Chapter 4

                                                                    The Betrayal Unraveled

Jordan’s POV

"Lora...?" Stepping into the darkened room, I whispered, my voice hoarse. Her fragrance struck me like a tidal wave—familiar, seductive, yet somehow so far off. Looking at her, seated on the brink of the bed, her face pallid and marked with sorrow, my heart beat in my chest. She ought not to be here. Not like this.

But all I had done—the falsehoods, the treachery—had brought her here, into the very clutches of the Alpha who presently seized her.

My feet reluctant to move, I stepped closer, my body betraying me inching forward despite the conFlict inside me.

She stared up to meet me. Almost I broke from the harsh feeling there. The frustration. The sorrow. The doubt. Not right now, I will deal with it. Not as everything seemed to be collapsing all around me.

Her lips opened, her voice cutting and low. "Why?" Why did you carry out this?

I  know how to respond. I was not sure whether there was a logical response. Nothing I could say would repair the harm and treachery I had done to her.

"Tell me, Jordan," she said, her voice shaking with a mix of anguish and anger. Tell me why you choose her over me.

She said every syllable like a punch to the chest, but I couldn't muster the response. I had let her down, and now Revan—a guy I had no inFluence over—had custody of her. The Alpha of the Pack on Stormfang.

I longed to yell. To rebel at the inequity of it all. To assign everyone except myself responsibility. But I could not. My fault was this. I had always been at fault.

Lora murmured, rising up and her eyes never leaving mine, "You cannot be serious." "You're standing here, behaving as though you didn't just rip up my universe. You have decided what to do. She will be your destined partner.

Her comments stung, but I sensed the suffering under them. I had never dreamed the lady I loved could stare at me like I was a monster. But I was deserving of it. Each inch of it.

"Lora, please," I said, voice strained. "I never desired this." I wanted you not to suffer. Still, I... There was no decision available to me. You have no idea; until I make these sacrifices, there is a battle approaching that we cannot win.

Her eyes grew stern, her back straightening as she moved back. " Sacrifices? You are saying you gave up on me in order for your pack? For your survival?

The allegation caused me to ; the words sliced into me like a razor. "Lora—“

"No," she said, her voice getting higher. "You had a choice." You could have gone with me. You may have turned to us. But you decided on her.

Though I couldn't, I felt my universe shrink and my ideas search for something to hang onto. I had already gone missing her. I could not do a darn thing to stop her from sliding through my fingers already.

I apologized; the words came out but seemed empty. "I'm so sorry."

She was, however, no longer listening. She turned away from me, her breath laboring as she moved across the room to the window. "Jordan, I don't want your apologies. I am looking for the truth. Why you never loved me sufficiently to fight for us is something I want to know.

I couldn't dispute even though her comments felt like a shot to the gut. I had no defense for myself. In every sense, I had let her down.

I said, "Lora," coming nearer to shrink the space between us. Desperate "Please, do not exclude me. You have to know—I did not want this to happen.

She did not turn around though. She hardly paid me any attention at all.

She softly, almost to herself, murmured, "I don't know what to say to you anymore," but I heard every word. You have chosen; I have chosen. But right now it makes no difference. What one does is what one does.

I closed my eyes, her words weighing every bit of my life. I had nothing to say left. Not one thing left to do.

A Few Minutes Later I was standing in the doorway seeing Lora seated on the side of the bed with her face covered in palms. She was fractured and I had done to her. Her love had been the one thing keeping me anchored all these years, and I had ruined that.

And now I had to watch her vanish from me, a prisoner to Revan and her intended path. His fellow buddy.

I had been so damned convinced she would be alright. I could deal with the circumstances. Still, I had not anticipated the fury. The tears. With every breath I drew, the sense of losing her bit at me.

Worse of all, I had not anticipated Revan to be so... exacting. He was deadly, a force to be reckoned with, and I had given him all he wanted. Lora? The group. The bloodline. I now had nothing left as well. Not one way to correct this.

Later that evening I stood outside the great hall staring out into the black wilderness. The weight of the night pressed down on me as the wind howled among the trees. I owed it to someone. I had to break off this.

But what could I do? My choice had already been taken. Lora had already been handed up by me to Revan.

I ought never to have let things get this far. I ought never to have made that awful agreement.

The sound of footsteps behind me cut off my thoughts, and I turned to find one of my pack members grimacing approaching.

" Alpha," he murmured, his voice tight. "There's a problem."

As I moved forward, my heart surged and my mind turned right away to Lora. She seemed OK. Was Revan acting in her best interests?

"What is it?" I said, my voice harder than I wanted.

Lowering his eyes, the pack member murmured, "It's Revan." "He is declaring war."

My blood turned chilly. Declared war: what do you mean?

"His people," the pack member said with a shaking voice. "They have encircled the area." Moving in is the Stormfang Pack. We are obliged to fight. There is nothing other.

Between me, a heavy quiet descended as his words sank in weight. Revan had been organizing this from the beginning. And I had delivered Lora, the one item he required. He was going to take everything now.

I turned to confront the pack member, when a voice from the darkness halted me in my tracks.

I have heard enough.

I whirled around to see just Revan, staring coldly and deliberately at me from the doorway.

"I warned you," he murmured, his voice tinged with a profound, terrible calm. "Now is the moment for you to pay the cost."

And at that instant I understood—everything was going to change. The conLoraict was here. It had started as well already.