Chapter 26
I couldn’t help but feel the fear clutching at my insides. The maids nervous glances and hushed whispers only added to my growing unease. I wondered what they were whispering about, it clawed at my insides. I was a nervous wreck and I didn’t know what to do with myself. My fingernails bore the brunt of my worries.
I picked at them until they were bl**y and ugly. “You’re going to be alright” were the words of Brax but they weren’t coming to pass. I was not alright in the slightest. I was going insane. I wish I had just told him all that was wrong with me when he asked, he wouldn’t have been able to do much to help me, being the devil’s brother and all but I would at least feel a lot better than I did now.All content © N/.ôvel/Dr/ama.Org.
Most of the time I was locked up in the cell, what I needed more than an escape plan was someone to talk to. Someone to share my feelings with, someone to help me work through the webs of my mind. I needed someone to get my mind off the millions of worries that I was entangled in.
I needed someone to tell my feelings to, to laugh with, to cry with, to tell my thoughts to. Sometimes, I just needed someone to look at, to sit next to, to rest my head on whenever I felt weak, whenever I felt like it was the end for me. To not be so alone. My confidence was faltering. My self esteem was almost completely gone and what I was putting on did nothing to help matters at all.
I looked like a complete fool. Less than the rest of my peers. Wretched.
I was so shabbily dressed that it was painful to look down at myself. They could have at least given me a better cloth, one with no holes in it. One that didn’t look like I used to be mentally unstable and recently just found sanity or that I had a huge fight with a wolf and it won. No one would take one look at me and say that I used to be a Luna, that I used to be respected all around the pack, that I used to be untouchable.
I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me, at least I would be safe, at least no one would be trying to take my life every thirty minutes.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to sound calm, but my voice betrayed my anxiety. As I walked behind Aston from hist office, I had hoped that he would change his mind about taking me along. If it wouldn’t bring me hurt and shame, then Aston wouldn’t do it and I was threading on a very thin line between sanity and madness.
Everything he was putting me through was threatening to drive mad and there was only so much that I could handle. My pride was being squished right in front of my very eyes, everything that I’ve ever known and loved, broken. My lifestyle changed right in front of my very eyes.
The maids exchanged uneasy looks before one of them spoke up. “It’s a meeting for all alpha kings. Every pack leader will be present.” My heart sank as realization dawned on me. This was Aston’s plan all along to humiliate me in front of the entire werewolf elite. As if he hadn’t already done enough I had hoped that it would be only Dax that we were meeting. 1 had even dreamed that he would save me from Aston. It wasn’t going to be easy to rescue me in a gathering of alphas now was it? And last I checked, Dax wasn’t exactly the most liked among the alphas or the least liked. He was completely hated and he only went there out of duty.
Why would Aston want to take me there to add to my pain?
As if he hadn’t already put me through so much. As if he hadn’t already made my life more miserable than anyone’s life ought to be and now he wanted to do it publicly too? My heart was beating really fast-and I considered running away.
If I could flee successfully then I wouldn’t have to go through the shame that Aston was about to put me through but if I wasn’t successful, then I would risk the life of my child and it was not a risk that I was willing to take.
Ever since I had gotten to this pack, I had wanted nothing more than to escape. Every time it felt like I was about to die, I thought back to the time when I almost escaped. If only I wasn’t too weak, I would have. If only I had tried a little more harder than I did, I would have managed to get myself out of this mess, I would have gotten my child out of this mess called a pack.
I stepped in behind Aston and he turned to look at me with a disgusted look on his face. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he barked at me and stared back at him in confusion. I didn’t understand what he was mad at me for. If anyone was supposed to be furious, it was me that was about to go through the most embarrassing moment of my life and not him.
“Get the f***k out of my car before I fling you out!” he growled in my face and I almost tripped and fell out of the car.
“How dare you think I would be in the same car with the likes ofyou? You really are as shameless as they say you are.” He spat and slammed the door in my face. The maids whispered and giggled behind me and I felt like disappearing into thin air. The real embarrassment hadn’t even begun yet and I already felt like dying. He made me feel like human trash and it
hurt like hell
He barely let me step out of the car before slamming the door and it almost threw me off balance. His car zoomed off as soon as the door shut and another much smaller and less sophisticated one pulled in front of the maids and I. The maids all got in their positions as soon as the car stopped and I just stared in confusion, not wanting to be more embarrassed than f already was.
“Get in or you’ll have to meet us there on foot and you know how the alpha feels about lateness,” The maids mocked and I squeezed in the car with them, tears prickling at my eyes. My throat was parched and my chest tightened in pain. The tears. threatened to spill but I did my best to hold back.
The maids made jest of me for most of the trip, calling me all sort of names like I wasn’t right there in their midst. It was hard to hold back but I knew talking back would only cause even more problems for myself and I wasn’t exactly in the mood for more problems than I was about to face.
As we arrived at the destination, the maids were instructed to wait outside, leaving me alone and vulnerable. I was roughly shoved into the meeting room, and I stumbled, falling to the ground. As I looked up, I met the gaze of several men seated around the room, their faces twisted in mocking grins. My face burned with mortification.
But then, my eyes locked onto Dax’s, and time seemed to stand still. His piercing stare held mine, and for an instant, the snickering and sneers faded into the background. It was as if we were the only two people in the room, connected by an unspoken understanding that once used to be our thing.
We could always know what the other was saying by just looking at each other but now I couldn’t recognise the pair of eyes that were staring back at me. I couldn’t tell if he was happy to see me or he didn’t care. If he pitied me, if he wanted to protect me the way he used to. If the bond we used to share still meant a thing, anything.
The room’s fancy decorations and polished wooden table seemed to blur into insignificance as our gazes held. I sensed a flicker of something in Dax’s eyes, a glimmer of empathy or perhaps even solidarity if I dared to dream. It was a fleeting moment, but it gave me the strength to rise to my feet, my head held high, and face the ridicule that awaited me.
The alpha kings’ laughter and jeers slowly returned to the forefront, but I stood tall, my heart still racing from the brief connection with Dax. I knew I had to endure this drama, but with Dax’s presence, I felt a glimmer of hope that I might just make it through this nightmare unscathed