Chapter 116

Justin POV

Seeing her on her knees before me was difficult.

She smelled of that damn rogue and I needed it to go away, I needed to claim her in my aura and aroma. It was impossible not to see the dismay and the shame on her features, though.

“Get up,” I growled at last, trembling to hold back my Lycan from pinning her to the ground and fucking her into next week. “Come here, mate.”

I held her hand as she stood, her eyes wide and wet and violated. She wiped her pink, raw eyes and blinked back some composure, though I could tell it was hard for her to do so.

“Follow me,” I breathed.

I steadily, and wearily, led my mate outside the arena. There was still an edge of a buzz, of action that had been left over from the event today. I couldn’t believe how another harmless day of activity and bonding with this new pack of ours had led to such quick and sure disaster.

“Justin, please, I—” she began to whimper.

One look from my Lycan and she knew to settle down. I couldn’t let the whole pack see us crumbling, but we haven’t been good and healed since the attack my father waged between us.

As much as I wanted to believe she was innocent, I was too wounded to address it at all. Let alone, allow my pack to see us feuding.

They love the little Luna, as most creatures seem to do, and to have the pixies, vampires, wizards and the Fae even swoon over her hierarchy in this pack, it made it almost impossible for me not to still love her.

She has grown from a wounded little tri-color, not that her coat ever affected my admiration for her, and then it lead to where we are now. She’s a little spunky, way more confident, and she’s the mate I so badly loved.

So why couldn’t my Lycan oversee her betrayal?

I shook that thought out of my head at once and led my mate all the way back to the estate. She walked past me, her head down as she wavered her shorts steps toward the barracks.

Scott’s estranged brother’s words rung out hard in my ears.

“No, little wolf,” I purred. “Come inside with me.”

Her eyes lit up and she followed me at once, heading into the large estate that belonged to my family for centuries. I opened the door into one of the suites, one that was between my father’s old room, and my mother’s.

She gleamed at the size and beauty of it. It’s certainly not a little cave or our modest stone house in True Mates village, but it’s stunning and warm.

I stalked away to the bathroom and ran hot water into the tub. She shrugged out of her clothes and waited in the doorway, catching a glimpse of bruises forming on her hips and her sides.

She hadn’t healed from her father’s torture completely.

There was a sad twinkle in her eyes that led me to believe her wolf, and her soul, were both wounded from that ordeal. I saw the same somberness when she looked at me and my Lycan turned his back in my head, unwilling to pity our precious mate.

“Thank you, Justin,” she muffled, her downcast face and upset eyes crinkled with sorrow. “I know you don’t trust me, but we have to be careful about what to do with William. He’s dangerous.”

“I know what he is,” I groaned, my Lycan straining to hold back as she came beside me, her scent muffled through the nasty aura of that asshole rogue. “I will worry about him, mate.”

“I want to help you.”

“You’ve done enough,” I said through an exhaling sigh.

She looked hurt by my slip of a whisper but I couldn’t take it back now. I just let it die between us before shutting off the water and taking her warm, soft hands into mine and helping her into the bathtub.

She settled in the soapy, bubbly water, her features so worn and tired. I caressed her cheek, everything wrong with our bond seeming to fissile away for once.

“I’m sorry I’ve messed everything up,” she whimpered, biting her beautiful, fleshy bottom lip. I wanted to do the same, but I could smell that rogue on her lips from here. “I know you don’t believe me, Justin. But after everything that we went through together, why would you think I would ever betray you like that?”

I sat back for a minute, pouring a little bit of soap on her tangled, dusty hair and wiping the soap off her bare back, littered with healing scars.

“Helen, I saw you stab me,” I said at last. “I am sure you have a million reasons behind doing it, but I will noy ignore the facts. Most of the werewolf world hates me anyways, why should I expect anything less from you?”

“Because you’re my mate, Justin. You’re mine forever and I wouldn’t say that unless I meant it. If I wanted to hurt you, I would reject you, but I—”

My Lycan snapped, my hands growing nails and scraping her spine on accident. I pulled away at once and created distance between the two of us, unwilling to let it happen again.

Her lip quivered in sheer pain and I broke at the sight of her in the bathtub, needing me and trying to plead out to me, and here I am being a harsh, brutal Alpha without a hint of decency.

“I’m sorry,” I growled out, fighting my Lycan.

“It’s okay. He’s mad at me. I know that.” She looked down at her hands in the water. “He has every right to hate me, Justin. I just want you to trust me again. Both of you.”

“Maybe one day,” I edged out, ducking from the bathroom at once.

I hurried into the bedroom and sank into a seat by the fireplace. The arena duels today were exhausting and so was meeting that rogue. I was hoping I had gotten rid of Scott for good.

I suppose his family has had a long time to think over me killing him so harshly for my father to watch. I never anticipated this, though, let alone that my little mate and I would be in the middle of a pixie war with that rogue as well.

Before she would even think to tell me, I knew she would ask me to let her fight for those pixies.

By however it had happened, she was their queen, and she would feel obligated to help them. I sat back, running my hands over my face when a light knock came out onto the bedroom door.

“Come in,” I called.

It was a warriors originally from Lone Wolf and now accepted into True Mates, and he brough me a letter with a familiar name scribbled over the envelope.

I stared at it curiously and sent the warrior away. Helen stood in the doorway, damp and only covered in a white, short towel.

“Who is it from, Justin?”

“William.”