Page 66 of Knocked Up By My Fated Alpha
“I’ll get rid of Ivy for you and void the duel.” He caught my wrist in a loose but firm grip, his tone plaintive. “Please just take me back.”
I didn’t even turn to look at him before shaking him off.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear any of this. Have a great day, Elias.”
I’d barely made it a step away when he called out to me again, this time a touch more desperate.
“Don’t act like you haven’t seen the way he has changed these past weeks since Rielle’s return. He has already chosen her over you!”
I froze midstep.
“That’s not true.” Even as I spoke, I knew the words were a mistake, a hold Elias would latch onto to go for the kill.
But to my surprise, Elias made no attempt to come after me.
“Look me in the eye, Raven, and tell me you really believe that.” His words were soft and almost pitying. “Tell me you believe Alpha Damien would choose a woman he’s known for a handful of months over his childhood love and fated mate, and I’ll leave. I’ll never bother you again.”
Unshed tears burned in my eyes, but my lips couldn’t form the words to deny Elias’s claim.
I felt him behind me then, and I turned to face him, my voice and spirit broken.
“What do you want from me, Elias?”
Elias took my hand in his, pale blue eyes searching mine.
“Tonight, the council will call for Alpha Damien’s deposition on grounds of disloyalty to the pack for plotting to reinstate the woman who caused the blood war as his Luna.” He let out a breath. “Then, I will be named alpha in his stead. All I need is for you to step forward and corroborate my claims and confess to the pack that I am thefather of your child, not my uncle. He’ll lose whatever credence he has left, and I’ll claim you and your child as my luna and heir.”
Elias’s hand dipped to my belly.
“I’ll love the child as if it were mine, Raven. We can be a family as we should have been if I hadn’t ruined everything.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“I…”
If I betrayed Alpha Damien, he’d lose everything. But if I didn’t and Alpha Damien got back together with Rielle, his literal soul mate, not just my life but even my child’s life couldn’t be guaranteed.
From the start, my arrangement with Alpha Damien had been to keep myself and my child safe—to survive. If there was a more guaranteed way to do that, there was only one choice for me, wasn’t there?
I met Elias’s baby blue gaze, then I stepped back from his touch.
“I won’t betray Damien.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Damien
“What part of ‘Rielle isn't to be left alone at all times’ did you fail to understand?” I bit out, voice tight with frustration, my wolf dangerously close to the surface.
Gianna, the attendant I’d entrusted with looking after Rielle, dropped to her knees.
“It was her lunchtime, so I locked the doors and went to the kitchen—” She trembled, choking on the rest of her words. “Have mercy, Alpha.”
Hands clenched into fists at my sides, I corralled my dominance that had been bearing down on Gianna, then with a terse gesture, I dismissed her. It wasn't the girl's fault that Rielle had somehow gotten out of her room, broken a vase and cut herself up.
In truth, my dark mood had very little to do with the broken vase and everything to do with the steep cost of keeping my promise to Matthew.
While he'd kept his word about handling the human law enforcement, calling in favours to get all investigations into the murders temporarily suspended while Rielle recovered, nothing could counter the ripples Rielle's return caused within my pack.
