Chapter 184
Chapter 184
RHEA
I watch her, Casey, and then I watch him, Aron. This time from the other side of the room. They haven’t stopped speaking. How much catching up is there
to do?
My eyes barely stray away from them. I don’t understand. There are so many other people, so many other relatives, so why does Aron keep talking to her?
And it doesn’t help that Layla has made her own assumptions.
I watch them.
The way they stand, the way she smiles, the way his hand stays on her elbow, and the way he listens.
I don’t like it. Not one bit.
I want to go there, and I want to confront him, but that will only make me look like the mad, jealous, unstable female he will have to explain away. Sol
don’t move. At all.
I stay rooted, spine stiff and my fingers wrapped too tightly around another glass of wine. My wolf keeps pacing inside me. She doesn’t understand restraint the way I do. She doesn’t care about appearances or diplomacy, and that this all might just seem innocent.
All she sees is a threat.
And worse, she sees Aron letting it happen.
Casey leans in again. Her fingers trail down his forearm, briefly, but intimately enough to make something split inside me.
And Aron? He doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink.
And just like that, every doubt Layla fed me starts to crawl back up my throat like smoke.
Perhaps I’m not enough. Once Aron takes his position as the Alpha of the pack, the others will follow. There are hundreds of wolves all over the Northern territory that will look to him. They’ll want strength, and after knowing that his wolf survived the poison, they will see him as a better option than ever
before.
Aron could change, he could take another. Someone better, stronger and smarter. A much more capable mate. Someone who isn’t dead, and has blood
on her hands, or is losing her sanity.
Fuck.
I take a deep breath and step away because that is the best thing I can do right now.
I leave my half–empty glass on the tray of a passing server and slip through the corridor leading to the washrooms. I just need a second.
My eyes meet my own as I look up at the mirror and my reflection.
First, I had to fight with my own self, with that woman who lies in that room and
now this.
This isn’t fair.
I don’t think I deserve this, especially after all the suffering and the pain I, Rhea, have endured.
No.
The door flings open behind me and my eyes quickly snap at the woman, the same fucking woman that was with Aron. Casey. She steps inside without looking at me and heads straight to the sink.
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Chapter 184
I don’t take my eyes off her
She takes her lipstick from her purse and begins applying it. I tell myself, over and over again, that I can’t lose my control, that I can’t just go up to her and snap her pretty neck. That’s not going to be good in any way.
I don’t think we’ve met,” she glances at me briefly and says. “Are you from around here?”
Igrit through my teeth. “I live here.”
She pauses, lipstick halfway to her mouth and then lets out a small, amused sound. “Oh,” she says. “You must be that–woman.”
Rhea.”
H
She puts her lipstick down and then looks at me. I stare right back at her.
“You’re a guest here. It would do well not to disrespect me.” I tell her bluntly,
She chuckles, “I’ve travelled from so far away, just to be here for my family and my friends. I would have expected a warmer welcome. From a lady of the house, if nothing else. But perhaps not all of us are cut out for the responsibility that comes with power and influence, hm?”
“And perhaps not all of us are cut out for subtlety,” I reply. “Or knowing when to shut up.”
“So the rumours are true? You’ve become a mad woman?”
Something inside me snaps at that. At first, I don’t get it what she means. How could rumours already have been spread? No one knows that I died, and I
know for sure Aron will keep my death a secret.
“What did you say?”
She takes a step forward, “They say you’re gone, that you’ve become a Council’s bitch. That your mind is broken. That you cannot bear a child, and Aron has no use for you anymore. That you were cast away by your own family and now you’ve no place to call home.” She leans down to my ear, “Not even here, where you are nothing more than a whore he keeps, until he finds someone appropriate, more suitable for him.”
My fists clench, jaw tightening as I register her words.
This woman thinks she can take me. Take him. Take what is mine so easily.
She can’t–I’ve to understand that.
I’ve to breathe, and I’ve to get out of here before I do something that will ensure whatever she has said.
Before I can even more a muscle, she speaks again.
“Don’t worry,” she tells me. “I’m sure his family will find a suitable woman for him soon enough.”
His family. His non–existent family. His mother, who’d cared less, and his sister, who fled the country when his father died. I know everything about them.
He doesn’t care for them.
“Or maybe he’ll look for himself soon enough-”
My hand moves on its own, grabbing her wrist and squeezing it hard, too hard. She immediately fights back, as if she knows that I was about to snap. Her nails scratch my arm, drawing blood.
I barely register the pain.
“You don’t know a thing about him,” I spit, yanking her closer. “You think being pretty and well–bred makes you worthy of him?”
She twists in my grip, trying to strike at me, but I block it, shoving her into the counter so hard the edge knocks the breath from her lungs.
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Chapter 184
She recovers fast, too fast. She’s trained after all, like Layla told me. Her elbow connects with my ribs, and my breath is knocked out.
When I look at her face, all I see is fight. She wants me to fight her. She wants me to lose it. Because if I do… if I let the madness take over, I’ll snap her and everyone here will see. And they’ll never forget. His mother will see, his sister will see, his relatives will see, and he will see.
If I draw blood, he’ll see me differently.
