ManyWriters

My mate, Alpha Richard, locked our she-pup inside a sealed antique cabinet.
Our asthmatic pup.
All because his adopted sister's pup was throwing a tantrum and needed a "doll" to amuse him.
"It's just a Ball-Jointed Doll in there," he sneered. "Can't you even tell your own pup from a doll?"
Then he walked next door to praise the boy. “You’re so much braver than my pup,” he cooed. “You’re my favorite.”
Later, at a fashion show, he let his sister steal the designs I made for our pup.
He called me a plagiarist to protect her.
I was about to shatter when a man burst through the doors.
In his hands was a funeral portrait of my pup.

The Alpha’s Empty Antique Cabinet

After clutching those photos and crying for a long time, he was so overwrought he could barely breathe.


It took him a long while to finally compose himself and sort through everything that had happened recently.


For the first time, Richard was finally sharp enough to piece together, with great difficulty, what was so terribly wrong.


He whipped his head around to face Monica, his bloodshot eyes, raw and burning, staring her down fiercely.


“Monica, you were the one who pointed that display case out to me. You told me there was just a doll inside, didn't you? That there was no one in there, that Nina wasn't in there, right?”


Before, no matter what had happened, Richard would never have questioned Monica in such a tone.


He was too busy cherishing Monica; how could he ever bear to be harsh with her?


This was the first time Richard had ever interrogated Monica, and the first time he had called her by her name.


Chapter 6