Chapter 0118
Cara’s POV
Alaric’s features instantly harden at my question.
“Do you… love me?” I asked him. For every moment that passes without a response, it’s as if the question continues to echo around us, endlessly repeating,
His mouth forms a hard line, and he looks down at the ground, folding his hands with his elbows resting on his knees.
I wait.
And wait.
…And wait.
And finally, he speaks.
“No.”
The word hits me like a bullet. Like all the air immediately vanishes from my lungs in a great gasp, stealing all of my oxygen.
It feels as though the ground has been pulled, no, ripped, from beneath me. Like suddenly there’s a great hollowness that exists inside of my chest.
And to think, I had told myself that I was over him.
I realize with the freshness of an open wound that I am disappointed.
Completely and utterly disappointed.
I realize something has left my heart. The expectations, fantasies, and past that I once had
. they have departed from me.
That’s his final answer.
To my surprise, I became very calm.
I realize I haven’t responded to him. I haven’t spoken a word. I clear my throat, testing the sound of my own voice. I hear myself reply to him calmly.
“Alright, I should have known this clearly since six years ago.”
Even though there almost no emotion in my tone, the statement itself sounded like a self- deprecating joke.
Alaric opens his mouth, a flicker of anxiety crossing his eyes.
“…Cara, I –”
Chapter 0118
+25 BONUS
But I cut off him. “I will pay for all of the medicines, any specialty care that Mia has received thanks to you, I am truly grateful for your help in saving my daughter.”
Alaric’s shoulders drop a fraction of an inch, like he’s relieved that I’ve changed the subject of our discussion.
But I’m not finished speaking.
“Please leave us. Now. You and I are no longer connected. Mia and I no longer need assistance.”
your
In my peripheral vision, I see Alaric move towards me the slightest bit. His stare lingers on me, and I don’t know if him will say something back.
But he says nothing.
He stares at me for a moment longer before finally raising from the chair.
He leaves the hospital room without uttering another word. I watch his tall silhouette, that once I loved silhouette disappear from the room.
Just like in the past, he left my world without hesitation when he chose Lilia.
-…Even though we are fated mates, but maybe it’s just not meant to we will be together.
I looke at my poor little Mia. Her eyes are tightly closed, still in the realm of sleeping. Her mouth was borned so much like Alaric’s, like her father’s.
Finally, I took a deep breath, and exhaled a breath of turbid air.
…There are indeed some things that should be let go completely.
John’s POV
I rush over to the pack hospital to check in with my Alpha King. Alaric had left specific instructions that he was not to be disturbed with calls or texts this morning, even from me, his Beta unless it was an absolute emergency.
He had told me that he was urgently needed to attend to that little girl, Cara’s daughter, Mia. After I received the call from Dr. Marlow requesting the special medicine, the Alpha King demanded that he attend to the request himself.
Who was I to stop him?
It is most unusual though, I have to admit. For an Alpha King to be so personally invested, so personally involved, in the medical care of a child from a neighboring pack. Even the child of a princess.
Surely the rumors would be spreading quickly…
Regardless, as Alpha King, Alaric needed no one’s permission to do as he pleased, no
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matter how many moms fentered amongst the park
mous
But to my eyes, someone who knows him well. It is quite cinious that the Apha King o be harboring immersely strong feelings for Cata
What other conclusion could possibly be drawn from the way the Alpha King is acting?
But the pack needs him to take his mind off of Cara and Mia today of all days. The morning after the full moon was abways full of tasks: status reports for any newly shifted wolves, assessments of any damage incurred, as well as assessments of any newly mated pairs that occurred as a result of the animal instincts taking over, just to name a few.
Yes, Alpha King Alaric Grant had a very busy day ahead of him indeed.
I find him inside of the hospital “Alpha King, sir, I have several updates for you this moming.” I call to him, jogging to catch up with the quick strides of his long legs.
“What was that?
Alaric asks me angrily, not bothering to turn to face me.
A shocked expression crosses my face. I hadn’t expected him to lash out like that
“Is everything alright, sir?” I ask tentatively, not wanting to push him further when he’s in this kind of mood.
Alaric merely grunts at me in response.
I follow behind him quietly for a moment, unsure of where he’s headed. After we circle the same corridor twice, it dawns on me that Alaric doesn’t know where he’s going either.
He’s not thinking straight now, that much is clear to me.
“Alpha King, sir, can I have a word with you, please?” I ask, opening the door to an empty
office room.
Alaric shoots me a hard stare before brushing past me firmly, marching though the open
door.
“What is it, Beta?” He asks roughly.
“Sir, with all due respect…” Alaric growls at my comment, clearly in no mood to hear what I’m going to say next.
But one of the first lessons I’ve learned is that being a good Beta requires speaking truth to power, even when, or perhaps especially when, that person in power doesn’t want to hear
the truth.
Cara Wilson taught me that.
And now I summon my courage and look my Alpha King in the eye. He may not want to
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Chapter 0118
hear this, but he needs to.
For the sake of the pack.
+25 BONUS
I clear my throat, starting again. “Sir, with all due respect, you are clearly very upset. Now, you’ll understand that we have a very tight schedule today, so perhaps discussing whatever is bothering you may allow you to move forward with a clear head.”
Alaric eyes me, not saying a word. But he’s not fighting me,
either.
“Was it an argument with Cara, sir?” I offer, assuming his foul mood must have stemmed from something along those lines.
Alaric again doesn’t respond.
I keep going, pressing my luck. “Sir, I think it might be better to face whatever feelings you may have for Cara sooner rather than later. Many of us can tell that you still love her and-”
“What good would that do?” he says.
My mouth gapes open.
Of all the things he could have said in response, that was not one of the things I had been expecting.
He didn’t deny his feelings for her.
I had actually expected him to scream at me, to threaten to fire me or to say that it was absurd for me to think that he loved her. But he did none of those things.
“She already has a husband,” Alaric adds.
I hear something in his voice, something even more unexpected than the words themselves.
That’s…Sadness.
“She already has a husband.”
He repeats.
