Chapter Four: Aurielle DuVall

:End Of Flashback:

I still remember that night. How my own father had treated me over a piece of paper. They took Nerissa’s word as gold. They hadn’t listened to me. My own father said the rogues who took me as a child should have killed me, that he shouldn’t have rescued me. 

What a man, huh? He’d left me out in the cold to die, to suffer. Someone had saved me, though. I’m not sure who. I only remember seeing sharp golden eyes. The only person I know with those eyes is Matthias. He saved me. Perhaps he thought I was someone else. But in that moment, I saw him as my savior - and I gave him my heart without a second thought.

He carried me all the way home and set me down at the doorstep. As I walked my healed body back into what was no longer considered my home, my father barely looked at me. 

Did he apologize? No. Did he ask how I was okay? Not even once. He made a statement that night, and now we don’t speak. I send them money whenever they text me, but I don’t say a word to them.

They’re Nerissa’s family, the same way Matthias is really Nerissa’s husband. 

I looked at the picture once again, but this time I saw the real her in it. She’s not dead. About a year into my marriage with Matthias, I received a text from Nerissa’s number. She and her phone were never found. She’d sent me one line.

/The living cannot compare to the dead, Sis./

That had been her first message to me. I was in shock. I immediately went to Matthias, and I was introduced to the study on the day. He screamed at me for trying to ruin his precious mate’s name. By fabricating messages. He called me a mistress of deception. 

I’m a liar in his eyes. Nerissa is alive, or perhaps someone is using her phone to mess with me. Whichever one it is... I’m done. 

I looked down at my bare body. Unwashed despite having had sex moments ago, tired, hungry, and caring for a child that doesn’t need to be born into this toxicity. I’ve had enough of my parents, I’ve had enough of Matthias and his mistreatment, and I’ve had enough of Nerissa. I want nothing to do with her, or this. This whole mess. I hate being treated like the enemy. Being hated, being punished like a child.

I hate how happy I’d been to be rescued by my father, only to be introduced to the daughter he had replaced me with. I hate how he’d beat me that night, and he pretends nothing happened. 

I hate them all. 

I cannot raise a son or a daughter in these conditions. I can’t have them seeing their mother cry every single night, I can’t have them be humiliated and told that they could never compare to the child of a dead woman. 

I just.... I can’t do it anymore. 

I inhaled and shut my eyes. I slowly pulled the ring from my finger and clutched it tightly. 

I need to make a plan for this baby. 

Twelve hours was long, I was in pain all over. I needed water, food, and I felt like throwing up. Once the doors opened, the servants announced that I could be let out. And that Matthias had told them to inform me of an event happening tomorrow, which I needed to dress well for. 

I would normally try to make small talk, but this time, I focused on getting up. Ignoring the pain in my knees, and then brushed past them. I didn’t make eye contact, I needed to bathe, and get something into my stomach before my baby suffers for something they didn’t do. 

I took a quick bath, trying to keep my exhausted body from dropping down in the shower. I was working on adrenaline, I should be unconscious, but I was holding out. After my shower, I dressed in black. A color Matthias won’t scream about.

Then I headed to the kitchen to cook something up and to wrap my wounded wrist in bandages. I did all of this on autopilot. The eating, the bandages, and drinking water. I barely felt or tasted anything. 

I went back to my room once I was done. I could have asked the chef to prepare something, but I’m practicing for when I live by myself. I can’t just leave. If I run off, I’ll be branded a rogue. And most packs within this region don’t take in rogues. 

My only option is to divorce Matthias. And that.... I feel stressed already thinking about it. 

The council of wolves has very strict rules that not only govern this section of packs, but also the individual wolves residing in them. I’ll need to apply for a divorce form. 

How do I even do that? I haven’t met any divorced wolves. I’ve only heard stories. I need to draft out a plan and talk to people. That’s the only way I can know what moves to make. 

The saddest part about this is my wolf. She’s connected to Matthias. Every time he hurts us, she shrinks a little bit inside. She’s not the beta she’s meant to be. 

Today was the final straw for me. I mean, I gave this man my body, my time, my firsts, and whether he liked it or not, he had my heart. And he’d thrown it all into the trash for a woman who… who I could never be. I don’t look like he’s perfectly blonde, and pretty Nerissa.

Where she has striking, almost magnetic blue eyes, I have amber eyes. 

Sometimes I can’t even tell if they’re gold or brown. Or brownish gold. 

They’re not not captivating. They only make you wonder if I’m possessed. 

I wrapped my arms around my stomach. The one thing I could never understand is why Matthias saved me back then, if he loved Nerissa so damn much.

Why bother?

He’d made it clear he didn’t like me off the bat. I was the one who took his Nerissa away. I’ve watched him for years, while he only focused on her. 

But now... I've finally made up my mind.

To him, I’m a liar, a murderer, a worthless woman. For my child, I will be brave.

I will put a stop to this. 

I will not bring a baby into this hate-filled home.