9 The reason

Ryker

I look at her in awe, she is acting like a stranger in front of her husband for Goddess knows why. Nevertheless, it makes me happy and worried at the same time. 

Azura loved that bastard so much. The whole Academy knew that but Nicholas didn’t even bother to glance at her until he saw her with me. The only reason she dated me was to get the attention of my half-brother who changed girlfriends like clothes. 

Despite me trying to explain to her how he was and she was bound to get hurt by that asshole, she didn’t pay any heed to my warnings. She was blindly in love with him but the she-wolf standing in front of me isn’t a teen girl anymore. 

Azura has turned into the most beautiful woman and her actions are forcing me to wonder what happened between them that she isn’t even ready to disclose her true identity to him. 

He was such a foolish man, I chuckled inwardly. How can he not recognize her despite being his mate? 

“You will pay for this, fucker,” Nicholas seethes in anger and storms out of the room. 

My wolf jumps in joy like a puppy. She helped us when she could simply have taken her mate’s side and turned a blind eye to us. 

Shutting the door, I turn to look at her but she is sitting on her bed, sighing loudly. The tension is still thick in our room. 

“What is happening here?” I demand, stepping toward her. 

How can someone look good even in a man’s disguise? 

“Brothers will be brothers no matter what,” she shrugs, rolling her eyes. “You should thank me for saving your ass from the management. Had I not come out in time, you would have killed him. And if I wouldn’t have threatened him, he would have complained to the management. You were going to get kicked out either way, Alpha Ryker.” 

She smirks, changing the topic. She licks her lips, inhaling a deep breath slowly to hide her fear but I can smell the fear in her aura. 

Azura isn’t someone who can get scared easily. I hated how stupidly she was in love with Nicholas but if I ignored that one stupid thing about her, except that, she was the bravest and smartest she-wolf I have known. 

“I would have done a favor on the earth if you wouldn’t have meddled between us. Now, spill the truth,” I demand coldly. 

“You’re so arrogant just like him,” she retorts bitterly, her eyes blazing with fury. 

She gets up from her bed and walks away from me but I grab her elbow and pin her against the wall. 

A low growl rumbles through my chest, my eyes locked with hers. “Do not compare me with that asshole. We’re nothing alike, Azura. Do not call us brothers. He is nothing to me,” I utter every word with pause, grinding my teeth.

She closes her eyes and tries to push me away. She knows that she has hit the wrong nerve. 

“Then, stop acting like him,” she snarls at me after opening her eyes. Her heart is racing in her chest, and fear is evident in her eyes though she had hidden her gorgeous sky-blue eyes behind those contact lenses I can see right through her. She is hurt and hiding her pain beneath that anger. 

“Tell me, what happened, Zuzu?” I ask softly, surprising myself. I didn’t even know that I was capable of talking softly. 

My hands instinctively reach her cheeks and cup her face gently as I find the tears welling up in her eyes. I feel the anger surging in my heart when I see the tears falling down her cheeks. I close my eyes and grit my teeth to restrain myself from breaking something. 

My wolf is so angry that he wants to wreak havoc on the person who has hurt her. 

I calm my beast and her, too, but she breaks down and hides her face in my chest. I’m taken aback by the way she hugs me tightly, clasping my shirt in her fists as she sobs silently. I lose the leftover patience in me and growl loudly.

“Did he hurt you and you ran away from his pack?” I ask her in a dangerously low tone. 

I swear to the Moon Goddess, if he had hurt her, I would break his arms. I don’t give a flying fuck about this Alpha battle. I’m satisfied with being the Alpha of my pack. I didn’t come here for the greed of power. I had a different reason for coming here.

“He doesn’t love me, Ryker. You were right. He never did. He doesn’t even trust me,” she speaks in between her sobs and starts crying after saying that. 

I’m not surprised but I want to know what exactly happened. What did he do to her? 

I push her a bit more. “What did he do, Zuzu?” I rub my hand on her back in soothing strokes. 

“He accused me of killing my father,” she whispers and drops to her knees, still, sobbing. 

I ball my fists and exhale through my mouth before sitting on the floor beside her. I didn’t have any idea that she had lost her father. In the time when she needed her mate the most, he blamed his mate…? 

How could he do that? Nicholas was stupid but he wasn’t that stupid not to know that Azura was innocent and she would never harm any innocent soul, let alone kill her own father. He surely had some ulterior motives behind this. 

I can’t see her crying like that… It irks my wolf and burns my heart. I shush her and pull her in my arms before carrying her to the bed in my arms. I shouldn’t have pushed her more. Knowing the truth isn’t more important than her.