Chapter 13

VIOLET'S POV

A fierce headache raged in my skull, and my entire body was wracked with pain. My eyes felt heavy, making it a struggle to open them.

I let out a soft grunt, "Hhmp!" as a sharp tug on my hair startled me, making it feel as though someone was yanking it forcefully.

As I slowly opened my eyes, my vision was hazy. My throat was parched, as though I had been dehydrated for an extended period.

I tried to make sense of where I was, but nothing came to mind. My mind was fuzzy, and I couldn't think of where I could possibly be. The last thing I remembered was being in the brothel room with the Lycan King when…

"What the hell?!" I tried jumping out of my seat, but something dragged me back, yanking my hair.

"Where are you going, little missy?" an unmistakable voice that I knew belonged to Kira, my once-upon-a-time best friend, grumbled from behind me.

What was she doing here? Why was I in the same room as Kira? What had happened after I left the Lycan King's brothel room?

I couldn't remember anything. It felt as though the memory of that moment had been single-handedly removed from my mind.

"Life to you, Violet!" Kira snapped, jolting me back to life and bringing me out of my thoughts.

I craned my neck just to see Kira staring boredly at my hair, twisting my locks between her fingers.

"Kira?" I gasped, staring at the girl who used to be my other half with hatred. The mere sight of her face sickened me. She seemed to be enjoying it. She seemed to be enjoying watching me struggle as though I were some sort of doll crafted for her entertainment.

"Mmm," she grinned, pointing a finger at me. "Look who's back from a deep slumber?" she mocked, laughing her heart out as though she had just cracked the best joke of the year.

I shook my head, tears threatening to fall from my eyes as I watched the girl I had trusted with my life laugh at my situation.

"Why am I here?" I choked out the question, as though I never wanted to ask it but was too stressed to think of the best question to ask the villain of my life. "Didn't you do what you did to chase me out of your life? So, why am I in here with you? Why did you bring me back here?"

The room fell silent for what seemed like a minute. Kira wasn't saying anything, and neither was I. I just sat there with my hands tied behind my back and my butt planted on a metal chair, staring at Kira as she tilted her head to one side. Obviously, she was thinking about my question and how best to reply to me.

"You know that's not the best question to be asking me right now, but you're just too dumb to realize that." Kira scoffed, resting her back against the backrest of the seat she was sitting on.

I nodded my head in response. Even I knew that the question I had asked should be at the bottom of the long list of questions I should be asking her. I had a lot of things I was so curious to know, and she was the only one who could give me answers to my questions.

I opened my mouth but closed it again instantly. No words were coming out of my mouth, no matter how hard I tried to ask those questions.

"Wait," Kira smirked, sitting upright on the couch. "Let me guess, since you seem to be out of it." She burst into laughter, holding onto her stomach as she laughed so hard that tears rolled down her eyes.

I couldn't say anything, anything at all. I just sat there, watching my best friend as though she had suddenly grown an extra head.

"You wanted to know why I'm doing this? And why I haven't killed you yet, since I seemed to want you dead?" She raised her ugly brows at me, smiling warmly as I slowly nodded to show her how badly I wanted to know what I had done so wrong to deserve the things she was doing to me.

First, she had been sleeping with my mate behind my back while pretending to be loyal to me. Second, she had told Alpha Ansel about the mark, even though she knew he would see it later after we had gotten the wedding over with. But if my assumption was right, she had never wanted me to get married to the Alpha in the first place.

"If it were up to me to decide, I would have killed you the moment I realized you had cheated on Alpha Ansel." She smirked, rolling her eyes as she tossed my locks away like they had suddenly started irritating her. "But Alpha Ansel seemed to have something entirely different in mind. Which is great for our plan."

"Our plan?!" I repeated her last line, wondering when she had started including herself in the Alpha's plans. I found out that the Alpha was my mate about five months ago, and I would be damned if she had been seeing my mate—ex-mate—since then.

"Yes, our plan." Kira smiled softly, carefully adjusting herself on the seat that seemed to have been made just for her. She seemed relaxed, too relaxed for someone who had just recently betrayed her best friend. Or maybe she had never considered me one.

A sigh rippled through my chest. I held my breath, shut my eyes for what seemed like a minute, and then slowly dragged them open.

"Okay. What was the plan? And why did you betray me just for that great plan of yours?"

"Betrayed?" Kira scoffed, standing up from the seat and moving behind me. She leaned a little closer until I could feel her chin resting on my shoulder. "I never betrayed anyone. You can only betray your friends, and you're not my friend, Vee. You're just a cheerful, overly happy kid I used to kill boredom. A spoilt brat who got everything she ever wanted without even having to work hard for it. What's so bad if I steal some of the good things that came freely to you?" she whispered, chuckling after I flinched at how harsh her words sounded in my ear.

"You?" I sniffed, tears streaming down my eyes at how harsh her words sounded. They stabbed through my chest, cutting through my heart like a shard of glass. "You never considered me your friend, did you?" Tears fell from my eyes as I thought back to when we became friends. How pathetic she had been that I felt the need to be her friend. To fill the emptiness in her heart, to protect her, and to give her what she might have been lacking.

But she had never once thought of me as a friend. Rather, she saw me as an available tool to use to pass the time. An entertainment doll to use to kill boredom.

"You really think we were friends?" Kira sighed, moving away from behind me and slowly walking back to the seat she had stood up from. She sat down and crossed her legs as though she were some queen of some pack. "Sorry, little Miss Violet, but we were never friends. I never liked you for flaunting your family's wealth in front of my eyes. I hate you for thinking I needed your pretty little help. I have always hated you for providing everything for me as though I'm some pathetic orphan who couldn't piss with her own pussy!" she barked, anger radiating from her body like a raging storm.

"I never liked you, and yes, we were never friends." She completed her speech as though what she had just said hadn't ripped through my chest and taken out my heart.

"I…" Tears streamed down my eyes like a burst dam. "I never flaunted my family's wealth in your face to make you feel less of yourself. I only did that to make you feel comfortable, knowing you could get everything you wanted through me without having to stress so much to get it."

It felt like I was back on the day my mother met her demise in that horrible place, and my father found me there. Instead of consoling me for losing my mother, the only person I was close to, he had the guards take me away and lock me up for months like a criminal.

"I'm sorry if I made you think that way, but I didn't mean it that way. I swear, the Goddess is my only witness. I never meant to hurt your feelings." I cried harder, letting my father's words sink into my brain.

'You're a worthless piece of shit that doesn't deserve to be happy.'

I cried even more, not because he might be right, but because I had always been fooling myself into thinking there was someone different in my life who didn't believe I was worthless. It turned out that someone saw something worse in me than my father ever did.

"Say that to the little me who wanted to see the day you got torn limb by limb." She shrugged, picking at her nails without even sparing me a glance, as though I didn't matter.

"Sorry. I'm so sorry." I sniffed, looking away from her. The more I stared at her, the more I felt sorry for myself. Sorry for the daughter my mother had given birth to and taught to always put others' needs before her own.

"Alright. If you're awake, I think you need to start speaking." A thick voice growled from outside the room. The door opened, and Alpha Ansel walked in, flashing me a deadly glare that made me want to collapse to the ground.

"Alpha…" Kira was trying to get Alpha Ansel's attention, but he raised a palm in her direction, shutting her up instantly.

"Leave us alone, Kira. I need to speak to this little whore alone," he said through gritted teeth.

Kira stared between me and the Alpha. She was ready to protest, but Alpha Ansel sighed before turning to face her.

"I promise that if you leave us alone, like the good girl you are, I'm going to fuck you real good. I'm going to fuck all the cum out of you. So please, leave us for now."

Kira's face lit up with excitement. She jumped off the couch and threw herself at the Alpha, pressing a light kiss on his lips before rushing out of the room, leaving me alone with the man I wished I had the heart to kill.

My heart shattered when Alpha Ansel crossed over to me, grabbed me by the neck, pressed against my throat, and barked at me, "Start talking! What is that information your father said you have?"