The Alpha's Regret: She's The Lycan Queen Now

Ariana's POV The blood would not stop. I kept pressing my hands against her chest, switching positions, trying angles that made no sense. My palms were soaked through, my knees too were soaked through, the stone floor was pulling cold into my bones from below and my daughter was pulling warmth out of my hands from above and nothing I did was changing that and still I could not stop. "Lena." Her name tore out of me. "Lena baby, please open your eyes. Open your eyes for mama, please." She didn't open her eyes. She was five years old and she was not looking at me and I could not make my brain accept the information my eyes were giving it. Behind me, the door burst open. I heard a gasp first and then scream, a female, probably one of the younger servants who had never seen anything worse than a kitchen fire, then more footsteps poured into the room like water. I still didn't turn around, I couldn't leave her. "The Luna..." "Someone get the Alpha..." "Is that, goddess, is the child dead..." The voices kept multiplying and the words kept pointing the same direction and I still didn't turn around because I knew what it looked like. "Step away from the child." The voice behind me was one of Kayden's head guard. "She's still..." "Step away." He said, cutting me off. "Now." My hands were shaking so badly they barely worked. I pressed them down one more time, and then sat back on my legs and got the full picture of the room. The blood was everywhere, on the floor, on the stone walls, soaked into the edge of my robe in a wide dark ring color. There was no weapon visible, there was nothing visible that explained how all this happened. I stood up slowly because the head guard's hand was on his weapon and I wasn't going to give him a reason to use it. My legs barely held me, the room had gone completely quiet. "Why are you covered in blood? Kneeling over the body?" He asked pointing at me. "You killed her." "She's my daughter." My voice cracked on the last word. "I was trying to help her." "There's no one else in the room." "There was, someone was already here when I arrived..." My voice shook. "Someone did this before I got here." "The door is locked from the inside, Luna." He said firmly. "That's not possible," I shook my head. "The door was open when I came in. It was open, I walked straight through..." "We had to break the lock to enter." He held my gaze. "The bolt was thrown from inside." The room had gone completely quiet. Every servant, every guard, every face crammed into that doorway was looking at me with the same expression. "Someone sent me a note." My voice came out shaky. "Lena's name was on it and this location. I thought it was from my mate, I didn't question it, I just came. The note is still on my dressing table right now, someone can go and check..." "You left a note and came straight her, alone." He looked at the blood on my hands, then back at my face. "In the middle of the night and told nobody." "I thought it was from Kayden..." "Did you check?" He asked, cutting me off. The silence that followed was its own answer and I felt the story hardening around me in real time. The crowd parted and Kayden walked in. He stopped just inside the doorway. His eyes swept the room, the blood, the body, me standing in the center of it all covered in blood and his face went completely still as it was did, giving me nothing to work with and beside him, stood Jadya. My half-sister. The only family I had in this kingdom, the person I had trusted completely for the seven years of my marriage, the person who knew me better than anyone in the room. She was watching me with her hands folded in front of her and had an expression I had never seen on her face before. Something careful, sad and completely closed off. "Kayden." I crossed the room toward him and the head guard stepped into my path and I stopped but I kept my eyes on my mate. "Someone set this up. The note, Jadya, tell him. Tell him I would never..." "Aria, your hands." She looked at me with her head tilted slightly. "They're covered with her blood." "Your hands are soaked through." She said sharply. "That's not someone who just found her, it's someone who has been in this room for a long time." "I was trying to help her." My voice broke completely and I stopped trying to fight the tears."I was trying to... she was still warm, I thought if I kept... Jadya, please tell him to check my chambers. The note is right there, that's all I need." She was quiet for a moment, before she said carefully. "What note, exactly?" "The one slipped under my door." I said, voice desperate. "Her name was written on it. Someone led me here on purpose." "I was outside your chambers twenty minutes ago." Her voice was even. "I didn't see anything under your door." The floor moved under me or it felt like it did. "That's not possible." I stared at her. "Jadya, I held it in my hands were, I read it. Her name was on it in a handwriting I didn't recognize and I came here because I was scared and I..." "All I'm telling you is what I saw." She held my gaze without shaking. "I was there and there was nothing under your door." I couldn't breathe. The grief and the panic all happening at the same time inside my chest, fighting each for space while I was trying to hold myself together in front of a room full of people who had already decided what they believed and I was losing. "Kayden." I turned back to him, his eyes were red at the edges, which was the only thing on his face that he was human and not stone. "She is your daughter. Somebody murdered your daughter and they are watching you right now, from somewhere, watching you blame the wrong person. Please, I am begging you." Something moved across his face, he was there for a second and then it was gone. "Take her to the holding cells." He said coldly. "No..." I pulled against the head guard's grip before his hands even fully closed around my arms. "Kayden... Kayden, look at me, I did not do this." He turned away and that was it. He just turned away from me, toward Lena, toward the blood, he turned away like I was already gone. "Aria stop fighting." Jadya's voice came from behind me, her voice almost gentle. "You're only making it worse."