Chapter 84 84
Aurélie POV
“Calm down, Alpha!” Maurice orders, tightening his grip as I struggle violently against his hold.
A growl rips from both Fabrice and Damien at the sight of his arms locked around my waist.
“You’re pure evil,” I scream at her. “Stay away from my children!”
“No one asked you to come here,” she snaps back. “The sooner you leave, the better for everyone.” I surge forward again and she lashes out, her foot connecting with my mouth, the blow cracking across my jaw. Pain explodes through my face.
Damien yanks her back, dragging her away from me. He holds her too tightly. Too protectively.
Of course he would. He wouldn’t want her to break a nail or crease that stupidly glamorous silk pyjama set of hers.
“I only came here to ask if Damien had stolen my son,” she shrieks, voice shrill and frantic. “And I was right, wasn’t I? I knew it. I knew this pack was behind it!”
My gaze snaps to Damien. He frowns at my accusation.
Fine he hadn’t orchestrated it. But he’d given her power, unchecked and unquestioned, and she’d used it. Was he really any less guilty for that?
“I didn’t even know you were alive,” she continues wildly. “You were dead. Believe me, if I’d known, I wouldn’t have ordered it!”
It takes a heartbeat for the words to land.
A second for the room to understand what she’s just admitted.
Damien’s arms slowly loosen around her, his touch withdrawing as though her skin suddenly burns him. He steps back, disbelief written across his face.
“You did this?” His voice is low, stunned.
“No, Damien I did it for us,” she pleads, shaking her head. “She was stealing our packs. I did it for you. For our legacy.”
She steps toward him, reaching for his chest
and something in Damien snaps.
He slams her back against the wall, his hand closing brutally around her throat. His kingly aura erupts, no longer restrained, flooding the room with lethal force.
“You dared,” he snarls, “to touch what is mine?”
“No Damien” she chokes. “I am yours. I’m your Luna, not her. She abandoned you. Please, Damien, I love you. I did it for you.”
Her hands claw uselessly at his wrist as she gasps for air, each word torn from her lungs.
“For me?” He releases her as though disgusted, as if contact itself repulses him.
She collapses to her knees, sobbing, scrambling toward him.
“For the kingdom your father wanted you to have,” she cries.
“What do you know about my father, Geneviève?” Damien snaps. “I never wanted to be like him. If that’s what you believed I was becoming then maybe it’s best she has every pack.”
He turns his back on her.
She grabs him again, desperate. “No, Damien, you don’t mean that. We can still—”
“Children,” he roars, spinning back toward her. “Innocent children. How could you?”
Then he falls silent, his gaze unfocused as he mind-links Lucas, I assume. Moments later, Lucas storms in with pack warriors at his heels.
“Take her to the cells,” Damien orders.
“No! Damien please!” she screams as the warriors seize her, dragging her from the Alpha house. She fights every step.
“Just a holding cell, Lucas,” Damien adds, gripping Lucas’s arm before he leaves. “She’s still the acting Luna.”
His eyes flick to me.
My anger flares hotter.
Was he already softening? Already pulling back? After everything she’d just confessed in front of Alphas and Betas alike?
Was she going to walk away from this? A warning, a slap on the wrist, and then back to being his Luna?
I haven’t looked away from him.
And he hasn’t looked away from me.
He breaks first his gaze dropping to my lips. Warm blood trickles into my mouth; I hadn’t even noticed. His brow creases as he steps toward me.
“Come, Aurélie,” Fabrice says gently, placing an arm around my shoulders and steering me away. “I’ll clean your wounds.”
And for the first time since it began, I allow myself to be led my fury still burning, unanswered and far from finished.