Reuben POV
“YOU KILLED MY PARENTS.” She screams into my face, with pure hatred. Each word like a stabbing to my chest as I realise what she has accused me of.
“My…my father’s body was in pieces, I couldn’t even burry him. You killed them. You killed innocent pack members and tossed their bodies aside as if they were nothing more than rodents on the side of the road. You broke me, you got the revenge you so desperately needed. You…you broke my soul.” Her voice is barely now that of a whisper, yet she manages to keep the venom within it.
As if she is too hot to touch, I drop her wrists and stand back from her. I didn’t realise I was keeping her up, holding her weight.
Without my hold she collapses to the ground, bent over, her hands just keeping her head from touching the wet ground.
“Donnie, get the kids we are leaving now!” I hear Noah order at the head warrior, but the noise seems further away.
Noah scoops her up from off the ground and bundles her into the car. He flashes past me, entering the house and all I see is little ankles run past me, I can’t lift my head up from the Evelyn had collapsed on to. spot Is this why she has held so much anger and hatred towards me. She thinks I killed her parents, that I’m responsible for the attack on the Silver Moon pack?
Her mother impaled with a Red Stone pack sword? Her father left for her to find in pieces? I was frozen, my mind telling me to run after her but my legs were unable to move. Is this what true shock feels like?
My heart broke as she collapsed to the wet ground accusing me of monstrous crimes against her.
I was innocent right…
The cars speed away, not stopping, not looking behind. She has left me once again. “Orders Alpha?” Nate’s voice enters my head, as their departure is watched by the warriors that had remained in the courtyard. Cautious to restrain their new friends if need be.
“Keep some vehicles on them, just to be sure. There could still be a threat out there. Keep them back enough to not be seen.” I command back to him before I finally seem to be able to make my legs move.
I storm straight into my office, needing to check my emails. I didn’t order it, I wouldn’t have done. But I did blank out, I did give my wolf control when she left. No, no I wouldn’t have done that.
I turn my computer on, as I wait for it to load I run my hands through my hair and let out a deep breath. A lot had happened already today since breakfast, let alone over the past few days.
The female by my side for the last four years has been outed as a lying manipulative bitch and I have a lot of work to do just to check how deep her deception has been able to weave itself throughout my pack, my alliance.
I start searching for the date that Evelyn left me four years ago and any correspondence past that date which might give me some clues, but nothing. I definitely didn’t do it.
“No we didn’t.” My wolf adamantly says coming forward.
“Are you certain, I did blank out. I did give you full control…fuck. I mean the state of my office was enough…”
“No we didn’t do it. I would remember.” He cuts me off and the relief that washes over me brings a coolness to my panicked body. My racing heart slowing enough to clear my mind. If my wolf and I didn’t do it, then who did?
I turn on my chair to see the framed photograph of us from so many years ago on a shelf behind me. She wouldn’t have done it? Mass destruction of a pack? She wouldn’t be capable of organising such a vicious attack, and who would she have ordered to kill Evelyn’s parents? My warriors wouldn’t follow her command, she wasn’t the official Luna of the Red Stone pack.
“It has to be her.” My wolf whines in my mind, whines from the agony we have brought upon Evelyn. Fuck what exactly has she been through.
I feel sick, just the thought of the pack buildings in flames…of Evelyn being stuck in the Alpha House makes me feel physically sick. And pregnant too. She was lucky to be alive.
I have truly failed her, I let that woman into her life and from the very first meeting she has completely destroyed Evelyn. I have completed destroyed Evelyn.
Looking back now I was too young to marry, too much in a hurry to claim the Alpha title. I should have waited, waited to find Evelyn as my mate because that is what she is isn’t it…my mate. She was the daughter of an alpha, I would have met her in time at a pack gathering or the moon conference.
Destined to me by the moon goddess but I’ve already fucked it up before I’ve even had a chance with her. Neglected her for the first two years, completely involved in myself and in being the strongest alpha king that there ever was.
My grandfather was the first to start the alliance, a few years before my father took over…then me. Decades my family have worked to build the alliance, then fuck! She only takes four years…four years to start her own and start to chip away at the Red Stone alliance.
She didn’t even need to show her face. Didn’t even need to visit packs to put pressure on. She did all of this hidden away, hiding away from me, hiding away our children.
Yet she made such an impression on these packs, that they were willing to leave a long established alliance and to go against me. Just how powerful was Evelyn? What was in the path ahead of her.
Which is why Vicky wanted her dead, wanted her gone. Did she know back then what a threat she would be to her? She wanted her gone. My child dead. She poisoned my mind against my own wife. Telling me she was pregnant by Noah, telling me they were lovers.
Making me look so unreasonable, so vividly out for revenge that I would be capable of destroying the Silver Moon pack. An anger starts to boil within me, an anger for Evelyn. I didn’t protect her then, but I’ll protect what is mine now.
My feet move fast, powered by the urge to destroy her. Powered by my own shame in craving her all those years ago, for thinking she was Lunal material. I’m disgusted with myself and want to scrape every inch of skin off that she would have touched.
I reach the cells to find only one guard on duty, the young inexperienced one. “Nate, there’s only one fucking guard watching the cells.” I roar through the pack link before cutting it.
“What’s going on, why are you alone?” I demand to know as I storm up to the guard. “Alpha, it’s just a change over, that’s all.” He shakes slightly under my thundery aura.
“Open the cell door!” I order, my wolf trying to snap his teeth. I made it very clear that at least two guards needed to by on watch, in fact even more. The guard seems hesitant at first, looking behind him for the other guard to arrive.
“NOW!”
He does as I request and I step into the cell, not caring if she was awake or not. “Wake up!” I kick the bed forcing her to wake up with a fright.
“Reuben?” She gasps.
“Did you do it? Did you attack Evelyn’s pack and kill her parents?” I’m close to grabbing her throat and cutting off her air supply. But I need an admission first.
“Did you do it?” I yell, picking up the chair and launching it at her. She ducks as it hits the wall and splinters into pieces. She sneers at me, the she devil coming out to play.
“I just helped you reach your potential Reuben. To become the monster everyone knows is inside of you. You just have to let him out.”
“You want to see a monster Vicky? I’ll show you a monster…” My anger is as I’ve never known it. Red hot hatred for the woman before me. I didn’t need a judge and jury, I would kill her with my own hands.
I ensure I am the monster that she so badly wishes to see. My frame towers over her, my shoulders spread to their widest, my back and neck straightened. I reach for her only to hear a gun shot behind me.
I can hear three shots fired, and it takes a moment to realise they have hit me in the back. I spin to see the young guard holding the pistol at me, having shot me in the back.
Bastard, I could already feel they are the same poisoned bullets, as wolfsbane starts to enter my blood stream again. I collapse to the ground, my mind. trying to force my body back up. Vicky steps over me, pulling the gun out of the guard’s hand.
“Goodbye Reuben.” She points the gun at my head. At the sound of heavy footsteps running to the cells, she snarls before running out of the cell.
“Nate…Nate…” I try to push on the mind-link but I’m too weak. As my eyes blur my last thoughts are of my children that I wished I had a chance to see again. Evelyn’s beautiful face comes before me and overwhelming regret hits me.
Moon goddess, if it’s my time then so be it. Watch over Rex and Elspeth, and show Evelyn kindness and love. The love she should have received from me. Keep them strong and perhaps one day I’ll see them again.
