Chapter 76
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Gwen’s face scrunches up like I slapped her. Good. She deserves that and worse for trying to blame me for what happened to me. She should face turmoil over the fact that Caleb and I had been together even before I was in the harem,
The reasoning is messy. I still think I was drugged that night, though not by Caleb. I don’t want to believe that my family could have set me up, but it was Leah’s drink I had been holding that night. She did have the most to gain from my disgrace.
Gwen’s upset lasts only for a moment before she recovers, as confident as ever. Her smug smile slips right back on her lips.
“You were disgraced,” Gwen says. “Your parents hate you so much they made you a slave to your own household. How embarrassing it must have been when your own sister slashed marks onto your back. What did she say you were guilty off Disrespect? Jealous?”
Gwen laughs and the other girls join in. “You were a pathetic slave, just as you are a pathetic consort. You might have the King’s favor at the moment, but soon that will wear out too. And when it does, you will have nothing.”
Her words strike me, but 1 pretend they don’t. “No one here has anything I need,” I tell her. “I don’t need the King’s favor. I don’t need this harem. I don’t need anything or anyone. I just want to be left on my own.”
Gwen’s smirk stretches higher. “You don’t even need your precious Samuel!”
No. She wouldn’t. Leah wouldn’t tell Gwen about Samuel and me. She has to be embarrassed, ashamed. She wouldn’t just tell people unless that person promised to use the knowledge against me.
“Hit a nerve, didn’t I?” Gwen says. “You had it all, Harlot. Now you I’ve lost it all. If you think Samuel is going to choose you over his mate, you are delusional.
I don’t wait to hear more. Instead, I turn right around and head back to the dining room where I know the wives are convening to eat.
Fortunately, I don’t have to storm inside to confront Leah. She’s outside the dining room, leaning against the wall of the hallway like she’s waiting for someone. When she sees me rushing toward her, she seems equal parts alarmed and amused,
asks.
“What the hell do you want?” she as
“How could you tell Gwen about Samuel?” I hiss, careful of my volume, not wanting the other wives to hear as well. Gwen and the harem knowing is bad enough. If the entire kingdom knew, I don’t think I could stand it.
Not that there’s anything I could do about it.
Leah rolls her eyes. “Why? Are you embarrassed that the boy you adored actually loves me?”
“He doesn’t love you,” I snap, hurt coiling around my heart. It does bother me that Samuel chose her in the end, yes. His feelings for me are still there, as evidence by the necklace, so why couldn’t he have followed his heart?
Even logically, while I knew he did what he thought was best for the pack, and likely followed the advice of the elders and other leaders, it still cut deeply that he seemed to have no consideration for me.
He didn’t have to marry her so quickly. He could have spoken teeme first.
Leah narrows her eyes. “You’ve lost, Harper. You couldn’t hold onto Samuel, and while you might have your hooks in the King at the moment, it’s only a matter of time before you lose him too.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about”
“You are a member of his harem, not his mate. Not his wife. Nothis Luna, or his Queen. You are a plaything. You might have his attention at the moment, but soon enough he will tire of you Men are like that you know, and he’ll be off to the next
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Chapter 76
young pretty thing”
“I don’t care when that happens,” I tell her. “I’ll be glad when it does.” It feels like a lie, deep in my chest. But it shouldn’t. If the King were to finally leave me in peace, I would be glad.
At least, I should be glad.
“Someday he’ll replace the entire harem.” Leah says. “When he finally takes on a rate and has an official union.” She taps her chin as if thinking, “What will happen to the lot of you when the harem is disbanded, I wonder? Will he send you to the coliseum, to have a final use for you? Or will he just kill you outright?”
She seems to be enjoying the potential possibilities.
“I suppose, in the end, he will probably leave the question up to his Queen,” she says, drilling in the final nail of my coffin.
Nothing she said should affect me.
But it does. It all does.
I don’t understand why, and I’m not willing to give it too much consideration. But her words stick into my chest like a thousand tiny needles. It hurts so much that I press my hand over my heart just to make sure it’s all in one piece.
“When that day comes, it won’t matter,” I say, refusing to let her have the last word, even if my retort is lame. “I won’t care in the slightest.”
It’s a lie and we both know it. To save myself further humiliation, 1 back away then and scurry down the hallway.
Fortunately, by the time I reach my door again, Gwen and her crew have vanished. I sneak into my room, put my back against the closed door, and try to breathe.
That night, I’m called to Caleb’s chamber, I suspect he has another headache, after all of the stress of the day. The Alphas were a handful, constantly arguing and bickering, no one able to admit when they were wrong. Caleb had to posture several times to assert his dominance over the group
For him, a headache is to be expected.
When I enter his chambers, I find him standing beside the full–length mirror outside his bathroom. He’s not wearing a shirt, just his dark pajama pants hung low on his hips.
He doesn’t turn to me as I approach, but our eyes meet in the mirror.
“Tristan told me you attempted to speak with Samuel today.” Caleb says.
Ah, so it’s not a massage he wants, but an interrogation.
“Samuel wanted to speak to me,” I clarify.
“There is hardly a difference. If Tristan hadn’t intervened, you would have accepting him and engaged in the conversation.”
That feels true so I can’t argue it.
“If I detect you are plotting against me, I will have him killed,” Caleb says as simply as it he’s remarking on the day’s weather, It sends a chill to my bones
Caleb is a ruthless, heartless man who I should hate with a passion. In a way, I do hate hum. For keeping me here. For not believing me when I tell him there is no child. For not always listening when I tell him no.
In a different way, I don’t hate him at all. And that half of me is taken by Leah’s words, as well as this growing distance between he and L
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Chapter 76
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L
Last time we had sex, we didn’t even say a word. He walked out without even helping to clean up.
I hate this
1 hate him, but I also want him.
Scenting the air, Caleb slowly turns to face me. Heat sparks in his gaze, it’s a mirror of my own.
I take a few steps forward closing the distance between us. Caleb watches me silently but doesn’t say a word. Pressing myself. up on my toes, I press a soft kiss to his lips. It doesn’t linger as I drop back down to see his reaction.
“About fucking time,” he growls, and kisses me in return.
SEND GIFT
