Chapter 31 Stay Away From Her
Elara's POV
Liam walked into the receiving room with his arm suspended in a sling, moved directly to the coffee table, and placed a velvet jewelry box on its polished surface.
"This is the necklace you wanted," he said without preamble, his voice clipped and businesslike. "Now you need to fulfill your promise."
I looked up from the book in my lap, raised an eyebrow at his presumptuous tone, and set the book aside with deliberate slowness. "What promise? I don't recall making any promises to you or anyone else in your family."
His jaw tightened and irritation flashed across his face before he quickly suppressed it. "Vanessa's situation is critical. As someone who lived in our house for eighteen years, you can't just stand by and watch her suffer."
The sheer audacity of his assumption made me want to laugh, but I kept my expression composed and my voice calm. "Is that so?"
"If our family hadn't taken you in, you would have grown up in some orphanage," he continued, his tone taking on that particular quality of self-righteous certainty that I remembered so well from all those years of living under the Blackwood roof. "You owe us for that. Helping Vanessa now is just repaying a small part of that debt, and refusing seems incredibly ungrateful given everything we've done for you."
I allowed myself a small, bitter smile that didn't reach my eyes. "So in your mind, being used as a curse vessel for eighteen years, having my life force systematically drained to protect Vanessa from her own fate, somehow means I still owe your family gratitude? That's an interesting interpretation of debt."
I stood up slowly, keeping my movements deliberate and controlled. "The necklace I'll accept, since it was mine to begin with and your family had no right to keep it. But as for Vanessa's problems, I'm afraid I'll have to decline your request for assistance."
Liam's face darkened and he took a step forward, his good hand clenching into a fist at his side. "What kind of attitude is this? Do you have any idea what our family is going through right now? Dad and Mom have been bedridden with that mysterious illness, Vanessa was nearly killed by rogues and her legs are shattered, I injured my arm during what should have been routine training, and you're acting like none of this has anything to do with you?"
His voice rose slightly, taking on an accusatory edge that made my wolf stir with irritation deep in my chest. "These can't all be coincidences. You did something at that banquet, you humiliated our entire family in front of everyone, and now all these terrible things keep happening to us. Don't you feel even a little bit responsible?"
I studied his face for a long moment. "Responsible? For the natural consequences of actions your family chose to take? For the backlash that comes from breaking a blood formation that was never meant to be broken? No, Liam, I don't feel responsible for any of that."
He seemed to deflate slightly, his shoulders sagging, and then he tried a different approach, softening his voice into something that was probably meant to sound reasonable and conciliatory. "Look, I know you have complaints about the past. I understand that you feel like you were treated unfairly sometimes. But the bond of family should be stronger than old grudges, and sisters especially shouldn't hold onto resentment forever."
I took a step toward him and continued calmly, "Sisters? Vanessa used me as her personal punching bag from the time we were children. When she was in a bad mood, she would push me down the stairs and then stand at the top watching to see if I would get up. When she broke something valuable, she would blame me and watch while your parents beat me for it. When other pack children bullied me, she would stand by and laugh, and sometimes she would join in just to prove to them that I was beneath her."
I saw Liam's face go pale, saw his mouth open as if to protest, but I didn't give him the chance to interrupt. "Every punishment I took for her, every illness I suffered in her place, every moment of humiliation and pain that should have been hers but became mine instead, you witnessed, Liam. You were there. You saw it all happening."
"Those were just kids being kids," he said weakly, his voice lacking conviction even as he tried to defend his sister. "Vanessa has a temper, sure, but she never meant any real harm. You can't hold onto childhood squabbles for your entire life. It's not healthy."
"Childhood squabbles?" I repeated, and I heard my voice drop to something dangerous. "Is that what you call systematic abuse? Is that how you justify years of cruelty?"
He seemed to realize he was losing ground and changed tactics again, his voice taking on a lecturing tone. "Besides, you're older than Vanessa. As the elder sister, you should have been more understanding, more patient with her. Elder siblings are supposed to look after younger ones, supposed to give them grace when they make mistakes."
I opened my mouth to respond with words that would have been cutting and cruel, but before I could speak, the door to the receiving room burst open and Damian strode in with his eyes already flashing that deep amber gold.
He crossed the room in three long strides and positioned himself directly in front of me, creating a physical barrier between Liam and myself, and I felt the temperature in the room drop several degrees as his Alpha aura flooded out in waves of barely controlled fury.
"Being the elder sister means she should accept being used as a punching bag?" Damian's voice was low and dangerous, each word precisely enunciated in a way that made it clear he was holding back something much worse. "Being older means she should have let Vanessa blame her for things she didn't do, should have taken beatings for crimes she didn't commit, should have smiled and accepted every cruelty as her proper role?"
Liam took several steps backward, his face going white as Damian's Alpha pressure bore down on him like a physical weight, and I saw his good hand come up as if to shield himself even though Damian hadn't made any aggressive movement beyond simply standing there radiating controlled violence.
"I didn't mean it like that," Liam stammered, his eyes darting between Damian's face and the floor as he tried to find somewhere safe to look. "I was just saying that in families, sometimes the older children have to be more mature, have to set an example—"
"Set an example?" Damian cut him off with a laugh that held no humor whatsoever. "You want to talk about setting examples? Fine. Let's set one right now."
He took a step forward and Liam stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to maintain distance. "By your logic, since I'm older than you, it would be perfectly acceptable for me to beat you senseless right now and expect you to just accept it as the natural order of things. After all, you're younger, so you should show me respect and understanding when I decide to use you as a stress relief target."
"That's not the same thing," Liam protested weakly, but his voice shook and I could smell the fear coming off him in waves.
"No?" Damian's smile was sharp and cold. "Explain the difference. Explain to me how it's acceptable for Vanessa to abuse Elara for years but unacceptable for me to do the same to you. I'm very interested in hearing your reasoning."
Liam opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and no words came out because there was no logical argument he could make that wouldn't immediately reveal the hypocrisy of his position.
Damian let the silence stretch for a long, uncomfortable moment before continuing in that same dangerously quiet voice. "Elara is a Sterling now. She's the daughter of Silverstone Pack's Alpha, she's my sister, and she is under my protection. You, on the other hand, are a Beta's son from Shadowveil Pack, which means you have absolutely no authority to come into our home and lecture her about family obligations or proper behavior."
He took another step forward and his eyes blazed brighter, his canines extending slightly past his lips. "Your family used her as a blood sacrifice for eighteen years. You drained her life force to protect Vanessa from consequences that Vanessa herself created. And now you have the audacity to stand in our receiving room and suggest that she still owes you gratitude, still owes you service, still owes you anything at all?"
Damian's voice dropped even lower, became something that was barely human. "The suffering your family caused her, the years you stole from her, the childhood you destroyed, none of that can ever be made right. And you dare to come here talking about what's fair, about what's owed?"
I watched Liam's face cycle through several emotions, fear and shame and anger and confusion all fighting for dominance, and I saw the moment when he decided to try one last desperate appeal, saw him straighten his shoulders and force his chin up even though his hands were shaking.
"Please," he said, and his voice cracked on the word. "Elara, we grew up together. We spent eighteen years under the same roof. Doesn't that mean anything to you? Can you really stand by and watch Vanessa suffer when you have the power to help her?"
I moved around Damian, placing a gentle hand on his arm to signal that I would handle this, and I saw his eyes flicker down to me before he nodded slightly and stepped aside. I walked to the coffee table and picked up the velvet jewelry box, opened it to verify that the moonstone necklace was indeed inside, and then closed it with a soft click.
"The necklace I'll accept," I said, my voice perfectly calm. "As for Vanessa, if she wants my help, she can come and ask for it herself."
Liam's face twisted with frustration. "She can't come herself! Her legs are shattered, she's bedridden in the medical center. You know she can't physically get here."
"Then I suppose she'll have to wait until she's recovered enough to make the trip," I said with a small shrug. "Also, stay away from her. The more you're exposed to the backlash energy, the more misfortunes will follow. "
He stared at me with wide eyes. "That's insane. You expect me to abandon my sister when she needs support?"
"I expect you to use whatever intelligence you possess to recognize patterns," I replied coldly. "But whether you believe me or not is your choice. Just don't be surprised when the next catastrophe is even worse than this one."
I turned and walked toward the door, leaving him with one final word. "Show him out."