"Lauvrai?"
My blood ran cold the moment my name slipped from the man's mouth, my eyes widening in both anxiousness and anticipation of the rest's reaction.
The man leaned closer to my face, studying it to make sure it was really me, until he gasped.
"Holy shit," he muttered under his breath. "Johnson, you wouldn't fucking believe this!"
Frowning, Johnson and Zaira walked over to us—the former's brows furrowing deeper when he saw me. Our eyes locked, but his held only confusion.
"Oh, shit. Right," the man chuckled to himself. "I forgot that you have amnesia."
My heart dropped, the hope that lingered just seconds ago shattering into a million pieces. I looked at Johnson again, searching for recognition, but he only returned a frown.
"This is Lauvrai Moonroe," the man—probably his friend, whom I hadn’t met before but who, for some reason but knew me—introduced. "She was your fiancée—the one I was telling you about. Remember her?"
Alpha Johnson stared deeper into me, until recognition finally crossed his eyes. "I was informed that I had a fiancée, but I don't know what she looks like. Can you remove her mask?"
"No—" Before I could finish my protest, the mask was already yanked away from my face—revealing it to everyone.
The moonlight caught the scar across it, making it glint as gasps and murmurs cut through the sound of the waves.
I tried to cover my face with my hands, but it was useless—everyone had already seen it.
"What the hell?" Alpha Johnson muttered, his voice filled with utter disgust. "I was engaged to... to this disgusting creature? What was I thinking?"
His friend's lips parted as he stared at me, confused, as he said, "S-She was beautiful—" He cut off his own words. "She was decent seven years ago. She didn’t have that scar."
Johnson was about to speak again, but Zaira interrupted. Tilting her head, she moved a little closer to get a better look at my face.
"Wait..." she said. "I know you."
"How?" Johnson asked.
"I was an orphan, husband." Zaira smeared her hand across Johnson’s chest, but it wasn’t that which took me aback—it was the word she used to call him.
Husband…
"As was Lauvrai," she said. "We grew up together in the orphanage, but we never got along because she was a bully."
My lips parted in shock.
She was the bully! She made my life miserable in that orphanage, treating me like a slave—just like the nuns did.
"Look." Zaira lifted her right hand, ensuring that everyone could see it. "I have this scar because of her. She burned my skin."
Another wave of gasps spread through the crowd—including mine—because no one else knew the truth except for me that she was lying.
I didn’t burn her! She got that scar when she tried to escape the orphanage during a blackout and accidentally knocked over a torch on her way out.
It had been a crime back then, but instead of punishing her, I was punished—because I was supposed to be looking after her.
The nuns hit me that night, burning my hands with candles so I would carry a "reminder" of the incident.
"She did that?" Alpha Johnson asked, his voice laced with anger—then what he said next sent me screaming. "Seize her!"
Their friends gripped both of my arms, restraining me as Alpha Johnson strode toward us. His expression was dark, while Zaira grinned behind him.
"You will regret hurting my wife," he said, and I winced in pain as he gripped my face.
Tears streamed down my cheeks uncontrollably from the way he was treating me, a stark contrast to how he had treated me before.
I didn’t want him back as my lover, because I loved my husband too much, but he should at least treat me as someone he once loved—not as his enemy, hurting me like he hadn’t promised to cherish me forever.
He raised his hand to slap me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, but the impact never came. I opened my eyes and found him staring at my neck.
His friend laughed when he also noticed what Johnson was staring at.
"She’s still wearing the engagement ring you gave her. What a desperate woman."
He was right about the first part—the ring Alpha Johnson had given me was dangling around my neck, made into a pendant on a necklace.
Hope flourished in my chest when Alpha Johnson gently took the ring in his hand—but it shattered when he yanked it away. The force was so brutal that the necklace snapped, grazing the skin of my neck and instantly drawing blood.
My tears poured harder, especially when he tossed it into the ocean.
I had been wrong when I said nothing had changed about him because the truth was, the change was drastic. He was no longer the Alpha Johnson Reaper I fell in love with. He was now a stranger to me—one I loathed more than anything.
"I think you're doing too much, husband," Zaira interrupted as she stepped forward. "My turn."
Grabbing a torch from the wall beside her, she stepped toward me. I screamed and thrashed harder as she brought it close to my hair. She burned it—the sickening smell suffocating me along with my sobs.
I tried to ask for help, but everyone was just watching—laughing at me. Their mockery and insults mingled with my cries, until finally... I just stopped.
Darkness swallowed my consciousness after they tossed me aside like garbage.
