TSIREYA's POV
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“Because… Pril was the one who forced me to engage with you,” Jax answered.
WHAT THE f**k?!
I was completely shocked.
Pril, still wrapped in the blanket, suddenly crawled forward on the bed. Tears ran down her face. She grabbed Jax’s arm.
“Jax! Please!” she cried. “You have to marry Tsireya! She has already failed six engagements. If you cancel this one, the pack will banish her! She will become a cursed wolf with no home.”
“Please… marry my sister. I beg you.”
Pril looked at me with wet eyes. “I’m sorry, Sister. I didn’t mean for this to hurt you so much. I just… I just wanted you to stay safe in the pack.”
I felt even more disappointed than before. My own sister slept with my fiancé, and now she begged him to marry me.
Something inside me finally broke.
I looked at Pril, really looked at her.
“Stay safe in the pack?” My voice came out hoarse, hollow. “So your way of protecting me is by spreading your legs for my fiancé?”
Pril flinched as if I had slapped her. She shook her head frantically. “Uhmmm….I never wanted him to touch me, but I love him. I tried to stay away, I really did. But feelings are not something we can control.”
“And if you marry Jax, we can share a husband. He will marry me too after he marries you,” she continued.
I laughed again, this time longer, sharper, and full of bitterness. “How disgusting! You love him, he loves you, and yet I am the one who has to sacrifice my dignity so both of you can live happily without consequences.”
I turned to Jax. “So this is it? You betrayed me in my own home!”
Jax clenched his jaw. “Thinking twice! I don’t want to make Pril sad.”
“No,” I replied calmly, the fire inside my chest slowly turning into ice.
I shook my head hard, staring at Jax without a shred of hope left. “I do not need to marry you if you do not love me. I will not bind my life to a man whose heart belongs to someone else.”
Jax’s face hardened. His jaw tightened, his eyes cold as he looked at me. “If you refuse,” he said flatly, “you know the consequences. You will be expelled from this pack!”
My father immediately spoke, as if he had been waiting for that moment.
“Jax is right,” he said sharply. “Do you really want to be expelled, Tsireya? To become a cursed wolf with no home and no protection?”
My chest rose and fell rapidly. All eyes were on me, waiting for me to give in like I always did.
But this time, I was tired.
“Yes!” I answered loudly. “I want to be expelled. I would rather live on my own than marry a man who does not love me and betrayed me even before the sacred vows were spoken.”
“I would rather be expelled than marry a lying Alpha!” I added.
But—
Slap!
The blow landed hard on my cheek. My head snapped to the side, my ears ringing as heat spread across my face.
I stared at my father with wide eyes.
“Ungrateful brat!” he shouted. “You should be thanking your sister and Alpha Jax! They saved your life! They gave you a chance to remain in this pack, and you dare to reject this marriage?”
“You cursed daughter! No wonder the Moon Goddess keeps canceling your engagements!” my father yelled.
My mother began to sob, covering her face with both hands, but she said nothing.
I lifted my hand and touched my burning cheek, then smiled bitterly.
“Enough,” I said softly but clearly. “I am leaving. I will live on my own in the city. And this engagement… I am canceling it.”
Jax looked at me for a long moment. After a few seconds that felt like forever, he gave a small nod.
“Fine,” he said in a cold, official tone. “I, Alpha Jax, officially cancel the engagement to Tsireya and expel her from this pack!”
My mother’s cries grew louder.
My father pointed toward the door. “Get out!” he shouted. “Get out of this house, you ungrateful daughter!”
I did not answer. I did not look at them again.
I turned away and walked to my room, my back straight even as my heart shattered. I opened the closet and shoved my clothes into a suitcase without caring. My hands were shaking, but I did not stop.
A few minutes later, I dragged the suitcase out of the room, out of the house, and left both the home.
I left that pack with a single promise etched into my heart—I would start my life over in the city without them, without the rules that had always bound me, without a family name that had never truly protected me.
Once, the city was not a foreign place to me. For years, I had worked there as a lawyer. My name was fairly well known as a lawyer who never lost a case.
But six months ago, all of that stopped.
When Jax proposed to me, my father forced me to return home. I had to leave my job in the city and attend Luna classes, preparing myself to become the mate of an Alpha. They called it an honor. They called it my future. So for the sake of that marriage, I gave up everything.
And now, that marriage never existed.
As soon as I arrived in the city, the first thing I did was contact Laura.
Laura was an old friend of mine, and also a colleague. We had once worked at the same firm before I left the city. She was one of the few people who truly knew my abilities and did not see me as a cursed wolf.
I began looking for a small apartment using my savings. And I needed money to survive.
I needed a job. And Laura gave me a job recommendation.
“Come to Club 89 tonight. There is a man who needs a lawyer to reconcile three Alpha brothers,” Laura texted me.
I accepted immediately.
Yet a question lingered in my mind, “Three Alpha brothers need to be reconciled?”
“What is their case?”