Layla’s POV
I took a step back before I could stop myself as he approached, but the sound of Lu chuckling stopped Alex and he her, his face contracting in rage.
“You bit—” he started, but before he could say another word to Lu, my father grabbed him by his collar, pulling him in close enough that their noses were almost touching.
“Mention Lucretia’s name again and see if I don’t hunt you down,” dad warned in a quiet, menacing tone. “Even if you run and hide, I’ll find you.”
Watching him now, it was easy to tell that Gaius Fabrini was the Beta of the Sanguis Pack, and a number of emotions warred inside me as I took the whole thing in.
I felt proud of his show of strength, but also hurt because he hadn’t hesitated to jump to my sister’s defense when Alex moved to insult her. Meanwhile, his solution to my own disgrace was marrying me off.
Alex shrugged my father’s hands off his collar taking a couple of steps back.
“Oath breakers!” he declared, looking at us through hard, flinty eyes. “You are all filthy worthless cheats, whores, and liars!”
Before he could continue, my father interrupted him.
“Alpha Hector will be on his way soon, and as you know he will not tolerate any of the despicable things you have said so far.”
The effect of this was instantaneous. Alex paled at my father’s words, and for close to a minute his mouth hung open like a fish fresh out of water as he tried to come up with a suitable response.
Anyone with half a brain would’ve been wise to fear our Alpha, Hector.
The leader of the Sanguis Pack was a man I’d known for most of my life, and yet I could count on both hands the number of times I’d heard him speak outside of Pack functions.
Tall and self-assured in a way that did not call attention to itself because it never needed to, Hector oozed power, because even among us predators he was a beast, and forgetting that was a danger in itself.
“Bullshit!” Alex cried explosively, even if it was clear to all of us that he was intimidated. His injured sense of pride won over all sense of self-preservation. He was too cocky to back down now.
“Everyone will know about this dishonorable family!” he yelled vehemently, before shoving his way out of the room.
I prayed that this would be where things ended, but as soon as the door swung open Alex stepped out into the hall and began to shout at the top of his lungs, calling us cheats and sluts and wicked tricksters.
“Alex!” Reno hissed in shock. “Stop this immediately. You’re making a scene.”
She had an arm around Lu’s shoulder, and when I looked over at my sister, the younger girl shot me a small smirk before quickly dabbing at her eye with a handkerchief her mother gave her.
“I’m only just getting started.” Alex flashed her a dark smile before jogging out of the house and into the courtyard where the pack usually gathered for announcements.
“The Fabrini’s are frauds!” Eyes swiveled to us. “Gaius and Reno Fabrini do not deserve to be Betas of the Sanguis Pack!”
There was a pause for dramatic effect.
“Despite knowing that she was an irreparably damaged wolf, they tricked me into an engagement with their daughter, Layla.”
I swayed slightly in shock but caught myself before I could fall, and my heart sank because I knew without a doubt what would follow. Inside me my wolf Lea, now fully awake, growled low in her chest.
“You see, Layla’s wolf is disabled. It lacks a sense of smell, and so it cannot sense its mate. Knowing this about herself, Layla seduced me with lies—claiming that she loved me enough to be with me instead of her mate when she was throwing herself at me.”
I took a slow, uneven breath, feeling my shoulders drop in horror at the weight of this revelation, which up until now had been a shameful secret that burdened me and my family.
Everyone knew now.
“The truth,” he continued, “is that no one would accept her for being a freak, a runt. No one except the kindest person, that is me, and she hoped that she wouldn’t get kicked out when I finally found out the truth.”
Several people around me gasped, and I felt the pressure of hundreds of eyes press into me at his allegation but I was frozen to the spot, too busy staring at Alex in betrayal.
It was true that unlike other wolves, Lea lacked a sense of smell, and as a result wouldn’t be able to sense her mate even if they stood right in front of her—but in a race to paint himself as the victim in all of this, Alex had lied when he claimed he was ignorant about my disability.
He’d known almost as soon as we got engaged, and even now if I closed my eyes I could remember the afternoon in my room when I told him and he waved it off dismissively, saying that it didn’t matter before pulling me into a hug and thanking me for trusting him with something like this.
My eyes stung with tears, and I could feel my throat begin to close up. Inside me, Lea whimpered.
‘Layla, I’m so sorry,’ she whined in a tone heavy with guilt. ‘If I wasn’t damaged you wouldn’t be in this position, getting dragged down because of me.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ I assured her firmly, even though my vision blurred. Just like me, Lea hadn’t asked for any of this. I wasn’t about to put more on her plate when she already blamed herself.
There were cries of outrage in the crowd now as my Pack members sided with Alex, hurling insults at my father, stepmother, and me mostly.
They called me everything from defective, to a mistake, to a scheming slut and I was so caught up in all of it that I didn’t notice my family start to distance themselves away from me until I heard my father’s voice call out.
“Layla, how could you do this to Alex?” he thundered, and for a moment all I could do was blink as I tried to make sense of what was happening. “I never knew that you could be so devious. You have disappointed not just me and our family, but the Pack.”
What was he talking about? He knew I confided in Alex about my sensing defect.
All at once the realization hit me like a physical blow, and my knees buckled: He was deciding to put the blame on me so that the family reputation would be unharmed.
I could feel my heart beating in my throat as my eyes grew wet with tears at the betrayal, and a sudden numbness started to spread through my limbs.
“Please dad,” I begged weakly, throat thick with emotion. But his face remained blank as he continued to speak, accusing me of deceiving them all.
First my fiancé, then my Pack, and now my father; Everyone had turned their backs on me even though I did nothing wrong. The force of all of the betrayal I’d suffered finally cracked my facade of control.
I let out a hoarse sob, and my hand flew to my mouth, as tears streamed down my face.
All I had ever wanted was to live in peace, but time and time again I was reminded that I’d never be allowed to have something good.
I cried, not sensing the new arrival. The crowd parted to let him through until he stood in front of my family and I.
Then I heard a rumbling baritone come from behind me.
“What are you doing here?”
