Chapter two The betrayal
1169 Words
Lucille pov
“No. No, no, no.”
I clutched my chest trying to hold myself together. Breathe in and out Lucille. But I couldn’t, how can I when it feels like my heart is going to melt.
My mate. My so-called mate. f*****g another man in the room we shared.
“Lucille … “
His eyes went wide. He pulled out of Marcus so fast that Marcus moaned, a soft, broken little sound that turned my stomach inside out. I took a step backward. Then another.
“f**k. f**k, Lucille, wait … “
He was already off the bed, fumbling for his trousers, half-tripping over them. I turned and ran.
I made it three steps into the corridor before his arm caught me around the waist.
“Listen to me.” His mouth was close to my ear. He smelled like sweat and like Marcus, it was repulsive “This isn’t what it looks like … “
“Don’t touch me.”
My wolf was thrashing inside of me. She didn’t want him near me. She didn’t want him in the same air as me. She wanted to claw his face off and kill him for this betrayal.
“I trusted you.” My voice cracked open on the word. “I gave you everything. I made you the alpha of this pack … “
“If you wait a minute I’ll explain, this means nothing. It’s you I love.”
I couldn’t speak.
I had given this man my body. I was carrying his child. I was ready today to bind my soul to his for the rest of my life. And he cheated on me, on our bond.
“How … “ I forced the word out. “How dare you. I made you alpha. I trusted you with all of my heart and you … you betray me with a man. With your own … “
His arm tightened. The warmth left his voice. Just like that. Like flipping a switch. His real attitude finally came to light.
“Shut your mouth, woman, or I will snap your neck myself. If anyone comes running for that little scream of yours, you won’t like what I do to you. Do you understand me?”
“Oh, for Goddess’ sake.” Marcus appeared in the doorway behind him. Pulling on a shirt. Rolling his eyes at me like I was a child throwing a tantrum.
He didn’t even let me finish, before a blow landed on the side of my head. I felt the world tilt, and then go white, before going very, very dark.
When I opened my eyes again, I was on my knees, with cold stone under me. My dress was so thin it did nothing to keep the piercing cold out. My head felt like it was stuck inside a ringing bell. And the taste of blood assaulted my taste.
It took me a long moment to understand that I was at the center of the pack square.
The sun was almost down so they had lit the torches on the poles around the square. And it seems the whole pack had been summoned. I felt fear and anxiety send chills down my spine.
“Keisha … “
She was on her knees beside me. Slumped sideways. Unconscious. There was a bruise blooming purple along her jaw.
“Keisha. What … what is going on, what is … “
A hand pushed my shoulder down before I could rise. I didn’t see whose.
There were movements on the platform above us. I dragged my eyes up.
Lycaon was walking out onto the stage. Marcus was at his side, half a step behind, still playing a role of a dutiful assistant. All this while I thought he kept a male assistant out of loyalty to me. What a joke.
Lycaon was crying. Wiping his face with the back of his hand, as if his heart was absolutely broken.
“My pack.” His voice was low, ragged, and perfectly broken.
“It is with great difficulty that I say this to you tonight. Your beloved Luna … “ his voice cracked; he waited for it to settle … “ has betrayed all of you.”
The sound of gasp and terror immediately filled the crowd.
Please stop, I thought. Please. Please stop talking.
I could feel all their emotions through the bond that bonded us as a pack. Pain. Disappointment. A slow, growing, terrible anger.
I couldn’t shut it out. I couldn’t even look away.
“She was caught,” Lycaon said, “trying to sell information to the humans. Information that would weaken every one of us. Information that would have put our children in chains.”
A screen flickered to life behind him.
The video that was playing was caught in the dash cam he promised me had been deleted. It was from when I was eighteen and stupid. When I ran to the human Border and the night Lycaon saved me. The night I promised to give myself to him forever. But the video had been edited to my face now so it looked more like a recent video than an older one.
The moment I saw the video I knew I was finished. There was no version of this square that I walked out of with my title or my name or my child. But Keisha.
Keisha didn’t know. She was innocent and all I had left, I couldn’t let her get killed because of my stupidity, and now she was on her knees in the dirt with a bruise on her jaw because of me.
“Please.”
I had to push the word out around something thick in my throat.
“Please. Please. Let my sister go. She didn’t know. She had nothing to do with any of this, she tried to stop me … please … “
Lycaon stepped forward to the edge of the platform. Coming to stand before me. He looked down on me with anger and so much disgust, I felt my heart breaking all over again.
“Because you were once our Luna, ” he said, “we will spare her life.”
The murmur in the square shifted. Some of the wolves nodded.
“She will keep her place in this pack. She will live.” He let the pause sit. “But she will live as a slave. Beneath the lowest human servant in this house. She will eat what they leave. She will sleep where they let her. She will lift her eyes to no one. That is the mercy we give her, for your sake.”
I tried to thank him. I couldn’t make my mouth work.
“As for you, Luna … “
He smiled.
“You are exiled from this pack . Where you walk. What you eat. What finds you in the dark. That is no longer ours to decide. Your fate is your own.”
- Writer
