Chapter 79

“If you dare even call her that,” Reggo muttered under his breath.

Arsen ignored Reggo’s comment, continuing his interrogation to Alexis.

“Yet, she beat you. Was that what caused the altercation? It took away your chance at the Luna position, didn’t it?” Arsen questioned.

“No,” Alexis answered a bit too angry for it to be believable.

“Then why was it?” Arsen asked.

“Aelin doesn’t deserve to be Luna. Look at her, Arsen, please! She’s not meant to be one. She isn’t part of the North, she hasn’t been served in Faljketijn or know any of the Northern languages. She isn’t one of us and supposedly she’s our Luna? And she’s not even a warrior? What type of twisted joke is that? Oh! But when it is time to show up, she gets hit by a strike of luck sent by the Moon herself and suddenly she can beat me in a 1 on 1 combat?” Alexis cries. “No! It is not fair, so yeah, we went after her to scare her off, frighten her a bit. Show her whose boss again and spread some justice.”

“What was Reggo’s position in all of this?” Arsen asked Alexis precisely.

Alexis laughed, “your mistake, Arsen, was sending Aelin to Falj as weak as she was and expecting everyone to be okay with her.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Reggo was the first one to not like Aelin one bit. What do you mean by ‘the Luna that we’ve been waiting for for years and years, is so weak that she can’t even train in her wolf form? Please. We all wanted to push her. I guess at first we believed we had good intentions, hoping that perhaps she would actually step up, but when she did, it was such a surprise, it no longer even felt like a win.”

“Anyone else feels the need to add anything else?”

One of the guys looked at Solak and nodded his head, “I would like to say something, Alpha.” He said and the fact that he had called him Alpha when Alexis had called him Arsen, made me realise how disrespectful in this position it was for her to be calling him Arsen and not Alpha.

“Go on, Olan,” Arsen allowed.

“I think it is important to explain that we were not at any point planning on killing Aelin. We were merely trying to scare her a bit like Alexis explained. We didn’t mean to get this out of hand, but, Alpha,” he paused, looked at me accusingly and then looked back at Arsen. “She was badmouthing the pack, disrespecting us and the rest of pack members and even went as far as to say that she was going to reject you.”

Arsen didn’t flinch at those words the way that perhaps they had thought that he would. I don’t know if they took that as a sign of strength in our bond, or rather the opposite and the truth, that I had been the one to break those news up to him.

“Solak’s actions were merely a reaction to such disrespectful behavior displayed to not only the pack but also you, Alpha. It doesn’t stop Solak’s nor, for example, my own actions being justified but at a point where we are being threatened by the Vampire Kingdom, it is important to think about where Aelin’s loyalties lie and quite frankly, I don’t think they are with this pack or, and forgive me, Alpha, neither with you.”

I look at Arsen to try to understand what he’s thinking but I come back empty-handed.

“I haven’t heard Aelin’s testimony yet,” Arsen confessed to the group. “So, I’ll offer you all this instead, today can go either two ways. I can deliberate what your punishment will be without knowing Aelin’s full testimony or with Aelin’s testimony. Which one do you prefer?”

My head snapped towards Arsen’s direction in shock. What was he trying to do?

*Arsen,* I call him.

*I’m not going to repeat myself again, Aelin,* he mind linked back.

Arsen turn around to face me, knowing that as the 8 werewolves in front of us discuss their final decision, we have a moment to ourselves.

Arsen is calmed and poised, a hint of smugness present on his face that infuriates me. I look at him biting down my jaw with anger written all over my face.

“We have come,” Olan began, “to the unanimous decision that we will take our punishment without Aelin’s testimony.”

Arsen nods his head. I look away momentarily, trying to distance myself from the situation to hide as well my anger as possible.

“Okay, then as you all know you will be in dungeons from now on until you serve your sentence in Faljketijn. Beta Cullen will inform you all of your sentences, at which camp and when tomorrow afternoon. He will shortly come to escort you to your cells,” Arsen dictated. He got up from his chair and nodded and then looked at me indicating me to do the same.

I followed suit and got up. He positioned his hand on my back just like he had when we had arrived yet this time I doubt that they actually believed it was anything more than just an act.

*Are you going to leave them here until Cullen comes without someone watching over them?* I asked him.

*They don’t need a babysitter,* he replied sarcastically.

We left the room and he closed the door. We crossed paths with Cullen as we left the pack house, who offered him a cordial nod of the head and to me an awkward smile.

As soon as we stepped out the pack house, I decided to let loose.

“What the hell is your problem?” I shout at him. “Why would you do that? Why would you not ask for my story of events? Last time I remembered, I was the one victim of harassment for months and the one who they almost killed. One would think my story is of significance, don’t you think?”

“Aelin, calm down.”

“You may think that you are the biggest victim ever because I rejected you for a total of less than an hour, but *I* was the one who endured hours and hours of harassment that made me feel so horrible that I genuinely felt as though rejecting my mate was the best option to not only myself but you too,” I explained. “Can’t you put yourself in my shoes for a moment and think about how bad I must’ve been hurting to believe that that would be the least worse solution?” I ask him defeated. “Be mad at me all you want, Arsen, it is your choice and I understand where your anger is coming from, but don’t ridicule me in front of anyone ever again. Specially not in front of these people.”

“I didn’t ridicule you, Aelin.”

“Then, what was that, Arsen? Because you knew as much as I did that those people would do everything but have you listen to my testimony. You gave them a get-out-of-jail free card to the people that even when both seating there, they still took it upon themselves to take jabs at me as much as they could.”

“I didn’t give them a get-out-of-jail free card and I didn’t feel the need to listen to your testimony, to decide their punishment so why bother?” He argued.

“What do you mean, why bother? Are you out of your mind, Arsen? Seriously!” I demanded his full attention, coming to a stop in the middle of our way back home. He stopped too and turned towards me. I looked into his eyes, my accusatory index finger ready to poke into his chest, yet the lack of emotion in his eyes pulled me back. In shock, I observed for another second his dark eyes and I took a step back. I gasped. “You don’t care, do you? Why is it? I should’ve been strong enough to sustain their harassment for months without getting to me, is that it? Or, is it ‘I should’ve been strong enough to fight Solak off, so it would’ve been my fault if he had killed me’? Or-.”

“Aelin, enough! Wanna know why I didn’t have to listen to your testimony? Because if you think for even a second that those people aren’t going to get as big and as horrifying of a sentence as they are, then you would be wrong. I don’t need to hear it because in my head, they all tried to kill you. Each one of them held your puppy body down and was an inch away from going ham on your neck. So yeah, I don’t need to hear it to call a punishment.”