AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How fucking wrong I was.
“How is that possible?” I whisper, looking at each of them in fear. My blood feels cold, and a shiver wracks my body.
“Fate plays a messy game, little butterfly.”
I nod and want to move past it. “So, how did we get from their mating to you all hating Ryan?”
“Well things were amicable enough between our parents,” Topher says. “They bickered, they had arguments over pack policies and decisions, but they were family. My mum held no hard feelings towards Aurora, and my dads eventually mended the bridge with my uncle. I never knew of any of their history until we were in our teenage years. They got along so well that there was never any animosity or issues.”
I nod slowly when he pauses. I don’t know if he’s just letting his words sink in and give me the chance to catch up mentally or if he expects me to be able to connect these dots.
“Where does Ryan being a bad man come into this?”
“Henry and Aurora had a little girl.” Topher’s words are hesitant, almost reluctant.
I close my eyes as Topher talks because, deep down, I already know how this story goes. Comments Ryan had made over the years suddenly are heard in a new light, the fierceness of his protectiveness when it comes to vulnerable women… it makes sense if I’m right.
He had a sister.
“She was a wolf-born female. She was six months older than Iris and Talia, which was exciting for my mum and her to be pregnant together, but where Aurora had a wolf-born female, the twins weren’t born wolves.
“My parents were a little disappointed that their girls weren’t wolves, especially since my uncle produced a wolf-born female outside a soulmate bond, but everyone was still happy. Our families grew, and we had a good childhood. We spent so much time with our cousins, mingling with their pack, as they did ours, and despite the choices my uncle made, everything was as good as it could be.”
“But then she died,” I whisper, and Ben and Alex flinch.
“But then she died,” Topher says, his voice so broken and sad that I’ve got to resist the urge to offer him comfort. My heart physically aches for each of these men, and whilst my pain is not comparable, I know what it’s like to lose someone that you loved.
I had to say goodbye to the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, and they had to bury their cousin, a girl they loved for their entire lives.
Their pain is still so apparent, so fresh.
My eyes fill with tears, and I duck my head, letting my curls hide my face. As discreetly as I can, I wipe my eyes.
“She was kind, and lovely, and so different to her parents, to our parents.” Topher’s voice is husky as he doesn’t bother trying to hide his hurt. “They raised her to be spoilt and rude because she was special. But she was special despite all of their poison. She wasn’t like them. She gave back to the community, she was a pure soul that was damaged by them.”
I gulp, scared to voice my question but doing it anyway. My hands tremble, and I lower them to my lap as I look over at Topher. “How did... how did she die?”
“That’s the question of the century,” Alex says when Topher’s jaw locks, and he looks away from me. The air is tense and uncomfortable. All three of the men are upset, and it’s a distraction to my own anger.
Their pain comes before my own frustration. Their lie was huge… but their pain is bigger.
I’m not so selfish that I can’t recognise that.
“She died on our lands,” Ben says, and now it’s me who flinches. I gape at him, not sure I heard him correctly. “Her family swore she was coming to our pack at the command of my parents. They argue that we failed to protect her, that it was all a ploy for us to hurt her. Her dad, our uncle, claims this neglect was out of jealousy for them being the stronger couple and birthing a female wolf where my parents couldn’t. It got nasty, and we’ve only got one side of the story.”
Biassed but likely still focusing on some of the truth.
“What do you guys think?” I ask softly.
“We know that she had an arranged mating with a man a decade her senior. We know that she was being denied her true soulmate because he wasn’t deemed strong enough,” Alex says just as quietly. But whilst his words are quiet, they’re full of anger, dripping with a venomous tone. “We know that she had a desire to run away so that she could be with her mate. But if that’s what happened that night, she wasn’t protected. None of them protected her.”
“She was the oldest, sure, but she wasn’t alone. They could’ve protected her—we would have protected her. They may go by Grey, but our cousins were Wolfes,” Topher says with a loud snarl. “Ryan let her die, and now he’s created another Phoebe to follow in her path whilst he took the coward’s way out and ran away with his tail tucked between his legs.”
Another Phoebe? What does he mean by another Phoebe?
Was… Ryan wanted to use the name Phoebe for a girl, that’s where my choice of name came from. I never loved it, not like he did, but with him gone, I wanted to honour the one choice he could still have in regards to her.
But now… acid burns in my stomach, and I try to push the pang of betrayal away.
