Chapter 156 A Queen Who Demanded To Be Seen.
Chapter 156
Rosa's POV
The door to Jax's quarters was heavy.
I pushed it open anyway.
The first thing that came to my attention was the quietness. The kind quietness that presses against your eardrum and makes you aware of even the tiniest needle that drops to the floor.
Jax sat behind his reading table. His head was bent low over a book. Not a thin, easy book. A thick, heavy one.
A kind that completely paralyzes a rodent if it falls on it. The pages were thick , dark and worn at the edges with some look that could dread someone.
From where I stood, I could not read what it said. Something about pack politics. Pack economics. The kind of reading that kings and leaders lose whole afternoons inside.
He did not look up when I walked in.
Not even a little.
I stood a few steps away from his table. Far enough that I could not see the back cover of the book clearly. Close enough that he could surely see me if he simply lifted his eyes from the page.
Jax didn't raise his eyes to my face for a split second.
I folded my hands in front of me. I straightened my back. I reminded myself why I had come. Brielle. This was about Brielle. That girl had already spent enough time locked away in that cold cell. One more night was already one more than she deserved. I was going to walk out of this room with her freedom, or I was going to make this room very uncomfortable for everyone inside it.
Starting with the man pretending I did not exist.
"My lord," I said.
My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. It shook slightly at the edges, like a candle flame in a light breeze. I cleared my throat quietly.
"I am here to see you."
Nothing.
He turned a page.
Just turned it. Slowly. Like my words were a bird that had flown past the window and meant absolutely nothing.
I waited. One breath. Two. Three.
"Can I have a minute of your attention, please?"
Still nothing. His eyes moved across the lines of his book the way eyes move when they are truly reading. Not pretending. Truly reading. As if the words on those pages were the most important words in the entire world, and everything else, including me, was simply furniture.
I stood there like a statue someone had placed in the middle of the room and forgotten about.
And that was when something started to bubble up inside me. It started low, in my stomach, and it rose slowly, the way water rises when you leave a pot too long on the fire. It was anger. But not the deep, real kind that comes from a place of true pain. No. This was the kind I was choosing. The kind I was picking up carefully and deciding to use. A tool, not a feeling.
Because if Ryder, that worthless, small-hearted man, had managed to make me feel invisible, I was not about to let Jax do the same. Not without a fight. Not without noise.
I thought about where I stood now compared to where I had come from. The small room in my father's house. The competition. The sharing. Looking at Mila every morning and measuring myself against her the way you measure flour, always wondering if you had enough. Always wondering if you were enough.
And now I am here. Queen. My name is spoken with respect inside this pack. My seat had not moved. My position had not cracked. I had built this. I had worked for this. Every careful step, every decision, every sacrifice had brought me to this room, to this title, to this life.
I was not going to stand here and be ignored like an omega waiting by a door.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
The words burst out of me like water through a broken wall. And with them came tears. They came quickly, rolling down my face. They were real enough to look at. Real enough to feel against my skin. But they did not come from a deep place. They came from the surface, where I kept things I needed when I needed them.
Jax did not move.
He did not flinch. He did not sigh. He didn't lower his book for a minute.
His book sat on the table, right in front of him like a stone sitting in the same spot for more than a hundred and waiting to be uplifted.
I roared in anger.
I prayed to the moon goddess and after that, severally I begged for attention but you gave nothing in return. My body, thirsty for your warmth. The other when I approached you pushed me away like I was a piece of trash. Like I was no longer your queen. Like I was no longer the crown you put in the head.”
My voice piqued. So intense that, anyone standing outside or walking by both the young omega in form pack maids or security would hear my voice.
My voice was high enough to shake the roof of the building and spilled out the gap beneath the door.
"If you no longer want anything to do with me, then call the elders right now and let them dissolve this marriage." I pressed my fist against my chest. "I did not beg you to marry me. I earned my place beside you. I did the work. I did everything that needed to be done to get into your heart. And this is what I receive in return?"
The tears rolled faster. My voice became thicker than ever like a jagged road that had not been tended to.
I will not watch you treat me like a piece of trash. Who must beg and crawl to be seen by her own fated mate.”
Silence.
Then Jax moved.