Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Ariel.
67%
El 55 vouchers
She’s trembling–oh, so pitifully–until her eyes land on me. Then it vanishes, like a snake shedding its skin, and she smiles.
Fuck no.
I’m on my feet so fast my chair screeches behind me. I don’t car that the packhouse is filled with people. I don’t care that I haven’t eaten in two days. I don’t care that my knees are barely holding me up.
All I see is her face.
That lying, manipulative, two–faced-
“You fucking bitch!” I snap, charging at her like a woman unhinged. Because I fucking am.
“Sorin p>
“Don’t you fucking say my name!” My hands are already halfway to her perfect golden curls. I don’t know what I’m going to do–slap the shit out of her? Rip her to shreds? Honestly, I might just scream in her face until my voice gives out.
Her scream is high–pitched and full of practiced fear. “Wade p>
She clutches his shirt like she’s some helpless porcelain thing and not the demon wearing an angel’s mask. Wade’s arms instantly tighten around her, shielding her from me.
From me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Wade snarls, grabbing my wrist mid–lunge. His touch is rough, his eyes venomous. “You’ve really lost your fucking mind p>
Oh, we’re doing this.
We’re really doing this.
“You think I don’t know what you did?” I spit, trying to wrench free, but he’s stronger. “This is all her fault! She framed me! She’s been playing you this whole fucking time p>
“She saved me!” he yells in my face like I’m the one who betrayed him. “She saved all of us, Sorin! You–you betrayed the pack p>
My throat closes up.
And just like that, the air around me thickens.
He shoves me backward–nothing too violent, but enough that stumble, enough that the crowd gasps and tightens around us like a noose, My back hits the edge of a table, and pain shoots up my spine.
Ariel whimpers again. Like clockwork. “Wade… please p>
“Oh, don’t start crying, you damn snake,” I hiss, but my voice cracks halfway.
Fuck, Sorin. Don’t crack now.
Wade turns to the crowd and my heart drops.
“She’s pregnant,” he announces, voice proud, loud enough to echo off the damn chandelier. “Ariel is pregnant with the
1/6
16:37 Sat, Dec 20 G GA
Chapter 8
Alpha’s heir. My heir”
Silence.
That kind of silence that screams in your ears.
My stomach flips, and I blink once,
Twice,
Three times, trying to make the words make sense,
The crowd is buzzing behind me, voices whispering, eyes darting between us as if this is some goddamn soap opera,
And then I see it.
Her hand slides down to her stomach.
Round. I didn’t notice it earlier.
It’s already showing.
She’s… she’s months along.
The room spins.
They did it before the war. Before all this. When he kissed me goodbye and promised me forever. When I waited at the gates, every night, wondering if he’d come back.
When I prayed for him. When I begged the gods not to take him from me.
He was fucking her.
I think I’m going to be sick.
My knees give out a little, but I don’t let them hit the floor. No. Fuck that. I won’t give them that. I grip the edge of the table.
“Wade…” My voice is too quiet, too fragile for how I feel. “You said you loved me p>
“Don’t twist this,” he snaps, pulling Ariel closer. “You chose your path. You made your decisions. You betrayed the pack. She… she believed in me. When you didn’t p>
Every eye in the room is on me. No one steps forward. Not even the ones I used to call friends. No one says anything. They just look. Judging. Pitying. Disgusted.
I’m the liar. The traitor. The crazy ex.
“I didn’t betray you,” I whisper, but it’s too late. The scene’s already been painted. Ariel’s won.
And the fucking brush was in Wade’s hand the whole time.
She leans into his chest, hiding her face, pretending to cry. But she looks at me. Just barely. Her mouth twitches like she’s holding back a smile.
And that’s when I know.
No one is going to save me.
But I wasn’t going to fucking beg.
2/6
16:37 Sat, Dec 20 GGA.
Chapter 8
Not after everything I’ve done. Not after everything I gave up
Not after every fucking bruise I wore like a goddamn badge whaling beside Wade like a good little Luna
So I straighten my spine. My skin is sticky with humiliation, thrt raw, but my voice, that shit stays steady.
“I want a trial p>
The room stills.
My voice isn’t loud. Doesn’t need to be. Everyone heard it.
Wade flinches, Just barely. As if someone yanked on the strings he’s too stupid to realize are attached to his balls.
2.67 % 8
I keep going before he can stop me, before she can open her mouth again and turn everyone’s brain to fucking oatmeal.
“My father–Beta Calen–died for this pack. Died for you.” I say, drazzing my eyes to Wade like dragging a blade across skin. “And you think I’m just going to kneel and take the fall for something I didn’t do p>
He stares at me. Blank, unreadable. But not because he doesn’t feel anything. It’s because he doesn’t know what to feel
Good. Let him choke on it.
“You don’t get to spit on his memory like that,” I say, lifting my in. “He saved your life, Wade. When you were a scrawny little boy hiding in the cellar with a fever and a broken leg, it was my father who pulled you out p>
Wade’s nostrils flare. “And my father died that night.” he growls. Because your fucking father didn’t come back for him p>
I blink.
What?
No.
“No,” I whisper. “That’s not what happened. That’s not what he he never left anyone behind. You know that p>
But Wade’s already shutting down, dragging that wall back up like he’s got something to protect. Maybe he thinks if he repeats it enough, it’ll become true. That it’ll make all this easier.
That I’ll become easier to throw away.
“You’re wrong,” I say, quieter this time. “And I can prove it. I want a trial. I’m not asking”
From the corner of my eye, I catch her–Ariel. Her fingers curl tighter around Wade’s arm, her doe eyes wide and glistening like a wounded deer.
The way she flinches back from me would be fucking impressive if I didn’t know better.
Wade shields her as though I’m the fucking monster. Like I haven’t spent years cleaning up this pack’s shit and smiling through every insult from the Elders because it was the right thing to do.
“She’s stressing me…Ariel whispers, rubbing her stomach. “She’s going to stress the baby…
I resist the urge to roll my eyes so hard I snap something. “Your fucking fetus isn’t my problem p>
Wade bristles “Sorin p>
“She shouldn’t be allowed to speak like this” Ariel hisses, all pretense dropped now, her voice cracking like brittle glass “She’s dangerous. Vindictive. She’s already hurt me once. You want her free again? What if she tries something else p>
3/6
16:37 Sat Dec 20 G GA
Chapter 3
67%
Vann vouchers
I laugh Lood and bitter. “Oh sweetheart, if I really wanted to how you, you wouldn’t be hiding behind him right now p>
Wade grabe Arici, cradling her like I just shot her. He turns, opening his mouth–probably to tell the guards to lock me up and throw away the key—but then the room shifts.
The park was putting
She was Luma for years p>
“At least a trul p>
“Seems fair
It spreads like wildfire, and for the first time in days. I feel something in my chest. Not hope. Not yet. But something.
Wade besitates.
He’s stuck. Trapped between a pack he’s supposed to lead and the woman currently jerking his leash.
He looks down at Ariel, who’s blinking up at him like she’s about to faint, and I almost see the decision happening behind biis eyes
Fuck
He turns to me. “Fine,” he says. You’ll get your trial”
My spine stiffens
“But until then…he gestures, and two guards step forward. “You’ll be held in the dungeons. You’re not to leave. You’re not to speak to anyone.
I laugh again, because at this point, what else am I going to do?
“Of course. Why not add one more betrayal to the pile p>
They drag me out, hands tight on my arms. I don’t fight it. I don’t scream or beg. But I don’t look back at Wade either. Not
Once
The man I loved turned away from me. I didn’t think it would hurt this much.
The dungeon is worse than I remember.
The air tastes like mildew and rot. The floor is wet–constantly–and not with water. I don’t want to know what’s seeping between the stones, soaking into the hem of my dress.
They throw me into the cell like I’m nothing. Just another name in the book of traitors.
No one speaks to me.
The first night, they bring me a chunk of bread with mold blooming on the side and water so murky I swear something’s swimming in it.
I drink it anyway.
Pride doesn’t mean shit if you’re dead.
I sleep curled in the corner, shivering, because the thin slip I’m wearing was never meant to face a Lycan dungeon in late
4/6
16:37 Sat, Dec 20 G GA
Chapter 31
autumn.
Sometimes the guards laugh when they pass. Sometimes they don’t bother hiding it.
67%
EX $5/9ouchers
“The saintess said you were always jealous of her,” one of them eers on day three. “Said you used to glare at her like she stole your toy”
I don’t answer. I’ve learned it’s better that way.
By day five, my body aches constantly. I’m losing count of the bises. There’s one on my jaw from when a tray got chucked too hard and hit me. My wrist is swelling from being yanked too hard.
But I’m still standing.
Barely.
Until day seven.
That’s when they come in, laughing.
“Rise and shine, little traitor,” one of them singsongs before dumping a bucket of water straight over my head.
It’s ice–cold. It hits like knives.
I sputter, gasping, the wet fabric clinging to my skin, hair plastered across my face.
“Guess who’s here,” the guard says, nudging the other. “Alpha fucking King. Said he’s got business with his pen pal p>
Pen pal.
Pen. Pal.
I freeze.
There’s no way.
He can’t mean-
But the guard keeps going. “Been writing letters for months, apparently. I wonder who that penpal is p>
“Definitely lucky if they’re exchanging letters with the King p>
My breath catches.
Because I know.
I am the pen pal.
I was the one writing to Alaric Hayes. The Lycan King.
And he’s here.
Right fucking now.
The King.
The most dangerous, possessive, obsessive Lycan in existence.
I hope he find out what they’ve done to me. This is pathetic.
5/6
16:37 Sat, Dec 20 G
Chapter 3
Damn it.
Shit’s about to burn.
6/6
admin