Chapter 139
Faith’s Pov.
I didn’t moved much. I had just cried. I cried for my mate, Astor, who hated me. I cried for my children, who were probably scared and confused. I cried for Sanders, the man I had accidentally killed. And I cried for the mess my life had become.
When the tears finally stopped, I was curled up on the hard, dirty floor, shivering violently, trying to cling to the memory of warmth. I was woken up by the dungeon opening.
I struggled to lift my heavy head but when I finally looked it was the one person I didn’t have the courage of facing. It was Ovelia.
She was not the regal, sharp woman I remembered. Her face was puffy and blotchy, her eyes red and sunken. Every line of her body screamed devastation the kind of soul–deep breakage only the
loss of a mate can cause.
I could feel it by just looking at her.
She looked like she had nothing left to lose, just a numb lifeless woman and it broke me.
I pulled my knees tighter to my chest. I couldn’t look at her. Shame burned hotter than the cold.
“Look at me, Faith,” she commanded, her voice raw.
I kept my gaze fixed on my hands. “I’m so sorry, Ovelia. I didn’t mean to…”
She didn’t let me finish. She crossed the small distance between us in two strides and grabbed my
face, forcing my eyes up.
“Look up,” she spat, her voice laced with poison. “Look up at what you did.”
I saw the hatred, the grief, and the utter emptiness in her eyes. I deserved the look. I knew I did.
Then, the world exploded into white hot pain.
Slap.
The force of the blow snapped my head to the side, my ear ringing instantly. My cheek felt like it was on fire.
“Give him back to me” she screamed, letting go of my face and backing up slightly, her hands trembling. “Give me back my mate, you murderer”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears flooding my eyes again. “I am so sorry.”
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“Sorry?” She sounded hysterical. “Sorry doesn’t bring him back!”
Before I could react, she raised her foot and kicked me hard in the ribs.
A sharp gasp escaped my lips. I curled into a tight ball.
Kick. This time in the side.
Kick. In the thigh.
She started kicking me repeatedly, her movements were frantic and uncontrolled and fueled by pure, unadulterated grief. I cried out. The pain was blinding, but still, I tried to accept it.
This is right. I deserve this.
“You deserve to hurt!” Ovelia shrieked, kicking me in the stomach. “You deserve to rot!”
Kick. Kick.
My wolf who had been silent under the oppression of the silver, suddenly flared. She was furious, not about the pain, but about the location.
Stop it, Faith! Let me help! Silver doesn’t hold me like the others. I can push her away!
No I deserve it, I insisted weakly.
Kick.
This one landed too close to my lower abdomen. The sharp, immediate spike of fear finally broke through my shame.
Think about the baby! My wolf roared inside
my head.
The word “baby” was a shot of adrenaline. My hands instantly flew to my stomach, instinctively protecting the life growing inside me. I tried to pull further away from Ovelia’s feet, dragging my aching, defeated body along the floor.
But Ovelia didn’t stop. She was angry and heartbroken.
Kick.
“Enough!” I screamed, a desperate, raw sound that came from deep within my wolf.
I didn’t shift. I couldn’t. But the overwhelming fear for my child and the need to protect him or her made me reach for my powers.
A sudden, invisible force slammed into Ovelia. She gasped, stumbling backward several feet, and crashed into the figure who had just entered the dungeon.
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Ovelia landed squarely in Astor’s arms.
My eyes followed her, and I saw him.
My mate.
He was holding his mother, his face a mask of disappointment and cold astonishment. He looked from his mother, shaking and weeping, to me curled up and bleeding on the floor.
“Astor!” Ovelia used the moment perfectly. She clung to him. “She tried to kill me! She threw me against the wall. Just like she killed your father.”
Astor’s eyes met mine, and the brief moment of shock vanished, replaced by an impassive, chilling
coldness.
I tried to reach out with my mind, to grab onto the mate bond, to show him the truth, to beg him to listen. But when I reached for him, there was nothing. A solid, impenetrable wall had been placed in his mind. I couldn’t feel his emotions, his worry, or even the familiar warmth of our matebond. He believed her. The way he was looking at me, the absence in his mind he already believed I was capable of doing something so. Sinister.
Ovelia straightened, leaning heavily on Astor, giving me one last look of absolute venom. “She is a monster,” she whispered dramatically, before Astor led her gently away, out of the cell.
Finally, we were alone.
I hoped. I hoped that now, without his mother there, I could explain it all. I could tell him how terrified I was, how it was Kyle I was aiming for, and how the grief was tearing me apart too.
I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position, every muscle screaming in protest.
“Astor,” I rasped, my throat raw.
He didn’t move toward me. He just stood there, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes glacial
blue.
I tried the one thing that mattered most. “How are the kids? Are they okay? Do they miss me?” I
asked.
“You will never speak about my children again,” he told me, his voice low and utterly devoid of emotion. “You are a danger, Faith. A murderer has no place in their lives.”
His words didn’t just break my heart, they shattered the foundation of every hope I had left. The thought that I, their mother, was a threat to them, was unbearable.
“Stop it!” I shouted, the pain and the betrayal finally overriding my fear. “Stop using my kids against
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me! Just tell me how they are? I just want to know they are safe!”
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“I told you to stop,” he repeated, taking a step toward the bars, but not close enough for me to touch him. “A murderer is not allowed this kind of concern.”
I stared at him, feeling the hot rage of injustice. “A murderer? You call me a murderer? How was your father a part of their lives?”
Astor flinched slightly.
“Your father killed my biological father, Astor!” I yelled, refusing to back down now. “I knew and I never brought it up! I said nothing! I did not use it to keep him from your children just because he
killed mine!”
He remained quiet, the wall in his mind thick and impenetrable.
“I know what I did was wrong,” I choked out, tears of anger and despair streaming down my face. “It was unintentional, but I accept the consequences. I want to pay for this! But you do not have the right to keep my kids away from me!”
“You should have thought about the children before you decided to do what you did,” he said, shaking his head slowly, sadly.
“What did I do?” I pleaded, dragging myself closer to the bars. “What exactly did I do? I tried to kill Kyle! I tried to get justice for myself and, my children, my family and my pack! I didn’t mean to!”
Astor leaned closer to the bars, his eyes hard and certain.
“I don’t believe you,” he stated plainly. “I don’t understand why you left the ceremony in the first place, Faith, to seek Kyle out. And when I got there I saw my father’s dead body, Kyle was not there. The only person who was there, bleeding from, was you.”
His mouth twisted with deep distrust. “You have openly admitted you killed him. I don’t want to hear anything else.”
He turned on his heel. He didn’t look back.
I was left kneeling on the cold floor, staring at the empty doorway. d.
He was gone. And he had taken every last piece of my hope with him.
