Chapter 44 Are you ready for all these?
Tristan's POV
Her eyes were wet, and she could barely lift her finger to point at me.
“You did it, didn't you?” Her voice was shaky as she tried to firm the words in her mouth.
The lump in her throat, and the tears pouring down her cheeks wouldn't let her speak freely. But her eyes were on me, her gaze weak but piercing.
“What is it about? The boy who died? You need to get over that…”
But the blood on her gown didn't tell me it was still about Cory. Cory’s body wouldn't be gushing out blood enough to stain anyone's clothes; moreover, the gammas must have buried him by this time.
“You killed her… Tristan, you did…” she managed to say, finding it hard to breathe.
“What are you talking about?”
Her sobs grew louder.
Her feet lost grip on the floor, but she quickly supported herself with the door frame.
“Who died?”
“Rachel is the only friend I had… she became my family, but you… you took her from me…”
“Rachel… what happened to her?”
I felt a tinge in my heart. It was slowly building up as I watched her unleash the tears. I couldn't put her words together to make any sense to me. Maybe it did, but I doubted I'd heard clearly.
The phrases she’d said—took her from me, killed her, the only friend I had—had no meaning for me to deduce.
“She was so innocent,” she went on. “And I thought you had that love for me, but you went ahead to kill the only family I had.”
“I killed nobody.”
“You killed Rachel.”
“What?”
“And here you are, playing innocent as though you know nothing of what I'm saying.”
“I didn't kill her.”
“It was the same way you killed that boy, and those people because of your obsession for revenge.”
“Zara…”
As though a button was pressed within her, she started gasping for breath. Her whole body was vibrating.
“Zara, are you—?”
I grabbed her tightly against myself. She collapsed against me.
“Zara.” I nudged her.
But no response from her, not even a movement of her fingers. Her heart was still beating, but much slower than it should be. All other parts of her body had stopped moving.
“Zara!”
And as cold as this room was, her body was becoming even colder. I sat on the floor. Still no response.
“Help!” I screamed.
I screamed multiple times before maids and gammas came rushing to the spot where I was sitting. After an extra minute, they came with a stretcher, placed her on it, and rolled her out.
My mind wasn't on the scene of the gammas rushing her out to get help.
All this… I wonder if anything was real.
Concerning Rachel… she was dead? And Zara felt I killed her?
And she’d referred to killing as one of my habits?
But who could have done that?
I walked inside the room, locked it, and suddenly started to catch a cold. It wasn't so before Zara showed up, but at this moment, it was. My skin couldn't protect me from it, but I wouldn't leave. Everything was all my fault.
I was ready to accept the cold as a form of torture.
With this cold, my mind drifted to the conversation I had with Zara a few days after my parents’ death.
“It's normal for you to mourn them,” she’d said. “I can never be against that, but—”
“You're not in place to decide that. I’m already making my move.”
“How are you supposed to find them?”
A few of my special gammas were outside the room. They were waiting for me to give the order, but then, I had something else in mind.
“They had people who were in good ties with them. I will start from there.”
“Tristan, please don't…” she pleaded.
“Everything is already planned out, and people would die in this process.”
“Innocent people…”
“My parents were never guilty.”
“But this wouldn't bring them back.” She insisted.
Meanwhile, her words were starting to get into my nerves.
“At least it would pay the price for their death, everyone will learn from it, never to mess with the Blightmoon pack.” I clenched my fists. “Such guts from them!”
“After all these, what do you intend to do next?”
“Then return to ruling the pack as my father did.”
Months passed, and I was yet to fulfil my wish for revenge, but I'd become the Alpha regardless of that.
She came into my room to meet me. “Tristan… I heard what you did.”
I shrugged. “Six men died simply because they wouldn't accept to lead me to Damon. That is what happened.”
She sat beside me on the bed. “Why not stop now?”
“No.”
She took my hand in hers. “People are leaving the pack, Tristan… they're scared.”
“Everyone is free to leave if they want to.”
“My parents want me to leave with them.”
That was when my eyes had all the attention on her. “You shouldn't go with them… I love you.”
“But after all these… what becomes of us?”
“I’ll make you my mate.”
“Without that connection occurring to us?”
“Yes.”
I believed I would make her my mate, but sometimes, things would always work differently, far from the way I planned it. She’d stayed even when the curse started. She never left.
But Celine showed up, and the mate bond was put into action with her, forgetting the fact that she was human.
Wasn't this a betrayal to Zara?
Colt betrayed Celine by using her as a commodity he could sell out for the cure of his mother, and in turn I betrayed my promise to Zara by insisting Celine was my mate.
It was all in circles.
At this moment, drenched in the cold from this room, I felt a heavy weight being placed on me. It was far above guilt.
Also of false accusations that did seem to be like me.
I managed to get on my feet. I needed to leave this room, but my eyes caught a letter on the bed.
It read:
Are you ready for all these?