Chapter 45
“Amelia, hey, wait up p>
Amelia turned around and saw Ryan jogging towards her from a distance.
She didn’t stop.
She kept walking a little slower so he could catch up easily.
“What is it?” She asked when he reached her.
Ryan took deep breaths before handing out an invitation to her.
Amelia held the invitation and read the headline, her brows raising.
“It’s our mother’s birthday. We would be glad if you could come,” Ryan said.
The girl stopped and turned to look at the man. He was looking at her hopefully as if she were one precious friend to them.
Her heart moved at his gaze. She knew that the former Luna of the Ashborn pack was bedridden. It was rumored that after their pack was attacked and the former alpha was killed in an ambush, Luna couldn’t bear the pain.
A paralytic attack rendered her unable to walk or move on the bed.
That was also one reason why the triplets turned out to be troublemakers. It was their coping mechanism.
After all, they never hurt anyone intentionally.
“You will come, right? We are only calling close family and friends,” Ryan said.
Amelia smiled at him.
“I will try to come.” She didn’t make a definite promise.
After all, she must ask her husband if she should go.
“We’ll be waiting for you,” Ryan said, and Amelia was about to reply when Hannah’s voice stopped her.
“Amelia,” Hannah walked to the girl, holding her hand to appear affectionate.
Amelia stood there. She took a deep breath to control her emotions before smiling at her sister.
She still needed to pretend to know the higher motive behind their sudden betrayal. Was it just jealousy, or was there a bigger conspiracy underlying?
“Why are you not saying anything? Are you still mad about what happened at the Joint Council? Father has forgiven you for burning the laboratory,” Hannah said.
Hannah always had a way with words. She deliberately twisted the facts before another alpha to put her in a difficult position.
The girl just couldn’t see Amelia getting any attention from anyone.
Amelia smiled at this. She turned to look at Ryan, who, surprisingly, didn’t have a judgmental expression.
Did he trust her? Her gaze met with the man briefly, who nodded in understanding.
“Forgiveness is for those who have committed any crime. I didn’t burn the laboratory, nor was there any evidence,” Amelia scrunched her brows, tears welling in her eyes as she pretended to be hurt.
It took two to play this game. If her sister could pretend to be pitiful, so could she.
Hannah stood rooted at her place.
“Right. I am sorry. I forgot,” She said awkwardly when she saw Alpha Killian walking towards them.
Amelia also felt his presence, and remembering what she had to endure because of him, she tasted bitterness in her mouth.
It was epic that she was suffering even after staying away from him. He was truly a bane for her.
“What are you guys doing here?” Alpha Killian asked, his gaze lingering on Amelia a little longer.
“Sister Hannah, I’ll leave if you have nothing to say. I have a lecture next and it will start in 10 minutes,” Amelia wanted to leave already, but Hannah held her hand.
“I need your help,” Hannah said, puckering her lips.
“All the data I had collected about the assignment I was preparing to submit burned in the laboratory. Now I don’t know where to start and how to do it again. It took me the entire week. Please help me with it. You are a prodigy. It won’t be hard for you,” Hannah said.
Ryan raised his brows at the girl’s shameless words.
Just because Amelia was a prodigy, should she help her sister? What kind of reasoning was it? And how could she forget everything if she was the one who did it?
Also, as long as he heard, wasn’t this assignment conducted to check a healer’s ability and rank them?
She had been working on it for a week? What a joke! The classes started a week ago, and the assignment was introduced two days ago. So, unless she had internal links, there was no way she was preparing for it that long.
Ryan was about to interrupt when Killian beat him to it.
“Amelia, I saw Hannah working hard on experiments day and night. She is telling you the truth,” the alpha said.
Amelia smiled.
She knew that even if no one spoke, this lap dog of Hannah would speak up.
Did he see her working day and night on the experiments?
She suppressed the urge to scoff.
“Okay. I will help you. I told you I love you the most, didn’t I?” Amelia said, smiling at Hannah, who smirked inwardly as her tricks worked.
“It’s great that you decided to help your sister, Amelia. It’s for–” Killian started, but the girl looked at him in disdain, making him pause.
“Alpha Killian, with all due respect, don’t you have anything better to do than roam around us healers?” Amelia asked before turning around and leaving a stupefied Killian and a flabbergasted Hannah.
Ryan pressed his lips into a thin line to control his laughter as his cheeks ached.
“What is that?” Hannah asked as she looked at the invitation in Ryan’s hand that he was giving out to his friends.
Seeing another alpha standing before him, it would be rude not to invite him. Amelia already wounded his ego pretty badly.
With this thought, Ryan invited them to the birthday party before leaving to catch up with Amelia again.
“Alpha Killian, don’t take my sister’s words to heart. You know she has been peachy after that ditch incident because she blames us for leaving there. She had been too shocked,” Hannah tried to reason.
Killian, however, only looked at her before leaving.
Though Amelia’s words were cold, they were indeed true. Why did he find himself getting entangled between the sisters repetitively?
While it was amazing in the beginning to gain the respect from both as he had an option to choose while enjoying their hospitality, it was starting to become a thorn in his heart, not to mention how Amelia’s indifference was hurting him these days.
“Not everyone deserves your kindness. This world is a wicked place. Just because they are family doesn’t mean you have to help them. She was clearly lying, and Killian was supporting her. How can you be so naive? It makes me want to be protective of you,” Ryan said to Amelia as they entered the class together.
Amelia looked at the man briefly before choosing the seat in the farthest corner near the window.
She thought he would take his usual seat between his friends in the middle row, but to her surprise, he sat next to her, and Amelia sighed.
“What?” She asked him why he kept looking at her.
“Didn’t you hear me just now?” He asked.
He wanted her to know that her sister was deceiving her because, from what he saw, Amelia was a good person.
“I heard it. Don’t worry. I just want to help her,” Amelia dismissed his concern.
Though she was pretending to be naive, she was smirking inside.
Who better than her could know how cunning her sister was and what kind of foxy plan she devised? This world was a wicked place? Surely. She already experienced it once and lost her life for it.
She indeed agreed to help Hannah because she would help her uniquely this time.
Since the girl wanted to use her mind to lift herself, she would do it properly. And it was just her luck that this time Hannah, in desperation, asked for help, not only before her lapdog Killian but before Alpha Ryan too.
And the man looked like someone who could be used later to prove her innocence.
She concentrated on the lecture while different plans formed in her head about what kind of assignment she would submit in Hannah’s name.
It would be top-quality, for sure. She wasn’t someone who would mess with her talent, but could Hannah handle that kind of top-quality experiment?
Amelia chuckled suddenly.
Ryan looked at the girl, finding her weird with each passing second.
Why did it feel like he was looking at some kind of psycho more than a kind girl? What kind of dark chuckle was that?