blurry eyes

I swallowed, my vision becoming incredibly blurry as I watched them.

My mate and worst of all, my best friend who was encouraging me to go ahead with the mating.

“I can’t wait for when we are able to finally be together, I hate hiding” Esme said, looking at him with this look in her eyes.

“Soon baby” He said, stroking her cheeks with such tenderness I could only but imagine him use on anyone. “Did it work?” he asked after a while.

She laughed, leaning in to kiss him again. I watched, rage bubbling inside of me as I watched the two of them.

It took everything in me to not crash out, to not badge inside there and scream at how they were nothing but disgusting.

“The fool is still up for it. You needed to see how her eyes lit up when I said you want something more out of the bond. She took it like a dog begging for biscuit bones.” They both laughed again.

I froze. My body went rigid, but my chest caved in all at once. Whatever I was trying to hold on to vanished.

‘Look away’ I told myself, I knew I should, but I could not. I stood there, mocking me, Esme especially, like I was not the one person who had her back through everything you could possibly think of.

It was getting almost impossible to breathe as I looked at the two of them. Then I rushed out, or at least I tried to. “Once I get mated to her and be an even stronger Alpha, you know nothing would stand in our way right?”

I stopped half way to running away. The last bit of resolve ripping away from me. I rushed down the stairs, my brain in a fuss as I tried to get my head out of the conversation.

They were using me. I could understand Ethan but Esme? The one person I thought would protect me?

Just as I walked out of the pack house, I fell to my knees. My knees no longer agreeing to work

I broke out into ugly sobs. “Fuck” I managed to get out through the sobs as I clutched my chest.

It hurt. It felt as though my heart was being ripped out of my chest.

By some miracle, I managed to use a spell to get me home. I clutched my chest tighter.

This was it, I was going to die.’ I thought to myself, shaking my head as I looked at the walls of my house.

“Mum” I called out through sobs, trying as much as possible to make my voice laudable, but it was almost impossible

My mind replaying the moment on how she laughed. It seemed to have its own stab to my chest. The way she had looked at me when I was in the cells, how she had assured me that I was the prettiest and I had nothing to worry about.

I pressed my fist against my mouth, trying to keep the sound in, but it tore out of me anyway.

I had given them everything and yet… “Mum!!!” I called louder only to be met with the same response,

Silence!

My chest burned.

I slid my hand to my throat like I could hold my heart still, like I could force it to stop breaking if I applied enough pressure. Tears blurred my vision until the room dissolved into shadows and light, and for a terrifying moment, I wondered if this was what it felt like to disappear.

“You are enough” Her words played in my head. I felt myself burst into laughter.

I wasn’t enough.

That was the lie she had expected me to belief and now?…

I don’t know how long I stayed there. Minutes. Hours. Time stopped meaning anything when all I could feel was the hollow ache spreading through me, turning grief into something sharper. Colder.

Anger, It crept in slowly at first, threading itself through the pain. The tears didn’t stop, but they changed—hot and furious now, streaking down my face as my hands curled into fists.

No. “I am going to make you fucking pay”

I muttered, the rage inside me burning several times over.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, breathing through the ache in my chest.

They thought they’d won.’ I thought, remembering the way her laugh tore through the room as they mocked me

Another humourless laugh slipped out of me. “You made a mistake,” I whispered to the empty room. My voice was hoarse, but there was steel beneath it now. “You forgot who you betrayed.”

Payback wasn’t going to be loud. It wasn’t going to be reckless.

Then I heard it.

The soft scrape of paper against the floor.

I froze. The door to the house was meant to be shut.

I shot up from the floor, staggering as I did but I kept on walking.

“Who is there?” as usual, there was no reply only silence.

I felt myself shiver, making me tighten my fist as I approached the stairs.

“Who the fuck is…” I started, but was stopped mid way as I felt a paper under my feet. I looked down, trying to understand what it was.

I blinked, wiping my eyes again rapidly to see a small piece of paper. Same as the one that I had received in the cave.

I looked around, hoping I would see who had dropped it, but as usual, there was no one is sight.

I picked the paper from the floor with shaky hands.

“Anya!” a voice called from the entrance of the door.

It was Ethan. That familiar pain flooded my chest as soon as I heard his voice.

”Anya” He  yelled, looking at me with panic as he had forced his way into the house.

“Are you okay?” He said, letting out a breath  as he saw me. He had so much concern on his face that you would not even for a split second have doubted if he cared or not…