Chapter4
1600 Words
SELMA'S P.O.V
Lilith had only been here two days but she's somehow managed to get everything out from right under my feet, planting herself in my position instead. I couldn't even bring myself to stop crying.
After saying what he needed to say yesterday, Frederick had up and left, leaving me behind to mend the tattered fragments of my heart.
My feet carried me on their own accord, my eyes unseeing as I strolled around the house without a specific direction.
"Watch where you're going," Lilith scolded as we ran into each other at the top of the stairs.
I hadn't even seen her. I was just blindly walking through and I was certain that she Raj into me on purpose.
She took one look at my face amd male a tsking sound. "Looks like someone has gotten all of their dreams cancelled. That's what happens when you fall for someone way out of your league."
"You think you've won?" I asked her, my tiredness seeping through in my voice.
"Haven't I?" She laughed. "Frederick is mine. I have his heir, his mother's appreciation, and the emotional pull that you can't seem to make possible. Perhaps if you had given him an heir sooner than I returned you'd have been able to keep him."
"Do you even love him or is this just a game to you?"
"Love is overrated and for the weak. It doesn't matter what I feel, what matters is what I can make Frederick feel and how I can use those feelings to get what I want from him."
Lilith glanced down at her nails like she was bored. "Did you really think that loving him was enough to keep his attention? Let me give you a piece of advice..."
My tired voice interrupted whatever it was that she was about to say. "Fine. You won. Now let me pass, I don't have the energy to listen to you gloat."
"But it's not gloating." Her laughter rang out again.
I made to move past her and she stopped me, blocking my exit with her whole body. "Careful now, Selma. I'm your soon to be Luna, it's not in your best interests to offend me."
"I don't..."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen," Lilith interrupted me, her voice suddenly raised. To say that I was confused would be an understatement of the century.
"I just think it would be best for Frederick to know that he has a son. Maybe he'd be able to take care of him, and he would even have his heir."
She grabbed a hold of my arm and squeezed painfully, leaving behind marks with her poised nails. "I want you to know that I don't want to destroy your marriage. I just want..."
Unable to take any more of the pain I spoke up. "Let go of me. You're hurting me."
"I promise I'd go away as soon as I..."
I pulled her hand away from mine and she screeched, throwing herself backward and toppling down the stairs before I could.even draw a complete breath.
What the hell just happened?
"Selma! What the f**k have you done?" I heard Frederick's enraged voice in the next second, charging past me as he raced down the stairs to help Lilith who laid in a crumpled state at its feet.
"I didn't push her, I swear. We were just talking and then..."
Frederick checked on Lilith and picked her off the floor in a bridal sweep. "Danny!"
"Yes, Alpha," the pack's head guard raced into the living room immediately.
"Get the car ready. We're going to the hospital."
"Yes, Alpha." Danny hurried out of the room.
Frederick's cold gaze turned on me. "You'd better hope that nothing happens to her, Selma. Because I would make you pay with your life if you hurt the woman I..."
He didn't bother with completing that statement, he simply turned on his heel and carried Lilith's limp form out of the room.
I just stood there in shock. Why would she do that?
"Luna," Celine, my maid, called as she knocked on the door.
"Come in," I called back, barely audible as I lay there in pain - not of the physical variety.
She opened the door and stepped into the room. "The Alpha sent this for you." She extended a folded piece of paper to me.
I forced myself into a sitting position and retrieved the paper from her. "What is this?"
"I have no idea. He sent Danny to bring it and asked that it be delivered to you."
"Is he still in the hospital?" I asked.even though I already knew the answer to that.
"Yes, ma'am."
I nodded once. "Thank you."
As she walked out of the room and closed the door pulled the paper open.
"You're on kitchen duties for the next week as punishment for your insolence. Your failure to adhere would lead to bigger and more severe punishments."
I picked up my phone and dialed his number immediately. No way he was punishing me for something that I didn't even do. He loved Lilith, that much was obvious; but that didn't warrant this form of mistreatment to me. I have done nothing but love him this whole time.
"What do you want?" Frederick's voice called into the receiver, his anger palpable.
"You sent a letter to me."
"And I'm hoping you've read it."
"I have, but have yet to understand what you mean by all that."
His sigh is filled with his need to rein in his temper. "Don't make me repeat myself, Selma. It's not Lilith's fault that I love her, you have no right to try and take her life over that."
"You really believe that I did this? You've known me for years, why would I do something like that?"
"Jealousy. It's made you a cruel, bitter person."
"Frederick!"
"I saw and heard your conversation, Selma. All she did was apologise for inadvertently hurting you and breaking us apart, but after seeing your response to her kindness, I can say for a fact that you are a heartless person and I'm glad we're over."
Tears traveled down my face as his words ripped shred after shred off my heart. "Frederick. I don't deserve that and you know it."
"Serve your punishment and don't bother me anymore, Selma. You'd better not defy your Alpha."
A whole month had gone by since Lilith's accident, and with everyday that passed I became more aware of the fact that she set me up. She knew that Frederick was there and chose to change the course of the conversation, even risking her life to make sure that the ridge she puts between me and Frederick is permanent.
I pick up the knife I had put down and get back to work chopping up vegetables.
"I would have thought that you'd be done with that before my return," a very familiar voice called as footsteps carried into the kitchen.
My head stayed turned towards my task and I refused to look at her.
"Are you not going to welcome your new Luna?" Lilith's mocking tone came next.
When I didn't respond her hand latched onto my head and shoved it backwards, causing pain to shoot through my skull and travel through my bloodstream.
"Don't f*****g ignore me when I'm talking to you, b***h!" She slammed my head down on the chopping block, causing it and all the vegetables I sliced to follow me down to the ground.
Pain rocketed through me instantly and a groan worked its way through my throat.
Her laughter filled the space around us. "I told you Frederick was mine. All it took was a little trip down to the hospital and he's already fawning all over me."
Before I could even get a single response out, a bowl of cold water was thrown over me, drenching my hair and clothes and leaving me a dripping mess.
"Get your filthy self up and get dinner ready. I want to have the energy to keep Frederick happy in his home and pack. Being a queen takes energy."
Her footsteps receded and soon enough the door clicked shut. Tears poured out of my eyes as I tried to stand up. It's all I've been able to do in the last month. Cry.
By the time I change my clothes and get back downstairs, it's already twenty minutes to dinner time so I start working extra fast to make sure that I have dinner served soon enough.
"Dinner is coming fifteen minutes past the scheduled time. Are you trying to be incompetent?" Lilith scolded from her spot beside Frederick.
The bastard wouldn't even look at me, his eyes stayed glued to his preferred one. Lilith.
Throughout dinner not even a single word was uttered by Frederick or Lilith, they just continued to eat and exchange glances.
All of a sudden Lilith's fork dropped really loudly and she made a wincing sound.
“What's wrong?” Frederick asked, concerned.
“My stomach hurts.”
He picked up his phone and called the doctor.
Less than twenty minutes later the doctor was here and we all filed in front of Lilith's room, waiting on feedback from the doctor. I didn't really have a choice anyway, I needed to make sure I was there if I was needed.
The doctor stepped out of the room after spending a near eternity in there and he locked eyes with Frederick.
“She's been poisoned, Alpha. Her life is hanging on a thread right now.”
- Writer
