Chapter 6: Wear something nice II

Tori’s POV

As instructed, I put on something nice, a dress I had been holding onto, hoping for the day I could wear it in front of Alpha Carlisle, sharing a quiet dinner together. I never imagined that day would come so soon. After washing up and dressing, I applied light makeup to conceal the exhaustion on my face.

As soon as I stepped out of my room, I immediately sensed that something was off. The entire packhouse carried a solemn atmosphere. Quiet, almost eerily so.

As I walked down the hallway toward the dining hall, a growing sense of unease settled over me. My palms clenched tightly, betraying my nerves. Standing before the towering doors, I took a deep breath, trying to steady my racing heart.

When I pushed open the door, I wasn’t met with the romantic fine dining I had imagined. Instead, as I stepped forward, my eyes took in the sea of people dressed in black. At the center of it all, Raquel sat in a white dress, delicately dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

The moment I entered, every head turned toward me. A stunned silence filled the room as all eyes stared at me in shock and disbelief.

I only fully grasped the situation when my heart pounded violently in my chest. My breath hitched, and my lashes fluttered as I locked eyes with Alpha Carlisle, who sat at the head of the table, his expression dark with fury.

The atmosphere in the room was heavy with grief, somber and serious, and some were even crying. It was clear they were commemorating the fallen warriors, honoring those who had perished in the war.

It might have been long overdue, but this was the only time our Alpha was present, and the war had finally ended, granting us the chance to grieve our losses. Many would never return home, and there were no bodies to bury, only the brutal memory of warriors torn apart like ragdolls by the vampires.

At the center of it all, Alpha Carlisle led the ceremony, offering comfort to the bereaved families. As his Luna, I should have been standing by his side, fulfilling my role and providing support.

But instead, it was Raquel who stood beside him, assuming the duty that rightfully belonged to me.

To make matters worse, I wasn’t just absent from my responsibilities, but I was dressed in a striking red dress, an inappropriate contrast to the mourning around me. Rather than offering solace, I seemed to have come there to celebrate, which wasn’t entirely false. My expression only intensified the weight of Carlisle’s burning gaze.

Such disrespect made him so angry that he instantly growled manacingly as he stood from his seat. "What do you think you are doing?" he questioned, taking a step forward toward me.

Before he could take another step, Raquel clung to his arm, her voice trembling with grief, laced with quiet sobs as if she were mourning alongside everyone else. The contrast between us couldn’t have been more stark she draped in sorrow, offering comfort like a true Luna, while I arrived late, clad in attire that had no place in a mourning hall.

The difference was glaring, and it didn’t take long for the pack members to turn their scorn toward me. To them, I had become the perfect target to shoulder their pain, dissatisfaction, and anger.

Murmurs spread through the hall, growing louder as disdain for me became impossible to ignore. No one even tried to hide their contempt anymore, openly voicing their criticism as if I weren’t standing right there. Their blatant disrespect was suffocating.

Before Carlisle could even question me, Raquel spoke up, her voice soft yet laced with carefully measured sorrow. "Carlisle, don’t be too harsh on her," she said, casting a fleeting, pitying glance at me. "I’m sure she didn’t mean to disrespect the dead… Perhaps it’s my fault. Maybe my presence made her feel threatened, and she chose today to assert her dominance over you—to remind everyone of her sovereignty. Y-You should comfort her instead."

"After all, she’s your Luna, and I—I…" Raquel let her voice trail off, never finishing her sentence. She didn’t need to. The unspoken words hung in the air, allowing everyone to fill in the blanks with their own assumptions. Speculation spread like wildfire through the hall.

What Raquel truly wanted was for everyone to believe that, as Carlisle’s current mate, I still held the Luna title, at least for now. And because of that, she had no choice but to step aside, unable to challenge my position or voice her opinions just yet. But that was exactly what she wanted them to think.

By doing this, she subtly ignited resentment toward me, pushing the pack members to start comparing us. She didn’t need to lift a finger because once their anger festered, they would be the ones urging Carlisle to cast me aside.

After all, my role had only ever been a formality—a marriage of convenience. I was weak. Now that Carlisle had returned, my usefulness had run out. The pack and its territory would naturally fall back under his command, and I would be nothing more than a figurehead, with no place left beside him.

Then, with a trembling breath, Raquel lowered her gaze and whispered, "Carlisle, I-I’ll just leave…" Her voice cracked, and a single sob escaped her lips, making her appear even more fragile and heartbroken.

I hadn’t even opened my mouth before the mood in the room shifted completely against me. Raquel had, once again, turned everyone against me without uttering a single direct accusation.

The pack members, already emotionally raw from grief, latched onto their own conclusions. When they saw Raquel, the sweet and selfless Raquel, reduced to tears and murmuring about leaving, their sympathy turned to anger.

Glares bore into me from all directions. To them, I wasn’t their rightful Luna anymore. I was the villain trying to drive away the woman they had already come to cherish.

"Victoria, if you have a problem, face me directly. Why go after a pregnant woman? Are you really that vile, stooping so low as to target the weak?" Carlisle sneered, his voice laced with cold fury.

His jaw clenched as he glared at me, his disgust evident. He had never liked me, but after this spectacle, any remaining tolerance he had for me had completely eroded.

Inside his mind, Roque, his wolf, snarled in protest. The beast clawed at Carlisle’s mental barriers, fighting for dominance, its rage mirroring his own. The internal struggle made him even more irritable, his patience hanging by a thread.

"I… I didn’t know…" I could only whisper weakly, my voice barely carrying over the suffocating tension in the room. I glanced around, feeling the weight of the pack’s hostility pressing down on me like never before.

In the three years I had led them, they had never truly respected me as their Luna, but at the very least, they had followed my orders out of obligation.

Their disdain had always been present but silent, lingering. But never had it been this openly hostile. Never had it felt like I was standing alone, surrounded by wolves baring their fangs.

My chest tightened as realization struck. Maybe it had been Sylas shielding me all this time, keeping their contempt at bay. But now… where was he? I searched the room, but he was nowhere to be found. A cold chill ran down my spine. I was isolated. Vulnerable.

The pack members, once merely distant, were now closing in, their glares sharp, their murmurs growing louder. It was as if they wanted to drown me in their contempt, suffocate me with their sheer numbers.

For the first time, I felt like their prey.

I stood my ground, but deep down, every fiber of my being screamed at me to run, to escape the suffocating weight of their contempt.

But more than anything, it was the look in Carlisle’s eyes that cut the deepest. Cold. Dismissive. As if I were nothing. The scorching intensity of his disdain felt like a hot knife slicing through my skin, straight to my heart.

I had given everything to this pack. Sacrificed. Led. Fought. And yet, they never truly accepted me. Only now, standing in the midst of their hostility, did I fully understand that I had never belonged here.

To them, I was an outsider. An intruder who had no right to stand beside their Alpha.

A heavy weariness settled over me. I was tired, tired of endlessly trying, of bending over backward just to earn a place among them. Tired of being the one who always understood, always endured. But who would ever try to understand me? Who would stand by my side?

I was tired of hoping, tired of dreaming, only to watch those dreams shatter again and again, right in front of me.

I was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. The weight of it all pressed down on me, suffocating and relentless. I felt like I was fighting a battle entirely on my own.

If Carlisle and the warriors who had gone to war believed they were the only ones who had sacrificed the most and endured hardships to secure victory, then they were wrong.

I had fought my own battles, silent, unseen, but no less grueling. I had shouldered the burden of keeping the pack afloat, ensuring their survival while also supporting Carlisle from afar.

I had worked tirelessly to secure supplies, to make sure he never had to worry about anything other than the war itself. And yet, standing here now, surrounded by scorn and resentment, it was as if none of it had ever mattered.