002: First Lie
1302 Words
ARIANNA
My eyes blink open, heavy with sleep, but just enough to tell me I’m not where I should be. The room is strange, too clean, too fine. A chandelier glitters overhead. Everything feels cool, exquisite, nothing like the cramped, filthy space I used to call a room in my adoptive home.
Where the hell am I?
And Arhh, oh, Goddess, flashes hit me. Pain. Blood. Zane. My mother’s face twisted with rage. My own scream. The glow. The darkness.
It all crashes back, piece by piece, until my chest feels too tight to breathe.
The door to the room flung open, and the man I recognize from my daze state walks in.
My heart lurches, beating erratically. That stride, I’d know it anywhere. He’s the man who picked up my crest. No mistake.
“You’re finally awake?” His deep voice queries, as he pulls a chair closer and sits at the edge of the bed. It doesn’t sound like a question, more like a command.
I stare at him, my turquoise eyes locking onto his, trying to figure out who he is, and why I’ve woken up in his house.
His presence screams authority, the kind of man who has commanded armies, led pack wars, and spoken to generals who dared not look him in the eye.
“I'm Beta Tristan found you unconscious,”
Beta Tristan? The famous Beta Tristan? A high ranking Beta of the entire fourth wing.
Did he… rescue me? Did he bring me here? Did he find out what I've done? My body feels lighter than before, the searing pain in my leg reduced to a dull throb.
“You healed fast,” he observes, his gaze flicking to my foot. “You were lying in a pool of blood when I found you.” His tone drops, steady and unflinching. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your adoptive family didn’t make it.” A pause. His eyes narrow slightly. “What really happened down there?”
I blink once. Twice. Did I really kill them? What exactly happened? How? One moment I was just, oh damn… I can’t tell him. I can’t possibly tell him I killed my own family. Even if the moon goddess and I know it was self-defense, would they believe me? Or would they brand me a murderer?
My heart thrums wildly as I lift my gaze to meet his questioning stare. His eyes are scrutinizing, probing, like he can peel back layers and see straight into my soul. He’s a Beta, and I know he expects an answer.
I force myself upright, meeting his gaze even as my lips tremble. “We… we were attacked by rogues. For a moment, I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to lose everything. They… they killed my family.” The lie slips out. Goddess forgive me, but what else can I say? I didn’t mean to kill them. I was going to die. She was going to kill me first.
Those stormy blue-gray eyes of his bore into mine, scrutinizing me like he could rip the truth straight out of my chest. I knew, damn well knew, he wasn’t buying the lie I’d just spat out.
It felt like a slap to my face: if I wanted to live, I had to sell it. Every blink, every twitch, every pathetic drop of fear had to scream victim. If he saw through me, it was the dungeon for the rest of my life. No. I don’t deserve that. I don’t f*****g deserve that.
The moon goddess knows the truth. Zane would have r***d me. His mother would have clapped her hands in pride or, hell, blamed me for it, then whipped me raw for “seducing” her precious son.
So no, I'm definitely not letting them write me as the villain. Mostly, when I fought to survive.
His eyes are one of the finest I’ve ever stared into, stormy and unreadable, and damn it, I could drown in them all day if I wasn’t standing on trial for my life. Even with the questions pressing on me, my treacherous mind notes the sharp angle of his jawline, the way it tightens when he clenches it. Those high, defined cheekbones, that straight nose, tan skin, thick brows, hell, he’s carved like the goddess herself sculpted him on a lazy day.
He’s still staring at me. Like he can see straight through every crook of my lie. The room is quiet enough to choke me, and instead of holding his gaze like an innocent would, my eyes dart away.
It's dawning on me from the statement that guilty people look away, don’t they? And right now, guilty is all over me. So I do the only thing I can, I scrutinize my surroundings, scrutinize him, like if I keep cataloging every damn detail about this man, maybe I’ll forget the blood on my hands.
What would he do? Stand up and slam me against the wall, squeeze my neck until I can’t breathe, snarl in my face that I killed my own family? Call me an ungrateful bastard? That ugly thought keeps pounding in my head, again and again, like a damn drum I can’t shut off.
Instead, he just says, “I’ll have to investigate this matter thoroughly.”
He didn't argue, he didn't choke me like I braced for. And worse, he doesn’t even summon the Pack guards to drag me off to rot in the dungeon for murdering my adoptive family.
“I found this crest on the floor at the scene. Do you know what this is?”
His commanding gaze pins me in place, his voice dripping with such authority that the entire room seems to tremble in obedience.
“Yes… it’s mine.” My words are slow, careful, but at least truthful. “It was given to me by my biological father. I’ve carried it with me ever since.”
His jaw tightens as he studies the small emblem, fingers brushing over the worn edges like it holds secrets only he can unlock. “This isn’t just any trinket,” he says tersely. “This… is the crest of the Donovan family. And if it was given to you by your father, then…” His eyes lift to mine, unyielding. “That makes you one of them.”
I study how his jaw tenses as he stares at my crest, his face holding an expression that says there’s more he’s not telling me.
For a fleeting second, hope floods me. My family. My real family. The word echoes inside me like a prayer. Maybe… maybe I wasn’t abandoned. Maybe my biological parents would welcome me, love me, treat me better than the home that broke me.
The longing swells in my chest until it hurts. The thought of returning, of seeing faces that mirror mine, of finally belonging, wraps around me like a fragile dream. “I need to see them,” I whisper, almost to myself. “If I have a family out there… I want to go home.”
His eyes widen for a moment, like my words touch on something he dreads, and then he shrugs it off, though I swear I see it. Hooded eyes stays pinned on me. The room is silent again.
"I'll escort you myself,"
My heart stutters as he bent close to me, his hand closed around my arm, firm enough to tell me I dare not debate, but not roughly.
"I hope your home is as warm as you imagine,"
The words sound deep, but I don’t really understand them.
I lift my chin, pushing the shake out of my voice as I whisper, “Home is all I have left.”
- Writer
