3: Damian

Aurora

“I’m so sorry. I never knew it would turn out that way,” Mia says for the umpteenth time in one week now.

“It was never your fault either,” I said to Mia again.

I told no one as Liam instructed, but couldn’t have hidden such a piece of information from Mia, except that I never disclosed who my mate was to her yet.

I’m not afraid she would spill and cause me further trouble, but somehow I’m afraid to even mention it to myself nor acknowledge it, because that was the height of all cruelty the games of fate would turn.

So far, Kiara wasn’t yet responding. She was weak and broken. It’s been hard this past week. At times, it scared me to think she wouldn’t make it past the rejection pains. She was chubby, weak, and fragile just as I was.

I sucked in a nervous breath as I took the munched chips and juice carefully placed on the tray for Liam. He had instructed I personally serve him this in his room.

To properly heal? To even mention that I was brutally punished and treated like a criminal the next day for not showing up with my usual routine of serving his early morning coffee?

That was certainly a hard one all to take in.

One knock on the door and I pushed it open and instantly regretted why I did. I instantly wished I never, to behold the scene that stared back at me.

It dug deeper into my chest in a certain kind of way that made tears curl up in my eyes. I know it shouldn’t. I know this wasn’t supposed to affect me, since he had already rejected me, but that part of me that’s still fragile slipped despite my will not to.

You know that kind of pain of seeing the one man who had broken you, shattered you without mercy, and still tangled up with another, intentionally making you watch them screw each other, like you were created without emotions or a heart?

It stings.

Liam kept thrusting into this unknown blonde lady even when I hurried to drop the tray and didn’t stop until I was halfway through the door when he called.

“Stop,” he ordered, and my legs froze on the instant. I remained bowed, my back to them, my silent whimpers almost slipping through.

“You don’t dare turn your back on me nor leave until I say otherwise.” He roared through whatever pleasure rippled through him, because he was still plunging fiercely into the lady, whose grip curled around the sheets with intense pleasure as her head dug deeper.

“Yes… yes… right there,” she screamed.

“You love that, don’t you?” He smacked his free hand over her ass, causing her to jump in pleasure, the sound cutting deeper than any deep-rooted stab, causing my eyes to sting.

But I didn’t let them drop. I couldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me break, of seeing me bleed even more after he bluntly rejected me, after every damn thing he’s done to me.

He wanted me dead. He wanted me to never exist, but that, I wouldn’t let him drop the final dot, nor would I let him cross the t’s. At least that was what I told myself.

“Yeah… ohh… goddess…”

I curled inwardly with hitched breath as I stood there watching for almost an eternity before Liam finally pulled away from her and rolled out of the bed, and that was when I saw the face of the lady he was screwing.

Anna?

My heart dropped into my stomach, but not longer when Liam finally spoke with a cruel smirk on his face, “Now you may leave.” That was cruel satisfaction.

He was satisfied I had to watch him and break even further. But he never truly knew how disgusting he appeared.

I sprinted out of his room and back to the servant quarters instead of the kitchen. Right there in my room, I dropped onto my shabby wooden mattress. It crashed down on me, and the tears I had managed to hold back slipped from their cage.

So that was it? Liam had rejected me and saw none other fit to drive the knife deeper than to screw Anna?

Was Mia aware all this while and yet never deemed it fit to disclose it to me?

Why would I even blame her when I hadn’t even told her it was Liam who had rejected me?

But Liam screwing her kid sister was the height of it all. What pained me the most was also the fact that I could do nothing about it. There was this kind of pain that radiated through such humiliation, even if he was my past.

In that moment of total brokenness, I only wished my parents could care. Maybe they wouldn’t have used me as a price material instead. Just maybe I would have been fated to someone else who would have loved and cherished me.

*****

Damian

I paced the length of my chambers as my arms were tugged into my pockets, while one arm held a glass of wine.

My eyes narrowed along the tree line that stretched out before me through this part of the window. It was cozy in here at the top floor of this apartment and quite entertaining in a way, except that my mind wasn't fully stable yet.

I was going to graduate from this training in a week's time and would return back to the pack. I don’t know, but that feeling alone unsettled me.

It shouldn’t have, but it did. In a subtle way. Only I knew why.

The hold… the betrayal… the buried wrath, it all still lived within me, coiled deep inside my chest, refusing to fade no matter how much time had passed.

Time hadn’t healed it.

It had only preserved it.

It shattered everything dear to me and left nothing but the hollow, the coldness, that part of me that the world still sees, refined in a certain kind of way.

I took a deep breath and gulped down the remaining liquor, setting down my glass when I got a reminder from Aaron.

‘It’s time for the final training test.’

‘Yeah, thanks, dude.’

‘It’s about time.’

Aaron wasn’t only a strong wolf, but always supportive and the kind that reminded me of who I truly was inwardly, that part that still hid somewhere down there in the shadows.

As I rounded the room towards my wardrobe to go change into something light and cozy for the training, my eyes instinctively drifted to the secluded part of my wardrobe.

Something instinctively snapped. It had been this way ever since I turned eighteen, eight years ago. Even the same as my room in the packhouse. Same empty space, same vacancy awaiting its owner.

I had long eluded that idea of having a mate since I was twenty-four and still searching. I figured that idea weighing down on me had been a strong restraint that I needed to erase to keep my strength and focus, but there again, I couldn’t totally erase it, even occasionally erase that consent of making half of my closet for someone. That half of me. Even though I didn’t fully understand if I would ever be mated to anyone.

Then just two years ago, I met her. My better half, the woman I would have loved to spend the rest of my life with. The one I would have cherished with everything dearest to me, to protect and to love at all times. But what did she do?

Screwing my best friend like it meant nothing, and even had the guts to look at me without any guilt, without any remorse whatsoever, like it was an everyday yoga class.

It gutted me to the extent that I had to reject her on the spot and forced her into accepting the rejection. And I’m not regretting it one bit.

My jaw tightened as Aaron stirred, depressed and broken, just by that nostalgic feeling.

But still, the empty space remained. It had been a habit I couldn’t erase even after all the betrayals, heartbreaks, traumas, and the rest. Often times I wished I was mateless and remained so. Often times I wished my paths never ever crossed with hers.

Maybe… just maybe someday, I would heal from the trauma, from that awful scene, that pleasurable moan. Only that I doubted it would ever be. I doubted I would ever acknowledge any other nor trust the moon ever again with choices of mate.

Right now, what mattered was the weight that lay ahead.

I’m twenty-six already and soon to be Alpha in a week’s time, and the last thing I needed was a distraction or a reason to show any vulnerability or weakness.