My phone has been pinging for over fifteen minutes with text messages Santiago had been sending me since I first blocked him. I look up at the Prince, feeling embarrassed because that is what all of this is. Embarrassing as hell.
“Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “Are you sure you want this freak to come anywhere near you? Maybe I can get the big guy to call the Alpha King to have one of their guards come enforce this shit for us.”
“Your brother is in the middle of ending a war with a very powerful Vampire Aristocrat. Why the hell would we bother him with this?” I look at him, horrified by his suggestion. “I don’t even know why he thought he needed to send you. I’m grateful, obviously, but come on.”
“You are the stupidest smart person I have ever met. You have all these resources at your disposal, and you don’t want to use them.”
“Your brother is not a resource, Ivar. Neither are you. You’re my friends, and I love you both. I just know he has more important things to attend to than my drama. I have a question for you. Ready?”
“Sure,” he agrees.
“Do you want me to mirror this on the big screen so we can both laugh at Alpha Romano’s crash outs?”
“You know me so well,” he smiles. “I get the popcorn. You set it up.”
I open up the chat to see that there aren’t any actual threats. I know that Ivar isn’t going to say anything to anyone who isn’t Santiago. I can imagine the look on his face when he sees that I revealed his stupidity to the Lycan prince. I plug my phone into the adaptor and wait for him to come back.
“Sophie!” I hear him call.
I groan and stand up to find him. He’s at the front door. One of the guards is telling him something. I rush down to see that there is a group of betas outside the gate waiting to be let in. The house isn’t in my name. It’s under my grandmother’s. They would need her permission, signed with the Lycan King’s seal, to come in.
“What’s going on?”
“Former Luna Romano is here to see you,” he says, giving me a side glance that makes me want to laugh.
“Miss Helvig,” the guard holds up an envelope. I look past him to see her standing there with Santiago and their father. I step out and open the envelope.
“Read it out loud,” Ivar orders. I feel his command send a shiver down my spine. I always do when it comes from a high- ranked Lycan.
“As a resident of Artume City, you are required to accept the request for a meeting with the City’s leading family. There is a source from the residency contract my grandmother signed when she bought this territory for my family,” I inform him and hand him the invitation.
“This only applies to the owner of the residence. She isn’t here. Sophia is not obligated to accept this request,” he says, and hands the envelope back to him.
The guard bows to him and turns around to tell them that. Santiago sees that we’re about to reject the offer. His eyes are locked on me. The longer he stares at me, the angrier he gets. His eyes turn crimson, making him even more intimidating as the SUV’s headlights glow behind him. The guard hands the envelope back to them, and he finally snaps.
“Sophia!” he shouts. “Sophia, come out here. We just want to talk,” he growls, gripping the iron bars of the gate. “Sophia, stop
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Chapter 24
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hiding from me. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you! You forced my hand. Look at what you’re doing. You belong to me, Soph. You better not have let this piece of shit Lycan put his hands on you.”
“Go inside, Soph,” Ivar steps in front of me.
“Sophia!” he growls, pulling on the gate. “Get back here, Sophia!”
Ivar shuts the door behind us, and I watch from behind the glass as more Lycan guards make their way to the gate to force them to leave. I take a deep breath and decide that I no longer want to go through the messages with Ivar.
I take my phone off the adaptor and head over to my room. He doesn’t stop me. Once he sees that I am safe inside the house, he walks out to join the other guards. I scroll to the last message I sent him, where I tell him that I want nothing to do with him anymore.
At first, he sends a whole lot of apologies. He tells me that he fell in love with me the first time he saw me. The day we met at the academy. He said that he watched me get out of the car. That there was no one more perfect or more beautiful.
After that, he goes on to say that none of this would ever have happened if I hadn’t been born so weak. That it’s my fault that all of this is happening to him, and that I should learn my place as the omega that I am.
I stop when I see her name.
-Poppy is every bit the Beta you should have been. She is driven and willing to do whatever it takes to be by my side. I used to believe that you had this drive yourself. Ever since we found out we were fated, you changed. You became lazy and difficult to deal with. All you ever want to do is talk about school and work. You only ever think about yourself and what you can do for yourself.
Not once have you ever put any consideration into what is good for my pack or me. You stopped coming to dinner with my family. You rarely show your face in the mainhouse. Poppy never misses a pack meeting. She never questions an order, and she would never disrespect my parents in any way.
It wouldn’t have had to come to this if you had shown any interest in being my Luna. You wanted the title, but never the responsibilities that came with it. How can I ever trust someone who holds no regard for my people and my family? I am giving you exactly what you want, and this is how you repay me?–
The messages only get worse from there. He blames me for his shoving me against the doorknob. He says that his parents wouldn’t have to go the lengths they’re going through to get me to speak to him. To accept that this is where I belong. He calls what I am doing a tantrum. One that Poppy would never put him through.
I set my phone down, feeling sick to my stomach. I find myself questioning everything. Our entire relationship. My relationship with his parents. Every little detail of our time together is going up in smoke. My friends‘ words are replaying over and over in my head.
After they found out I was an omega, they stopped wanting me around. I would show up to dinners only to be sent away. At meetings, I would be escorted to the back of the crowd because the front seats were reserved for real wolves. Not useless omegas like me. Slowly, I was pushed back from the frontlines, and now they’re blaming me, making it look like I was the
absent one.
What would I want the title of Luna for? Being the leader of the pack is not a title. It’s a responsibility. One I took with pride. Hours of volunteer work. Medical field work and social events that cut into my study time. I spent every summer and school break working for the pack, wanting nothing more than to make everything that much easier for him.
I would never disrespect his mother, especially because, until just recently, I considered her like my own. I looked up to this woman and was honored when she would give me advice. I see now that it was never advice. She was grooming me to pull away from my real family. To leave my friends behind and only focus on Santiago. Mary was right. They just wanted to control me, and now that they’ve lost their grip, they’re trying to make it look like I was just some power–hungry nobody.
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Chapter 24
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My phone ringing snaps me out of the ugly thoughts in my head. I look down to see one of the three pictures I have of my grandmother and me. Neither of us is smiling. I had just graduated, and it looked more like she was obligated to be standing beside me. I really don’t feel like getting reprimanded over something I had no control over. I slide the icon to the right to ignore her call.
Tears splatter on the screen, and I toss the phone aside, not wanting to see it anymore. I’ve always felt lonely, but as of late, I’m more alone than I have ever been before, and I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know who to turn to, and the void in my chest is starting to grow. I don’t know what I did to deserve any of this, and I don’t know if I’m going to make it out alive from this attack.
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
