It Was An Accusation!

It Was An Accusation!
Chapter 58
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Elena

I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response. I just walked away, my spine straight, my head high, even as her quiet laughter followed me. Inside, I was shattering.

The day passed in a blur of forced smiles and avoided glances. I attended to minor Luna duties, signing off on supply orders, but my mind wasn’t there. Each time I did all those, I had remembered the time Kael banned me from during such, but now he didn’t even give two fucks about me. Well I suppose that was the perks of having a sister. Every hushed conversation I passed felt like it was about me. Every glance felt like a judgment.

I found myself seeking out Rhea, needing an anchor. I found her near the training grounds, checking over some patrol schedules.

“Hey,” I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.

She looked up, and her smile instantly faded into a look of concern. “Whoa. You look like hell. What’s wrong?”

I just shook my head, unable to say the words out loud. How could I tell my her that my mate, the Alpha, was questioning if our child was his?

She studied my face for a long moment, her own expression hardening. “It’s the rumors, isn’t it? I’ve heard them. Stupid, vicious gossip.” She slammed the ledger she was holding shut. “I’ll find out who started it and rip their tongue out.”

“It was Elara,” I said flatly.

Rhea’s eyes flashed dangerously. “That snake. I knew it. I’ll deal with her.”

“No,” I said, grabbing her arm. “That’s what she wants. She wants a reaction. She wants to make us look unstable. Just… leave it.”

Rhea looked like she wanted to argue, but she finally nodded, though the anger didn’t leave her eyes. “Fine. For now. But if she comes near you…”

“I know,” I said, feeling a small flicker of warmth at her protectiveness.

Dinner was a special kind of torture. Kael was there, already seated at the head of the table when I arrived. The table was long and the distance between us felt like a canyon.

He didn’t look at me. He just stared at his plate, his jaw tight. The silence was so heavy it was a physical weight on my shoulders. I picked at my food, my appetite gone. The steamed vegetables tasted like ash.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The quiet was worse than the shouting.

“The eastern border patrol reported all quiet today,” I said, my voice too loud in the silent room.

He grunted in acknowledgment, not looking up.

“The healer dropped by. She says everything is progressing normally.” I tried to keep my voice even, to sound like a Luna giving a report, not a mate begging for a scrap of attention.

Another grunt.

My composure snapped. “Kael, look at me.”

He finally lifted his head. His eyes were guarded, shuttered. There was no warmth in them. No love. Just a cold, distant assessment that made my blood run cold.

“What?” he asked, his voice flat.

“Are we just not going to talk?” I asked, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to steady it. “Are you really going to sit there and pretend you didn’t accuse me of the worst kind of betrayal last night?”

He put his fork down with a deliberate click. “I asked a question. I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

“It was an accusation!” I shot back, my control slipping. “How can you even… how can that thought even be in your head?”

He was silent for a long moment, his gaze boring into me. I saw the conflict there, the doubt warring with the bond. And it was the doubt that was winning.

“The rumors are everywhere, Elena,” he said finally, his voice low and rough.

“And you believe them?” The question was a whisper, a plea.

“I believe my pack is talking,” he said, avoiding the question. “I believe it’s causing unrest. And I believe…” He paused, choosing his words carefully, and each one was a knife. “I believe the timeline is close. People talk. It’s… a natural question.”

A natural question. The words eviscerated me. He was trying to be logical, to be the Alpha assessing a threat to his line. But he was also my mate. He was supposed to be my shelter from this exact thing.

Tears welled in my eyes, hot and humiliating. I would not let them fall in front of him. “So that’s it? You hear some vicious gossip spread by a jealous she-wolf, and your first instinct is to question me? To question our child?”

“My first instinct is to protect my pack!” he said, his own voice rising for the first time, a flash of heat in the icy demeanor. “And that includes securing the line of succession! This isn’t just about us, Elena! This is about the future of this entire pack! An heir whose legitimacy is questioned is a weak heir. It’s a vulnerability. Don’t you understand that?”

I understood. I understood that he was choosing his duty as Alpha over his duty as my mate. I understood that my worth had been reduced to the unquestionable legitimacy of my womb.

I stood up, my chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. The sound echoed in the vast, empty dining room.

“I understand perfectly,” I said, my voice shaking with a mixture of hurt and fury. “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.”

I turned and walked out, half expecting him to call me back, to stop me, to say something, anything, to take it back.

He didn’t.

I made it to the hallway before the first sob broke free. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the sound, my entire body trembling. I couldn’t go back to that bedroom. I couldn’t be anywhere near him.

I ended up in the library, hiding in a dark corner between two tall bookshelves that smelled of old paper and forgotten stories. I slid down to the floor, pulled my knees to my chest, and finally let the tears come.

He doubted me. He doubted our child. The bond between us felt thin and frayed, stretched to its breaking point. Elara’s poison was working. She didn’t need to overthrow me. She was making me dismantle my own life from the inside out.