Framed

Liora Ashwin 

I don’t know how long I stayed on the floor after Selene’s heels clicked like victory as she walked away. My world had crumbled in minutes. Everything felt useless, and me… I was the most useless of all.

Waves of pain shattered within me. I felt my wolf whimper desperately, trying to tuck away, as if hiding could shield us from the pain. I don’t know if minutes or hours had passed, but to me, it felt like a lifetime.

I pulled myself up and dragged my trembling limbs toward the bathroom as I gathered the blanket around my torn body before the mirror stood a woman with no future, one with swollen eyes, tattered skin, and tangled hair.

“No…” I whispered hoarsely. “No, he wouldn’t…”

But even as I said it, fragmented memories of last night proved me otherwise.

Ryan had insisted on this hotel despite my wanting something calm and less noisy, and worse, once we arrived, he was gone like the wind.

But then something else made my stomach churn.

I was positive I had been with Ryan that night. He had been the one to lead me to this room. My wolf and I couldn’t have gotten our mate’s scent wrong… so this was it.

“Wow,” I choked.

The perfect cliché. Things I could only read in books or watch in telenovelas were now my fate.

Pathetic.

I didn’t have time to dwell on my pain much. A sharp knock echoed on the door, almost scaring my soul out of my flesh.

“Yes,” I answered lazily, but before I could wrap myself properly or grant permission, the door slammed open.

Two guards stood before me with no respect or decency to hide their gawking eyes as they searched my body.

“Wear this,” one hissed, tossing a thin fabric toward me.

I picked it up, but they remained standing there, waiting.

“Won’t you turn?” I half-hissed.

“What? Feeling all shy now?” one of the guards sneered. “How come you didn’t feel this way when you had another man slamming hard into you last night?”

“Get dressed. We have a busy day… slut,” the other hissed.

A bitter smile crept onto my lips. Indeed, I had fallen harder than I imagined.

I don’t remember collapsing. One moment, I was listening to the subjected comments of the guards, and the next, darkness swallowed me whole.

I blinked a few times, staring at the familiar walls of my bedroom. I groaned in pain as I held my head. My body felt stiff, and my legs felt as though I hadn’t used them in the longest time.

Just then, the door opened, and Selene stepped in.

Her face was cold, but then her eyes snapped toward me, and she smiled, a kind that didn’t reach her ears.

“Liora is awake… she is awake,” her voice rang through the mansion, making my head throb harder than before.

I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat burned.

“Come… have this,” Selene said, quickly rushing in with a glass of water.

I would be a fool if I drank from that glass, but my throat hurt, and my tongue begged for a drop. Just as she brought the glass closer, she smiled, and just as our parents entered, she dropped the glass to the floor.

It shattered into a thousand pieces, like the state of my life.

“If you didn’t want the water from me, you could have said so, Liora. Why push it?” Selene said softly.

My eyes widened as shock rippled through me. I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

“I’ll clean this, and one of the servants can help you with another glass,” she said as she bent down, and just then, she yelped.

“Ouch,” she cried.

“Selene!” Our parents rushed in and held her up.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” my father said as his gaze snapped toward me. “You shouldn’t serve a discarded dirt like that,” he sneered.

“But she is my sister,” Selene cried, round tears streaming down her face. “How can she be jealous of me? It isn’t my fault the Alpha chose me as the new Luna.”

Her voice dripped with pain, but I could see through every scheme.

“This disgrace isn’t worth your tears, my dear,” our mother whispered, as if she had no other child.

“Since she is awake, drag her to the pack hall. I won’t allow a disgrace to carry my name,” our father added with contempt.

“She’s been out for seven days. The pack has waited long enough to cast this reject out,” my mother sneered from behind.

Seven days.

Had I been out for seven days?

I blinked and tried to speak, but no words came out.

I watched everything unfold as if I were a third party. Before I could blink, guards stepped in, bundling me like a bag of grains. I didn’t have time to protest… I didn’t even have the voice to protest.

I was dumped in the hallway.

“Don’t keep everyone waiting,” the guards ordered.

I walked toward the hall I’d been to too many times to keep track. Guards used to bow, and young girls would run up to me, but now the guards turned their faces away.

“She betrayed her mate,” they whispered. Some too loud; others are more discreet.

I felt weak. I carried my body like it didn’t belong to me.

As I got closer, I heard voices coming from the Alpha’s office.

I knew I shouldn’t have stopped. I should have walked past and joined everyone else in the pack hall, but my legs wouldn’t budge.

Not when I heard my name.

“I thought you said Liora was sent to Mr. Dasi’s room, so what happened? Now the business deal is canceled, and her first time ended up with another man,” Alpha Eric’s voice rang coldly.

My blood ran cold.

“I sent her there… but the room numbers were mixed. The fault came from the hotel system,” a second voice echoed.

And I swear color drained from every part of me.

“Now what? Selene is pregnant, and you must marry her. An Alpha blood can’t be born outside,” Alpha Eric added.

“Wow,” I laughed as I stumbled my way to the hall.

So Selene was right.

Ryan was there. My mate, it was him all along.

But why?

I was weak, yes. Not the ideal Luna candidate. But a rejection would have been better.

I don’t know how I got to the hall, but now I stood before everyone. The pack stared at me with hate. Curses lingered in the air. And my family… oh, my loving family stood idle at the side.

Just then, the Alpha walked in with his son.

Ryan’s face hardened as he met mine. He walked over to my sister as if it were a usual habit. My eyes fell to her stomach, the way he held her so gently, and how his eyes lingered longer, like they’d been in love for ages.

“Goddess! … how could I not have noticed?”

“And now,” Alpha Eric half-cleared his throat, “from this moment onward, Liora Ashwin, by the laws of this pack, you are hereby stripped of your status as Luna-to-be.”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd, but I felt nothing but numbness.

For five years, I loved Ryan. Gave him every bit of me. All I asked was that he love me in return.

What did I get?

“You will be banished and thrown out of this pack before sunrise. A woman with no self-respect or discipline doesn’t deserve to be one of us,” he concluded.

“But before then… she will be flogged forty strokes for betraying her fated mate,” my father added like a saint.

“Ryan…” I called softly. “I didn’t do this… I was framed, and you know.”

He didn’t spare me a glance.

“Stop with the excuses, Liora,” he said, staring at my sister like she was the most precious jewel. “You embarrassed me.”

“When did I? ” I asked bitterly. “Was it before you drugged me and pushed me into a hotel room to please your business partner, or after, when you found out you got the rooms wrong?”

The hall fell deathly silent.

Everyone glanced at me, then back at Ryan.

“What nonsense are you spouting?” he said. “I see the rejection has gone far into your head.”

I laughed weakly as tears spilled down my cheeks.

“My sister carries your pup… I mean, how far along is she?”

A loud gasp rippled through the hall.

My gaze landed on my parents, and as expected, they weren’t surprised.

Selene’s fingers tightened around Ryan’s arm. Ryan’s jaw clenched.

“Take her away,” he hissed.

“Yes, take me away,” I said softly. “But remember, I never betrayed you. And this union…”

My lips curled bitterly.

“It will never bloom into anything positive.”

“Make it fifty strokes,” Ryan hissed.

And that was it.

No trial.

No mercy.

No justice.