the wardrobe of the guest bedroom, I stopped short at the sight of so many people crowded into the space. I’d expected to see only Hansel, not what looked like an entire crisis management team.

Andrew was there—the legal representative who’d helped me at the police precinct early this morning.

He stood near the windows with a coffee cup in his hand.

Mina sat on one of the chairs, bent over an iPad, her brows drawn together in concentration, but the moment I entered the room, her head snapped up, and she glared at me. I knew she didn’t like me, but seeing her not trying to hide that face bothered me so much.

Whatever I’d done to earn her animosity, it was getting worse instead of better.

There was also a middle-aged woman I’d never seen before wearing a pair of reading glasses that kept sliding down her nose as she stared at a laptop screen. Next to her stood a young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, both of them so focused on whatever they were looking at that they didn’t even acknowledge my entrance.

Hansel was lying on the settee with an ice pack pressed against his forehead. Even from across the room, I could see how pale he was.

He didn’t have the normal pallor of someone who was tired or hadn’t slept well. This was something worse. Something that made his skin look almost grey, like all the life had been drained out of him.

I’d noticed it earlier when he’d come into my room after my nightmare, but I’d been too disoriented to really register what I was seeing. Now, with him lying there looking like he was one breath away from death, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

He must have sensed me in the room because his eyes suddenly opened, and when he saw me standing in the hallway, he shifted into a sitting position. He dropped the ice pack into a bowl on the coffee table with a soft splash.

Then, slowly, as if it hurt, he pushed himself into a sitting position.

"Hansel, are you alright?" The words came out before I could stop them, and I found myself moving forward automatically, crossing the room toward him with my hand already reaching out.

Then I caught myself.

I stopped mid-step and pulled my hand back, suddenly aware of all the eyes on me. What was I doing? Why was I rushing to his side like I was supposed to be concerned about him?

I took a step back, and Hansel nodded slowly. "I have a headache. But I’ll survive."

His voice sounded strained, and I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t argue further.

"Naya, this is Margaret, my PR head," Hansel said, gesturing weakly toward the middle-aged woman with the glasses. "And that’s her assistant, David. They’ve been working all morning on damage control."

"Damage control?" I repeated, confused. "For what?"

Hansel reached for a remote on the coffee table and pointed it at the massive TV mounted on the wall. The screen flickered to life, and I found myself staring at my own face.

The headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen read: MYSTERY WOMAN AT DOE FOUNDATION GALA IDENTIFIED AS STEPHANIE RIVERS’ DAUGHTER