Chapter 144 144
Aurélie POV
“You helped her destroy the pack?”
The words barely make it past my lips. The fury building inside me is no longer just emotion it’s physical. I can feel it pounding through my heart, flooding my veins, stretching my muscles tight as my wolf pushes forward, ready to take control.
He feels nothing. No remorse. No hesitation.
Every word that spills from his mouth makes my stomach churn. I want to rip out his tongue, to silence him before he can speak any further about the worst day of my life. He talks about it like it was a task completed successfully an assignment carried out with precision. Something worthy of praise. Something he’d proudly place at the top of a résumé.
He’s proud.
Proud of tearing a pack apart.
What destroys me even more is knowing my father would have felt every single death in his bones, through the bond he shared with his people each loss another second ticking closer to the moment he couldn’t protect my mother. A slow, merciless countdown.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the image slams into me: my mother watching my father die in front of her. The sword left embedded in her chest afterward, deliberately placed a message, a grotesque display meant for maximum effect. If Fabrice and I hadn’t been at the lake that day, I would have been slaughtered too. Without question.
She wanted me dead.
That’s what she wanted then.
And even now… it’s still what she wants.
Even Théo is shaking beside us, fury rolling off him in waves. He was there that day. He couldn’t reach them in time. I know the life sentence he carries the knowledge that his Alpha and Luna died before he could protect them. He was the one who tried to stop me from entering the house, knowing that once I saw them like that, I would never be the same.
“That Darkvale pack and her mate’s pack was my finest work,” the man declares proudly.
The next sound is Damien moving.
His hand clamps around the rogue’s throat, cutting off his breath mid-word.
She truly is a monster.
Not only did she destroy my pack she ordered the murder of her own mate. Her own mate. She-devil doesn’t even begin to describe her. How do you kill the one the Moon Goddess bound to you? How do you defy something so sacred?
Does she even have blood in her veins? Does she breathe the same air Damien and I do?
I remember how convincingly she played the victim back then. How I comforted her. How I helped Élodie and Denise prepare her room. All the while, she had already slaughtered her mate and his pack just to claim the title of Bloodnight Luna.
“She killed her own mate why?” Damien growls.
The sound snaps me back into the present. The animal pinned in front of him tries to answer, but Damien’s grip is unyielding. He loosens it just enough to allow the bastard to speak.
“I—I don’t know,” the man pants. “Something about him being weak. About her wanting her ex back. She didn’t like that he’d married, that he had a contractual Luna.” Panic sharpens his voice as his hands claw uselessly at Damien’s arm.
I look at Damien, and he looks back at me.
No words are needed.
In his eyes, I see the remorse of a true leader a man who understands that power is earned, not stolen. Not seized through the blood of innocents. He carries guilt, yes… but it’s no longer his burden to bear.
She was a black widow.
Her web of deception had been spun long before she ever returned to the Bloodnight pack. Damien was nothing more than an innocent caught in it.
“Who exactly are you both?” the rogue asks hoarsely, eyes darting between us, confusion finally settling in.
I step forward.
“I am Aurélie Roux,” I say coldly, each word a sharpened blade. “Alpha of the Darkvale pack. The Alpha of the pack you destroyed.”