F*CK YOU
1492 Words
The pressure didn’t force me to my knees, but it made me shiver.
Sienna took another deliberate step forward, her Alpha presence rolling through the room like a physical weight, meant to dominate, meant to break. I felt it slam into my chest, searching for weakness.
Lucian shot out, catching my elbow
"Careful, Tessa," he said. "My assistant hasn't eaten today. She's feeling faint."
Something cold and steady unfurled along my spine, like water finally finding a channel it had always known. I suddenly began to feel lightheaded, but not from weakness.
Floodlines.
I didn’t glow. I didn’t flare. There was no dramatic surge. But the plants in the solarium stilled.
And Sienna… stopped.
Her confident stride faltered for half a second before she masked it, her smile tightening just enough to notice.
Lucian felt it too. His head snapped toward me, eyes widening, not with fear, but recognition. He knew that feeling, that taste of ancient power.
Eleanor’s gaze sharpened.
“Well,” she murmed, studying me closely. “You’re sturdier than you look.”
“I’m standing,” I said before I could stop myself.
The room went dead silent.
Lucian inhaled sharply. “Tessa—”
But Eleanor laughed. A soft, delighted sound that sent a chill down my arms.
“So the ghost speaks.” She stepped closer again, slower now, more careful. “Tell me, little assistant.....what exactly do you think you are?”
I swallowed, grounding myself the way Lucian had taught me.
“I think,” I said evenly, “that I belong exactly where I’m standing.”
Sienna scoffed. “You don’t even know what pack politics are. You’re human.”
Eleanor’s eyes flicked to her. “No,” she corrected softly. “She isn’t.”
That was when the truth finally shifted from suspicion to certainty.
Eleanor turned back to Lucian, her voice losing its sharp edge for the first time. “You bonded.”
I felt a rush of relief when she said it. Finally. At least I didn't have to pretend anymore. But the next words Lucian said hit me harder than any Alpha pressure.
"Don't be ridiculous mother. She's human, and we didn't bond."
I felt my stomach twist in knots. He denied our bond. I wanted him to tell hs mother off, to tell Sienna to go to hell. I wanted him to grab my arms and tell them I was his, but clearly the fear and respect for his mother outweighed whatever he felt for me.
"Very well." Eleanor said. She still had the look of disbelief on her face. The look that said 'I'm not done with you yet'
"You're dismissed, Tessa."
I barely remembered how I made it out of that room. The hall felt longer than before, colder. My chest ached in a way I couldn't breathe through properly, like something had cracked and was slowly leaking.
"Tessa?"
I turned and broke.
Eli stood near the staircase, concern and worry written all over his face. He didn't ask questions. He just stepped forward and pulled into his arms.
"I need my best friend." I whispered as droplets of tears began to drop from my eyes.
"I've got you," he said immediately. "Come on."
I melted into the hug for almost a minute, a much needed hug.
He took me to 'Chill N Sip', a spa we've been wanting to go to for ages. We were going to drink our sorrows away while getting pampered. Rumours have it they have magical hands over there, and God, I needed that magic right now.
As the steam rose around us, the wine started to do its work.
"How come your mother never treats you like she does with Lucian?" I asked out of curiousity. I didn't even realise the words had left my mouth.
He leaned his head back against the edge of the tub, eyes fixed on the ceiling like the answer lived up there.
“Because Lucian was useful,” he said finally.
I turned toward him.
“I’m older,” he continued, voice steady but stripped bare. “I was supposed to be Alpha. That was the plan. The heir. The pride of the pack.”
He let out a short, humourless laugh.
“Then I turned out… wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” I said immediately.
“I know that,” Eli replied gently. “But they didn’t.”
He glanced at me then, eyes sharp with honesty.
“When they realized I wasn’t going to fit the role. When I stopped pretending, I stopped existing to them. Lucian became everything. Their second chance.”
"Pretending?"
"Pretending I liked girls."
"When she realised I wouldn't give her a luna. Wouldn't give her heirs, wouldn't give her the future she scripted, " he went on, "I stopped being a son. Lucian became the replacement.
My chest tightened.
“So they didn’t neglect him because he was better,” I said softly. “They neglected you because you wouldn’t become what they wanted.”
Eli smiled faintly. “Welcome to the pack.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of it settling between us.
“She doesn’t hate you, you know,” he added, nodding vaguely toward the direction of the house. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?” I asked.
“She’s afraid,” he said. “Of anything she can’t control. And you?” His gaze softened. “You terrify her.”
I laughed weakly. “She doesn’t even know what I am.”
Eli didn’t laugh. He reached over, grabbed two chilled glasses of wine from the side table, and handed one to me.
“She doesn’t need to know the name of the storm to know it’s coming, Tess,” he said. “She saw you stand when Sienna tried to floor you. She saw the plants in the solarium stop breathing. To a woman like Eleanor, that’s more than enough. ”
“Lucian denied me, Eli,” I said. “He looked her in the eye and called me human. Like I was nothing. Like the last two weeks were just… a business trip.”
“He’s a coward when it comes to her,” Eli said. “She broke him into the perfect shape before he was even ten years old. He thinks he’s protecting you by denying the bond. He thinks if she believes you’re just a human assistant, she’ll leave you alone.”
“Is he right?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Eli stared at his reflection in the water for a long moment.
“No,” he said quietly. “Because Eleanor doesn’t leave things alone. She discards them. Or she destroys them.”
“That’s what she did to me.”
He exhaled, slow and steady, like he’d been holding this in for years.
"By the way, don't think she can't feel the bond even after masking it." he added. "She was a very powerful Luna. Small tricks don't fool her. She's simply playing your little game."
We stayed there for hours dissolving into steam, salt, and far too much wine. I laughed at Eli’s stories from childhood, but the laughter scraped my throat raw. I drank to forget the sound of Lucian’s voice in the solarium. To forget how easily he’d erased me.
By the time we left, the night air was sharp and biting. The alcohol gave me a dangerous kind of courage, the kind that feels like clarity right before everything shatters.
“I’m ready. ” I said as we pulled into the mansion’s driveway.
“Tess, I think this a bad idea, maybe you should sleep at my place,” Eli said carefully. “You’re… drunk right now. And Lucian is likely not.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not a ghost. I’m not hiding or pretending.”
I was out of the car before he could stop me. I ran as fast as I could. I didn’t knock. I didn’t wait.
I pushed past the guards, they didn't struggle either.
“Lucian!” I shouted as I stormed into the living room. “You want to tell me again how human I am?”
I stopped dead.
Lucian stood at the there, shirtless. He looked wrecked.
And then Sienna stepped out of the shadows.
She emerged from the hallway slowly, her dark hair tossed over one shoulder, her silk dress shimmering under the light. She was smiling, that satisfied, wicked curve of the lips that told me she had already won. She looked at me, then back at Lucian’s bare back, her eyes gleaming with pride.
Lucian turned at the sound of my voice. His eyes widened, his face pale and etched with a stress I had never seen before.
“Tessa—”
"You know what?" I said, my voice shaking with fury.
"f**k you!!"
- Writer
