Chapter 150 Chapter 150
Violet
For a few seconds nobody spoke, nobody even dared move. You didn't just challenge your father lightly, not when he was not just an Alpha but a founding family member.
I was feeling real scared now of the consequences of Eljah's actions, not for me but for him.
I would never be able to forgive myself if something were to happen to him because he stood for me.
"You don't get to make that decision!" Alaric's control finally snapped completely, his voice booming through the room like a physical force. The windows rattled again, harder this time. The lights flickered. "I am your Alpha! I am the one who decides who is family and who isn’t! I am the one who decides who has standing! Not you! You don't get to declare someone as family just because you've taken her to your bed!"
Cassie made a small, wounded sound from her chair, something between a gasp and a sob. When I managed to tear my eyes away from the confrontation to look at her, she had her hand pressed to her mouth, tears streaming freely down her face now. She was watching her brother with a mixture of pride and terror.
"I know exactly who you are." Elijah's voice was still level despite the fury I could see building in every line of his body. "But she is mine to protect. That makes her family. That makes her pack. Whether you acknowledge it or not."
"You dare." Alaric took a step forward, and the air itself seemed to thicken with his power. It pressed down on everyone in the room, making it hard to breathe, making my chest tight. "You dare defy me? You dare stand here, after creating this disaster, after embarrassing this family in front of humans and werewolves alike, and tell me how things will be?"
"I'm telling you the truth." Elijah's hands were clenched again, his jaw set in a way that made him look more like his father than he probably would have liked. "Nate assaulted Violet. He drugged her specifically to incapacitate her so he could rape her. He tried to force himself on her when she couldn't fight back. And for the record, he is her ex.”
The room fell silent once again as he looked in my direction.
“I am sorry I am divulging details of your life but I can’t stand it anymore.”
Nicole, who had been quiet all this time, suddenly got up and shouted back.
“Yes that is what she is. An ex-girlfriend of Nate. Yet he and I tried everything possible to include her in our big day, in our celebrations. Yet she tried sabotaging…”
Elijah raised his hand as if to signal that he didn’t even want to talk to her. He looked at Alpha Alaric who wasn’t fazed by the revelation and Elijah continued.
“I did what any pack member would do when one of their own is threatened. I protected her. That's what being a pack means."
"By nearly killing him!" Alaric's face was turning red now, a vein pulsing visibly in his temple. "By beating him unconscious in front of dozens of witnesses! By creating a spectacle that will take months, maybe years to clean up! When you could have come to me, the founding family council who could have done this the right way!"
"I stopped him!" Elijah's voice rose to match his father's. "What did you want me to do? Ask him politely to stop? File a complaint to you while he violated her? She was drugged. She couldn't defend herself. Someone had to."
"ENOUGH!"
Alaric's roar shook the entire room. The windows rattled so violently I thought they might shatter. One of the monitors let out a sharp warning beep before falling silent. Even the lights seemed to dim for a moment under the weight of his rage.
Nicole had her hands over her ears, rocking slightly in her chair. Madison and Veronica had backed all the way to the wall, pressed against it like they could melt through it and escape. Cassie was crying openly now, her shoulders shaking.
"I will not stand here and listen to you justify this disaster any longer." Alaric's voice dropped back to that deadly quiet. "You will cease this relationship immediately. You will apologize to Nate and his family for the harm you've caused. You will make a public statement taking full responsibility for your actions. And you will never speak of this incident again. Do I make myself clear?"
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the heart monitors seemed to hold their breath.
Then, Elijah spoke in a clear voice.
"No."
The single syllable hung in the air like a bomb waiting to explode.
Alaric stared at his son like he'd just grown a second head, like he couldn't quite process what he'd heard. "What did you just say to me?"
"I said no." Elijah's voice was steady, unwavering. "I won't apologize for protecting her. I won't end this. And I won't pretend that what Nate did was acceptable just because acknowledging it is inconvenient for you politically."
I wanted to tell him to stop. To not throw away everything for me. The words were right there, pushing at the back of my throat.
Stop defending me. I'm just using you anyway. Your mother ordered me to make you fall in love with me so I could destroy you. I'm not worth this.
But my throat was closed, sealed shut by horror and guilt and the crushing weight of what I was witnessing. And even if I could speak, what would I say? How could I explain without explaining everything? Without revealing Aurelia's plot right here, right now, in front of everyone?
Alaric's face was turning progressively redder, that vein in his temple pulsing faster. His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that I could see his knuckles turning white even from across the room.
"You have one chance," he said, each word bitten off and sharp. "One single chance to make this right, Elijah. One chance to show me you understand your position in this pack, in this family. One chance to prove you're not completely lost to this foolish infatuation. Or I swear by the Moon Goddess herself, I will strip you of your status so fast your head will spin. I will take everything from you. Your title. Your position. I will not just throw you on the streets but your entire pack will have nowhere to go."
Cassie shot to her feet suddenly, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. "Alpha, please." Her voice was thick with tears. "Please, you can't do that. He's your son. You can't just..."
"Sit down, Cassie."
Author's note: Yay, we have reached 150 chapters!! Thank you for reading so far and please let me know your thoughts about the story in the comments. I've planned a lot more stuff for our lead couple and hope you love reading the story as much as I enjoy writing it.