Chapter 13 Rage
Dravik's pov
I was filled with so much rage I could barely think straight.
Had all her weak girl persona been a lie? Had I been tricked?
She closes her eyes tight, her trembling worsening as she folds inward as if bracing for a beating. The sight knocks the anger right out of me.
A girl acting could still look back at me with defiance. This isn’t acting. This is raw fear carved into her bones over years.
“She’s hurting. Stop!” Shadow snarls in my head.
My hand loosens as the demon in me quiets.
I watch her shrink away from me again and something tightens deep inside my chest, something unwanted and inconvenient. Guilt.
I hate that word.
I slip my hand from her throat and catch her wrist instead, pulling her closer.
“Auren,” my voice softer this time. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t.
I catch her chin and guide her face up.
“I said you won’t have to fear me,” I remind her. “That was when I thought I was helping you. So open your eyes and look at me.”
Tears started to fall down her face. Slow at first, then faster. She opens her eyes and the look on her face shattered my anger entirely..
“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you.”
She shakes her head.
“No,” she whispers. “I don’t.”
I release her and step back once, trying to steady myself.
“Silverveil pack is empty,” I say. “Completely.”
“Abandoned?”
“No. Everything else is there, just no wolves and you said you people don't do pack runs.” I watch her carefully. “Has this ever happened before?”
“I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I never left the pack till yesterday except for the garden. But sometimes…the mansion goes quiet all of a sudden. If I wasn’t locked up… I would go upstairs to steal some food.”
“How many times.”
“A few times a month.”
My jaw tightens.
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
“Come,” I say, grabbing her arm gently now. “Let’s go home.”
She stumbles into my chest. My hands steady her on instinct and I hear her breath hitches.
“You better not be lying to me, Auren. I don’t keep liars alive.”
“I promise,” she whispers.
I look into her eyes and see nothing but confusion. She knows as little as I do.
We return to the mansion and I take her straight to my office.
“Sit.”
She sits at the edge of the chair like a child waiting for punishment. Knees to her chest, her head bowed in Submission. She looked……..Broken. Shadow growls at the sight.
“Auren”.
She stiffens at her name.
“I told you everything I know,” she murmurs. “I mostly… I mostly just steal food and go back to the basement.”
Her voice cracks and she whimpers.
“You’re upsetting her. Enough!” Shadow again.
“I’m sorry,” The words scraped out reluctantly. “I shouldn’t have shouted or held your throat.”
Her eyes lift in surprise.
“And you stole food?”
“I had to or I would have starved to death.”
Seems like the more I find out about her people and how they treated her, the more angry I get.
When I finally get proof I need, when every piece of my plan fits together, her entire pack will pay for what they’ve done. Her uncle will be the first to bleed.
“Finally something we agree on”, shadow says in my head
“Tell me about your uncle,” I went and sat behind my desk. “Does he have a mate?”
“He does. He changes mates often. He’s in his third marriage now.”
My teeth grind.
“How did they treat you.”
She shrugs.
“They pretty much ignored me. Seris mother was the first. She died of cancer the year my uncle became the Alpha.”
“She was his true mate?.”
She nods.
“She treated me better and even brought me presents, then when I killed my parents and my uncle became alpha, she became Luna and I became nothing.”
“You didn’t kill your parents,” I tell her. “When will you accept the truth? And you’re not nothing…….Not anymore.”
She presses her lips together and puffs up her cheeks. “Talk to me,” I growl.
“I will be nothing once you cast me aside when you find your true mate.”
“Who told you that.”
She goes still.
“Who,” I repeat.
“Hope.”
“She needs to keep her mouth shut,” I say, anger curling again. “She has no business filling your head with that.”
“Is it not true?,” Auren says softly. “She said you lost your mate and since then you haven’t taken another woman because you’re waiting for your fated mate.”
I look away, not answering her. The excuse I gave my sister after Lyra died is coming back to bite me in the ass.
It shut down her matchmaking and stopped her from dragging every she-wolf with working ovaries into my path. How was I supposed to tell her the most feared alpha in the realm was still in love with a dead woman and hunting her killers.
Lyra might not have been my fated mate, but it felt like it.
Auren flinches suddenly and touches her stomach.
“Has the cream been applied today.”
She shakes her head.
I kneel in front of her.
“Lift your top.”
She obeys. The bruises still bloom thick across her skin. Anger burns in me again but it isn’t aimed at her this time. I apply the cream carefully, gently, almost reverent despite myself. I look up and her eyes meet mine…….there is something raw in them, something that makes my heart drag against my ribs.
I stand abruptly.
“I—I have to……,” I turn and leave without looking back.
I corner Hope in the hospital, looking for where to lay my anger.
“What the hell did you say to her?”
She rolls her eyes, “I didn’t tell her anything that wasn’t the truth.”
“And what is the truth?
“You haven’t looked at another woman since Lyra, you gave me the excuse of waiting for your fated mate when I tried to set you up” she accuses. “Then suddenly you bring home a wolfless girl as your wife. Make that make sense.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“It is my business when you start acting strange”. She looks at me, something coming over her face.
“What is it about her that makes you want to marry her out of no where? She has no wolf, and doesn't know the first thing about being a Luna. I don’t understand your plan here, Dravik.”
I refuse to answer her.
“Don’t put thoughts in her head again.”
She narrows her eyes.
“You really do like this one, don't you?.”
“She has a name,” I snap.
She raises her brow.
I glare at her and walk away.
She is wrong, I don’t like Auren. Pity? Now that’s what I feel.
This is about revenge pure and simple. This is about truth and blood.
“Why are you fighting this?” Shadow says in my head. “Fighting what?”
“That she belongs to us”, he growl.
“How do you fucking know?”
“When I look into her eyes, her wolf is buried deep but I can still feel her a bit. She’s strong, maybe stronger than us.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
He continues rambling in my head but I ignore him
Back in my office, Auren still sits curled up in the chair, hugging her legs close to her chest.
“You’re still here.”
“You didn’t ask me to leave,” she murmurs.
I glance at the papers on my desk. They don’t look disturbed but you never can tell with people.
“Did you go through my stuff?”
She shakes her head, her hair falling to frame her face.
“ I told you before, I don’t like liars.”
“I didn’t…”
“You didn’t read anything?”
“…..because I can’t.”
I stop.
“What do you mean.”
“I can’t read,” she whispers, voice small. “I only know a few words.”
“You didn’t go to school.”
She shakes her head.
“After my parents died, I stopped school. I can make out a few words but that’s it. Hope tried teaching me earlier but it’s too hard.”
There was silence as I looked at her, trying to process what she just told me.
“I get it. You regret choosing me”, her voice cracks as tears start to fall again. “You’re ashamed of me but please don’t send me back. I can clean, I can cook, I'm a hard worker.”
A curse left my lips as I crossed the room in two steps, pulled her from the chair, and crashed my mouth against hers.