Chapter 50 THE SECRET
Varkos
“You kept us waiting for so long, Varkos,” Lady Ravenna said coolly, folding her hands together at the head of the dining table. “Again.” Her voice held no anger, but it was worse than that as disappointment dripped from every bit of her tone.
“I had an important matter to attend to,” I replied flatly, reaching for the cup of coffee nearest to me.
“What kind of matter is more important than having breakfast with family, Varkos?” She asked. “You’ve been locked away in your chambers for days now. Even after breakfast is called, you delay..this is becoming a very bad habit which I’m starting to find annoying.”
For a second, I didn’t say a word. Just sipped the cup of coffee slowly, taking my time to relish its flavors.
“Ginnie,” I said, “She’s the important thing I had to attend to.”The name dropped into the room like blood into water. “She was injured,” I continued, my voice steady but edged with a dangerous kind of tone, my eyes never leaving Lady Ravena.
“By a stupidly jealous Luna who forgot her manners.”
Kenna’s chair scraped violently against the stone floor the instant I said those words. She jerked upright, “Oh?” Her voice sliced through the air, trembling just enough to sound hurt. “Is that what you’re calling me now? This is what you call your fiancée?”
I finally turned to face her now, nothing soft or pretentious about the expression on my face. “What do you have me say when you attack my personal slave,” I shot back, each word final and deliberate, “You nearly killed her for fucks sake!”
She flinched at the sound of my voice, her eyes widened instantly, glassy with sudden tears that began rolling down her face in slow streaks, her lashes fluttering as if the accusation itself had struck her.
“It’s all lies and you know it, Varkos.” She whispered, pressing a delicate hand to her chest as though I had wounded her deeply. “How can you stand there and accuse me so shamelessly? After everything I’ve endured for you?”
Endured?
This bitch has got to be kidding me right now.
“Kenna,” Lady Ravenna’s voice cut through the tension, then her gaze flicked sharply between us, sensing the fracture beneath the surface. “I need to hear your side of the story,” she said carefully, her tone soft but alert, “What really happened?”
Kenna rose from her chair slowly, as though her legs might give out beneath her at any moment because of the hurt. She drew in a shaky breath, the tears spilling freely now.
“I was insulted by that thing,” she sobbed. “I’ve never been humiliated by a human slave in my life but she did that,” Her gaze slid briefly to me before snapping back to my mother. “She forgot her place in this house and dared to speak to me as though she were my equal. As though she had any right.”
My jaw tightened.
“The only thing I did was correct her,” Kenna continued. “As any Luna would…and as any woman protecting her place beside her mate would.”
I slammed the coffee mug onto the table, the sound thundering through the room like a warning. “Can you just stop with your damn lies! You were about to slit her throat when I walked in.”
“I was only disciplining her!” She cried out, her breath hitching sharply. “All I did was make sure she would never disrespect me and go scott free.” She turned to face me fully now, her eyes shimmering with accusation.
“And instead of standing by your fiancée,” she continued, her voice trembling perfectly for Lady Ravena to believe her stupid lies, “Instead of protecting me… You defended her.”
Kenna then turned fully toward Lady Ravenna, collapsing slightly beside her to make her performance believable. “What he did instead was to hurl me across the wall,” she said weakly. “He hurt me by using his Alpha strength against me. All because of that little slut!”
For a terrifying second, silence swallowed the whole room. No one breathed or said a word. But then I felt it, my mother’s jaw tightened slowly, the muscles flexing beneath her skin. “How dare you put your hands on Kenna?” Her gaze hardened, no different from a sharp blade that was about to pierce into me.
“I stopped her from committing murder,” I shot back, fury burning hot beneath my lungs. “If you’re expecting me to apologize for that…get ready to wait for eternity because it’s never happening.”
Kenna shook her head violently, the tears rolling down in fast streaks now. “How can you say such a thing to me, Varkos?” Her voice cracked as she looked straight at me. “All because of that human. Why the fuck do you even defend her so much, huh?”
I met her gaze without flinching.
Cold.
Unyielding.
“You should be grateful,” I said darkly, “that I didn’t hurt you more than I wanted to, maybe you wouldn’t have the guts to stand here and ask me silly questions.”
“That’s enough!”
Lady Ravena’s voice thundered across the room as she stood up abruptly. “You’ve allowed your relations with this human to go too far,” she snapped, her anger finally cracking through her composed exterior. “Ginnie has poisoned your judgment and it seems you can’t see things clearly anymore.”
“She is under my protection.”
“She is a distraction,” my mother hissed. “And she is leaving this villa. Immediately.”
The words struck like a blade.
“No,” I said coldly. “She is not.”
“Maybe you’re forgetting who you’re talking to, Varkos,” Lady Ravenna said. “I am your mother. Damn it!”
“And I am the freaking Alpha!” I shot back. “Ruler of the Blood Moon Pack…which means my word is law.”
Her eyes flared with surprise. “You would choose a human slave over your Luna?”
“I would choose what is right,” I said coldly, “And I will not have her thrown out because little Miss Kenna right here can’t control her temper.”
“Oh, God…” Kenna let out a broken sob, collapsing back into her chair. “ I see. So this is what I mean to you?”
Lady Ravenna turned fully toward me now, fury blazing in her eyes as she parted her lips to speak, “I won’t sit back and watch you defy me in my own house.”
“This is my house too,” I growled. “Maybe you seem to forget that…mother.”
CREAK
The sound of the door opening unexpectedly shattered through the heated tension in the room. Every eye snapped instantly as Maria stepped inside.
She looked pale. Tense. Unlike her usual composed self as the head maid of the villa.
Shit!
Was she about to reveal what she had seen?
“Alpha Varkos,” she said, bowing slightly. “Please forgive my interruption.”
“What is it?” Lady Ravenna demanded sharply, fury still dripping from her tone. Maria hesitated for a moment, then lifted her chin to speak.
“There is something I must report,” she said, “Something I discovered this morning.” Her eyes flicked to me, then back to me again.
“It concerns you, Alpha Varkos.”