2: Right My Wrongs

 

ARABELLA

“What the fuck, Arabella? What happened? Don't you want me?” Adrian, my husband, whom I had just married, asked, looking at me in shock.

He stared at me as though he had genuinely intended to make love to me, as though he wasn't planning to leave me here, aroused and waiting for him, while he went to spend the night with my stepsister.

I hadn't known that detail before, but now that I had put two and two together, everything made perfect sense.

In my previous life, he had returned the following morning after using purity herbs to wash away every trace of her scent. I had never understood why he always smelled so clean whenever he came back to me, but now everything made sense.

He had been sleeping with her all along!

“Arabella,” Adrian called, reaching out to touch my shoulder, but I instinctively swatted his hand away.

“Get away, Adrian. I'm not in the mood.”

My eyes dropped to the hourglass tattoo on my forearm again as I tried to figure out what it meant.

“Arabella, tell me. What's wrong with you? And why do you keep looking at your arm? Are you hurt?” He grabbed my arm and examined the very spot where the hourglass was, but to my surprise, he didn't say anything about it.

“You can't see it?” I asked in shock.

“See what?” His confused gaze met mine.

“Never mind,” I snatched my arm from his grasp, leapt to my feet, and walked straight into the walk-in closet to change into a comfortable pair of grey sweatpants and a shirt.

I needed to go for a run to clear my head and figure out what my next move would be.

This second chance the Moon Goddess had given me was not something I intended to waste.

I was going to make every single one of them pay for everything they had done to me.

On my way out, Adrian tried to stop me, but I refused to listen to him. I marched straight out of the room and headed toward the exit of the pack house.

However, my stepmother suddenly appeared in front of me, still dressed in the elaborate mustard yellow gown she had worn to the wedding. Two maids stood timidly behind her.

I stopped immediately.

“Where do you think you're going?” she questioned sharply. “You just got married! You're supposed to be in bed with your husband so you can start procreating!”

Oh, you mean the very thing you tried to prevent by poisoning me with that herbal tea?

Despite the rage brewing within me and the desperate urge to curse her out and rip her throat open for killing me, I forced myself to remain calm.

My stepmother still held considerable authority over the pack house and my father's property. Before he died, my father had signed an agreement stating that the Alpha position would not officially pass to me until I turned twenty. However, if I married before then, the position would automatically pass to my husband, while my stepmother would retain certain rights over my father's properties until I produced an heir. And if I died before my twenty-first birthday, everything my father had left behind would be forfeited.

Basically, I was still dependent on her.

I was only nineteen now, which meant I had to be extremely careful. One wrong move could ruin everything.

“Are you not the one I'm talking to?”

Slap!

A hot slap landed across my face, followed almost immediately by another on the opposite cheek. All because I had taken a minute to respond.

But instead of cowering and apologizing like I would have in the past, even though I had done nothing wrong, I stood tall and looked her straight in the eyes.

“I'm going for a run in the woods.”

Without another word, I attempted to walk past her, but she grabbed the hood of my sweatshirt and dragged me backward.

“Didn't you hear what I just said? You need to be with your husband so you can procreate!” she yelled, delivering another slap across my face. “It seems you've suddenly decided to become stubborn, eh?”

Within moments, she had ordered some guards to drag me back to my room, where she locked me up for disobeying her, just as she always did. My phone had also been confiscated.

There was a raging storm within me, one I desperately wanted to unleash on Adrian, Martha, and Sharon until they were all reduced to ashes. But I was fucking powerless at the moment, and that realization drove me crazy.

I had willingly endured her slaps and allowed her to lock me inside the room, not because I was afraid of her, but because I needed to be careful around my enemies. I had to plan every move strategically so that when I finally executed my revenge, there would be no loopholes for them to exploit.

For now, I would endure whatever abuse she threw at me.

But I had to act fast. I only had a limited amount of time to right my mistakes and reclaim what was rightfully mine. I couldn't afford to be as foolish as I had been in my previous life.

As I continued pacing, desperately trying to figure out what to do, a thought suddenly came to mind. Before my father died, he had a butler he was extremely close to, someone who knew almost everything about him. James might have been his servant, but he had also been his best friend, just like Sandra was to me.

Oh my God. Sandra!

My heart dropped.

My best friend was still alive at this point in my previous life. What if she was alive right now? What if I could see her and hold her in my arms again?

She had died from carbon monoxide poisoning just a day after my birthday, which was only a few weeks away. I had always suspected that foul play was involved in her death.

I would find Sandra as soon as I escaped the confinement of this room, but first, I needed to contact James and discuss my situation with him. I believed he would be able to help me.

There was a small, old phone I had hidden inside my wardrobe. I had kept it there specifically for situations like this, whenever my stepmother decided to lock me inside my room.

I rushed to the wardrobe, retrieved the phone, and quickly dialed his number. I still remembered it by heart. After my father died, James had been almost like a father to me.

He picked up on the first ring.

“James,” I called.

“Arabella! Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry I couldn't attend your wedding. My wife has been sick, and I've been taking care of her. I was actually planning to call you and explain everything.”

“It's fine. I understand, but I need your help. Something terrible has happened.”

“What happened? Are you alright?” he asked worriedly.

“It's complicated. You might not understand even if I explain everything to you, but I desperately need to get out of this messy situation.”

“What situation, Arabella?”

I inhaled deeply before continuing. “My stepmother and Adrian. I need to find a way to take back the power I gave Adrian by marrying him. I need to reclaim my position as the rightful heir to the Pack.”

There was a brief silence on the other end.

“Why would you want to do that?” James asked in confusion. “I thought you loved Adrian. Wasn't that why you insisted on marrying him? You believed he would give you more freedom and protect you from your stepmother.”

“I know, James. I know that's what I thought, but things have changed. I made a mistake, and I need to correct it before it's too late.”

“Arabella, what exactly happened?”

“I can't explain everything right now. Please, I just need to know if there's anything I can do to get my power back.”

He remained silent for a few seconds before muttering, “I don't know, Arabella. But before your father died, he originally arranged a marriage between you and the Northern Alpha King because he wanted the two Packs to form an alliance. I know you rejected that marriage because you wanted to be with Adrian. But perhaps if you speak to the Northern King, he could help you out of this situation. I'm just suggesting it, though. You're already married to Adrian, so I don't know if that's even possible anymore.”

The Northern King could help me.

That was the only thing that registered in my head. Everything James said afterward barely reached my ears.

“Okay. Thank you, James.”

I ended the call and resumed pacing, trying to figure out how I could convince the Northern King to help me.

He had attended my wedding, and I had seen him there. His presence had been so striking that, for some reason, I had stared at him longer than I should have.

But that was beside the point.

I knew he was lodged at the Monumental Hotel because we had arranged accommodations there for guests who had traveled from different parts of the world for the wedding. He had requested to stay for two days, which meant there was a chance he was still there.

I needed to get to him before he left the Southern Kingdom. I couldn't afford to lose this opportunity, not when it might be my only chance to reclaim everything they had stolen from me.

And when I finally did, they would all pay for what they had done to me.

Every single one of them.

My eyes dropped to the hourglass tattoo on my forearm, the same tattoo that seemed to be invisible to Adrian.

But this time, I noticed something different.

The shading in the upper half of the hourglass had decreased slightly, while a thin layer had begun accumulating in the previously empty lower half.

My heart skipped a beat.

What the hell did this mean?