The atmosphere froze.
“Really? Then go ahead and marry.” The moment those words escaped my lips, Amelia’s crocodile tears paused, she had expected me to rush out crying and deny the false allegations and yet I gave her nothing.
“Enough.” Dominic's cold gaze lined with disgust pierced through me, the disbelief in his eyes gave way to profound disappointment.
“Everyone leave. The party is over.”
The guests dispersed at once, some casting pitying glances toward Amelia while others looked at me with open contempt.
When the balcony was empty, he turned to me, his voice low and deadly. “So this is what you’ve stooped to. You couldn’t win my favor… so you came after her instead!”
“Are you going to be swayed by every single sentence she says Alpha Dominic?” My cold response chilled the atmosphere.
“Amelia came to provoke me herself, even going as far as to call our children ‘illegitimate bastards’. You can simply check the surveillance stone and see what I am saying is true.”
Anticipating potential trouble, I took plenty of precautions of installing several extra surveillance stones and sure enough, they had now proven their worth.
Amelia clearly had not anticipated such a contingency, a flicker of panic flashed through her eyes.
The moment Dominic noticed this, and a look of suspicion clouded his gaze.
Just then, Alec and Leo like a pair of protective little cubs stepped forward to shield Amelia with their bodies.
Their childish voices rang out, firm and unwavering:
"No need to check the surveillance stones! Its true we were called bastards!" My heart almost sighed before the next words detonated like a bomb.
"But it wasn’t auntie who called us that, it was mom!"
My eyes widened before my entire being trembled as if shrouded with disbelief.
“Bad mommy!” Alec shouted, his face red with fury. "You hurt Auntie! It was you who told us that if we follow Auntie we will be called illegitimate!”
Leo pushed me back with his tiny hands,. "Go away! We don't want you! Auntie is good. You're bad!
We won’t let Auntie marry that old man!"
In their innocent, childish voices, they uttered the cruelest of lies.
And in doing so, they completely extinguished the last embers of love still lingering in my heart.
“Shutup!” I admonished sharply, raising my voice at the children for the first time making them cower back, stumped that the mother who always listened to their tantrums would finally snap.
“Amelia, that marriage alliance you are framing me for was surely accepted by mom, but it wasn’t for you! It was for me!”
"Enough of your lies!" Dominic snapped, cutting me off with a sharp rebuke.
"Our sons are only a few years old why would they lie? Furthermore, who in this entire pack is not aware of your fucking obsession with me since childhood. Let alone marriage, you cannot even survive a day without me!”
“You really think I can’t live without you?” I let out a faint, humorless breath, my lashes lowering for a moment before I looked at him again, as if seeing him clearly for the first time.
“Let alone fight her over you…”A soft scoff slipped past my lips.
“I would rather throw you away myself-”
Before the last word even settled
Smack.
The force snapped my head to the side, my body losing balance as I crashed onto the floor, blood trickled from the corners of my mouth resembling nothing so much as bloody tears.
For a second, I didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Only the sharp ringing in my ears remained and the stunned silence that followed.
Dominic’s hand was still raised in the air when he looked at my wide shivering irises that trembled as his limbs froze with the gravity of what had transpired.
All my life, not once had my parents raised their hands at me. All throughout our marriage Dominic never once physically abused me and yet tonight for the sake of Amelia…he even crossed that limit.
“Elara…you…it was an accident.”
The humiliation was horrifying as the hot tears trailing my eyes presented a blurry image of my mate that fathered two of my children looking at me with a guilty expression.
Amelia innocently sobbed with her palms covering her mouth. "Oh my god, I..It was never my intention to create a rift between you...I cannot believe I caused harm to my sister."
“Elara,” Dominic whispered unsure “Listen to me, if you apologise to Amelia, I will forget this incident and we can act like nothing happened at all.”
“No! This..I never wanted this sister.” Amelia’s eyes flashed with provocation as she sobbed before running away like she was an innocent preson who got bullied until the end.
“Amelia!” Dominic immediately called before throwing me his last words of so called ‘sympathy’.
“Elara, go home and apply some medicine. You have disappointed me alot so whatever happens after this is your fault.” Like a master commanding his slave he left me behind as he went searching for his true-love without looking back even once.
Two childish voices drifted as I barely stood, my body still reeling from the aftershocks.
"Brother, Mommy looks so miserable. Do you think what we did was a little too mean?"
"No. Dad said we only have one real mom and that is Auntie Amelia, this woman just took our real mom’s place and drove her out."
"That’s true! Besides, she loves us so much, she will forgive us soon. Come on, let’s go find Auntie Amelia..."
The voices faded into the distance as I walked back to the Alpha’s mansion, the cool evening air caressing the deep wounds on my chest as I looked at the place I gave five years of my life and slowly took off the family potrait that I had so lovingly decorated my ‘home’ with.
I packed my stuff wordlessly completely emptying the master bedroom as a single call stole the breath from my lungs:
“Elara” My mother cried on the other end “Your dad has come back to the White Luna Pack and thanks to you he has been showing signs of waking up!”
