Chapter 3
ELISA
In a way, it had always been like this. I had just been too blind to notice.
First, he would leave our room and go to her quarters whenever he got word that she was sad, then he wouldn’t return for days, claiming he had to console his late brother’s wife.
It was his responsibility.
But it was more than that, wasn’t it?
“Lyra! Lyra, my sweet Lyra," Tristan whispered as he held on to her.
His voice was trembling with a raw, terrifying panic I had never heard him use for me.
Not when I was ill and burning with a fever, not when my heat cycle came and left me a trembling and feverish mess. He never held me then, never clutched me with such care and reverence.
I never meant anything to him, did I?
He gathered her into his massive arms, pulling her bleeding body against his chest.
He held her face in his large hands, kissing her forehead, kissing her cheeks, brushing her hair back.
It was the exact kind of gentle, desperate love I had begged him for every single night for almost seven long years.
And he was giving it to the woman who just destroyed my life.
A physical, agonizing pain ripped through my chest, so sharp I actually had to clutch my dress.
I couldn’t breathe. The air felt too thick, suffocating me underneath all the pressure.
"What happened? Who did this to you?" Tristan demanded, his eyes frantic as he inspected the bloody cut on her arm.
Lyra whimpered, trying to raise her bloody hands to his face.
She buried her face into his chest, her shoulders shaking with fake sobs.
"I... I just wanted to talk to her, Tristan. I wanted to apologize to her, to tell her I was sorry for not telling her about the plan before getting into bed with you. I told her I only wanted to help. But she got so angry. She grabbed the glass and... she came at me."
"Liar!" I screamed.
My whole body trembled violently.
I tried to pick myself up, to push forward, while pointing a trembling finger at the dried puddle on the ground.
"She broke it! I brought a cure and she broke it. Tristan! She stabbed herself!"
Tristan finally looked at me, and the pure hatred in his eyes made my blood run cold.
He gently set Lyra down as though she was made of fragile glass, then marched toward me like a predator.
He grabbed my arm so roughly I gasped in pain as he jerked me up onto my toes.
"You bring nothing but ill luck to me and to this pack!" he roared right in my face.
His grip bruised my skin, his Alpha aura pressed down on me so hard I could barely keep my knees straight.
"You know the heavy responsibility that rests on my shoulders! You know my uncle is locked up in the East Wing, stuck there as a mad, raging beast! I am the only one left! It is on me to give this pack an heir, and Lyra is the only way I can do that!"
I stared at him, the tears pouring down my face so fast I could barely see.
"Tristan, please, if you would just look at the floor—"
"Quiet!" he snarled, shaking me so hard my teeth rattled.
"To attack the woman who is to carry my child... that is treason, Elisa! Do you understand me? You should be hanged for this!"
Hanged.
My own husband…was going to kill me, for treason? He refused to listen to me, refused to consider—not for a second—that the words I spoke were the truth.
My knees were weak, and if he wasn't gripping my arm with such vicious force, I would have collapsed.
"No!" Lyra screamed instantly.
She burst into loud, dramatic cries, crawling over the cold stone floor and clutched at Tristan's leg.
"Please, Tristan, no! I already lost my dearest Alpha Kai! I can't lose my best friend too! It was an accident. Elisa didn't mean it. Her hand... her hand must have just slipped!"
Tristan's heavy breathing slowly began to calm down.
The wild, murderous rage in his eyes dimmed as he looked down at Lyra's crying, beautiful face.
He became physically softer. His tight muscles relaxed, and he let go of my arm, leaving it throbbing with pain, before he knelt to help Lyra up.
He wrapped a gentle, protective arm around her waist, shielding her from me as if I was some kind of monster.
Then, he cast a wary, disgusted look at me, making me feel like a piece of dirt underneath his shoe.
"Even after you tried to kill her, Lyra still cares about you," Tristan spat at me.
The absolute, unwavering belief in his voice makes my stomach turn.
"Now get up. Go wash your face and get ready for the Blood moon party tonight. You should thank Lyra for still loving you as a sister, or I’ll have branded you a traitor and hung you today."
My throat tightened.
The pain in my chest was so heavy, so suffocating, that for a moment, the world spun around me.
I looked at the man I had loved for years, realizing I didn’t even recognize him anymore.
The Tristan I loved died a long time ago. He never existed.
Tears pooled in my eyes, blurring my vision, but I refused to let them fall anymore.
My pain rapidly turned into a cold, hollow emptiness.
"If this is your love, Tristan..." I whispered, my voice shaking but filled with a sudden, dark clarity.
"I wonder what your hatred looks like."
He became enraged all over again.
A dark, vicious growl ripped from his chest.
He stepped right into my space, his fangs fully bared, his Alpha aura pressing down on me so hard, it almost sent me down to the floor.
"Touch Lyra one more time," he spoke through a clenched jaw, "and I’ll make sure you find out."
He turned his back on me, guiding Lyra gently back into his room, and shutting the heavy oak door completely in my face.
The click of the lock echoed in the silent hallway.
I was left standing completely alone.
I slowly reached up and wiped the wet tears from my cheeks.
Then, I turned away from his door, every step feeling lighter as a new realization washes over me.
There is nothing left for me here.
After the Bloodmoon party tonight, I would leave and never return.
If only I knew what was waiting for me that night.