Chapter 7-The Woman He Was Promised To

Elowen:

The carriage door had barely closed before Aria was already walking toward the house, her steps quick and deliberate, nothing hesitant about her at all.

I met her in the front hall, my mother close behind me, both of us still catching our breath from how fast we'd moved to get there.

 Aria was younger than I expected, sharp-featured, dressed in traveling clothes finer than anything I'd ever touched, her eyes finding mine instantly, cutting straight through every wall I tried raising in the half-second before she reached me."You're her," she said. 

"I'm Elowen." My voice came out steadier than I felt.

"Zarek's mother wrote to my father," Aria said, watching my face for a reaction. "Told him you're pregnant."

She paused, letting the words settle over me like a slap. "She thought we deserved the truth," she said. "Not rumor."

"I know exactly who you are." Her gaze moved over me slowly, taking in every inch, my plain servant's dress, my swollen stomach, the tear tracks still drying on my cheeks. "I pictured someone more impressive, honestly. Someone worth losing everything over. Instead I find a scullery girl with dirt still under her nails, crying in a hallway like a child."

The insult landed exactly where she meant it to, low and precise, and I felt my whole body flush hot with shame before I could stop it.

"I didn't ask for any of this," I said, my voice trembling.

"No one ever does. That doesn't make you innocent." Her laugh came out short and cruel. "Do you have any idea what you look like beside him? He is alpha-blooded, raised in a house full of silk and marble, and you, you smell like kitchen grease and desperation. I almost feel sorry for you, thinking he could ever want to keep you once the novelty wears off."

"Stop," my mother said sharply, stepping between us. "You've said quite enough."

"I have said nowhere near enough," Aria snapped, rounding on her instead, her voice climbing. "Your daughter destroyed my future in a single reckless night, and you want me standing here being polite about it? Do you know what it is, being promised to someone since birth, building your entire sense of self around a duty you never chose, only to watch it thrown away for a few stolen hours with a servant girl who couldn't keep her hands to herself?"

"That's enough," I said, my voice breaking even as I fought to hold it steady. "Say whatever you want about me. I can bear that. But you will not speak to my mother that way in her own house."

Something flickered in Aria's eyes, surprise, maybe, that I'd found any spine left to push back with. 

She opened her mouth to answer, sharper still, when hurried footsteps sounded from the hall, and Ronan appeared, his gaze catching on Aria, sharp with surprise.

"Lady Aria." He inclined his head, formal and careful. "I wasn't told you'd arrived. What brings you to my house unannounced?"

Aria's whole posture shifted instantly, the venom smoothing over into something colder, more composed, proper deference offered to an Alpha even through gritted teeth.

"Alpha Ronan." She dipped into a shallow, correct bow. "Forgive the lack of warning. I came the moment I heard your household was harboring the woman carrying my intended's child."

Ronan's gaze moved between the two of us, reading the tension settling over the room instantly, the tears still fresh on my face, my mother's protective stance, Aria's rigid composure barely holding. "What is happening here?"

"Nothing that concerns you," Aria said smoothly. "A private matter between myself and the girl."

"Everything under my roof concerns me." His voice hardened, and for the first time since she'd arrived, Aria's confidence seemed to waver. "Elowen. Are you all right?"

I opened my mouth, and nothing steady came out, only a broken breath and the sting of fresh tears rising again.

"She's fine," Aria cut in before I could answer. "Fragile, apparently, but fine."

"I asked her, not you," Ronan said evenly, something dangerous creeping into his tone now.

Aria's jaw tightened, though she said nothing further.

"I'm all right," I finally managed, though my voice betrayed exactly how untrue that was. "She's only telling the truth. I know what I look like beside him. I've always known."

"That isn't the point," Ronan said firmly, turning back to Aria, his eyes narrowing. "Zarek comes here most weekends to help train the pack's warriors, overseeing our border patrols alongside me, work he takes seriously, work he's good at. He has stood in my training yard bleeding for this pack more times than I can count. Whatever quarrel you have with this situation, it will not be settled through cruelty toward a woman carrying a child under my protection."

"Forgive me, Alpha," Aria said, though nothing in her tone sounded remotely sorry. "I forget myself sometimes, in the presence of the woman who ended my entire future before it began."

"Your future was never truly hers to end," Ronan said quietly. "That decision was made for both of you, long before either of you had any real say in it. Direct your anger where it belongs."

Aria's composure cracked, just slightly, something raw slipping through, her voice climbing with a grief she'd clearly been holding back the entire journey here. "And where exactly does it belong, Alpha? With my father, who arranged this without asking me? With Zarek's mother, who agreed to it before he could even walk? Or with the man himself, who let a servant into his bed knowing exactly what he already owed someone else?"

No one had an answer for that.

I felt the weight of her words settle over the whole room, and for one long, aching moment, I understood something I hadn't let myself feel until now, that Aria wasn't simply cruel for cruelty's sake. 

She was drowning in the exact same helplessness I'd been drowning in for weeks now, just from the opposite shore.

Before the silence could stretch any further, urgent footsteps sounded again, this time from the front entrance, and a guard appeared, breathless, his eyes wide.

"Alpha." He struggled to catch his breath. "Alpha Zarek has arrived. He's coming up the front path now."

The room went utterly still.

Aria's face drained of every trace of color. "Now?" she whispered. "He's here now?"

I felt my own knees weaken beneath me, my hand flying instinctively to my stomach, my heart pounding so hard I could hear nothing else.

Ronan's eyes moved between the three of us, understanding settling grimly over his face. "Then I suggest all of us prepare ourselves," he said quietly. "Because whatever happens in the next few minutes, this house has never seen anything quite like it."

None of us moved. None of us spoke. We stood frozen together in that hallway, my mother's hand finding mine, Aria's breath coming shallow and fast beside us.

All of us waiting for the door to open, for the man each of us was bound to in different, painful ways to finally walk through it.