Chapter 5: Aria

Chapter 5: Aria

Branches fled past me as I ran through the forest, wishing I could leave the pack villa behind forever. I didn’t want to go back. It felt like everyone in the world turned against me. Even the trees mocked me, snagging my feet with roots and tangling my hair with leaves and twigs. Tears raced down my cheeks and blurred my vision, so I didn’t see the fallen branch until I had tripped over it, landing hard in the grass. The impact knocked the breath out of me, and I lay stunned before every ounce of pain erupted out of me, leaving me shattered on the ground.

Everything I’d worked for had just been ripped away from me. I hadn’t even been given a chance to fight for it. Oswald crushed my hopes and broke my heart, and he didn’t even care. I was more alone than ever. Without him and without the responsibilities of Alpha Female, I was nothing. My back quaked as I cried, fingers digging into the dirt as sorrow poured out of me. I couldn’t stop it. My grief was so intense that it consumed me, blinding me to all else. I heard nothing but my own ragged weeping and felt nothing but the heat in my face, the sting of tears in my eyes. My world had become small and suffocating. I couldn’t even breathe.

Today was supposed to be my day. I’d planned every detail of the ceremony. I trained so hard for four years. I loved Oswald and dedicated my entire life to him, and in an instant, that life was stolen from me! Anguish overwhelmed me again and again, wringing sobs from my chest every time I thought about what I’d lost.

My heart felt like it was being stabbed by a thousand knives. Tears staining my face, I pushed myself into a sitting position, my back against a tree. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I hugged them, feeling small and vulnerable. I lowered my head to my knees, feeling myself sink back into grief that seemed never-ending.

I don’t know how long I sat there, my throat swollen, my head pounding with a dull headache. I felt empty, raw, as if my very insides had been scraped out. Tears no longer came. My eyes throbbed as I gazed at the forest ground near my feet, my head blank.

Nothing made sense right now, and I didn’t want to think any longer. This temporary peace and quiet in my head was a blessing. I knew it wouldn’t last long, but I preferred it.

The sound of dry leaves crunching had me looking up with a mixture of hope and fear.

It wasn’t Oswald who emerged from the thicket but another familiar face.

“There you are!” said Dax. “My God, Aria, I was worried sick about you.”

I’d barely made it to my feet before my cousin stormed up to me, embracing me in a tight hug.

“Are you okay? What the hell was all that about? I can’t believe Oswald seriously did that to you!”

Feeling hollow, I just stood there until Dax detached from me. His hands were still on my arms. I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. I… I’m such a disappointment.”

Dax’s eyebrows quirked in sympathy. “Aria, you don’t have to apologize. Oswald hurt you.”

“I’m not good enough. That’s all there is to it.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t believe that.”

I didn’t want to believe it either. I didn’t even understand it. But somehow, Mara was better than me. In the couple weeks she’d been part of the pack, she had proven to Oswald that she could be a better leader, a better lover, a better person than me. She was older and wiser and had more experience. She was prettier, and she was better than me in every way—that must be why Oswald chose her over me. Every comparison I drew between myself and Mara brought my agony back to the surface, but all my tears were spent. There was nothing left behind except bleak, black melancholy. I stared dully past Dax and finally asked, “What happened after I left?”

Dax hesitated before slowly replying, “At first, everyone was surprised, but nobody complained. Everybody seemed to like Mara. I guess she had gone around and made friends with the pack while she was healing, so everybody was happy for her. It was almost like they expected it to happen.”

My melancholy ignited. Now, the heat of betrayal rushed through my veins. I regretted asking, but I’d hoped that at least somebody would speak up about a complete stranger becoming the pack’s Alpha Female. Clearly, I was wrong.

“She made this speech after you left about how, unlike you, she has the pack’s best interest at heart. I think it’s bullshit,” said Dax. “The way she has everyone wrapped around her finger. I know for a fact you committed your life to your pack.”

“Everything I did was for the pack! For Oswald,” I croaked, emotion threatening to break my voice. “None of it makes sense. How can he not see everything I’ve sacrificed? What am I going to do? What am I even worth to my pack?”

Dax sighed and pulled me in for another hug. As much as I tried to fight them, tears spilled down my cheeks in one last outburst. “I know you feel pretty beaten down right now, but this isn’t the end. You’ve always been resilient and adaptable, and you’re intelligent and kind, and you know your worth. It hurts, but… I believe in you, Aria. I know you’ll be able to pick yourself back up after this,” he said.

A dark, bitter laugh tumbled from my lips. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“Because it’s true,” said Dax. “You passed all your training for a reason—because you have what it takes. Oswald may not see it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is you stay true to yourself. Don’t let what others think get you down.”

Then he pulled away and looked me in the eye.

“You can do this. Find your own way. You know I’ll always be here to support you. I’m just a phone call away.”

He just wanted me to stop feeling sorry for myself. I wished it was that easy. All the same, I sighed and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Come on. Let’s go back,” said Dax.

My body was heavy with doubt as I followed him out of the forest. I appreciated Dax’s encouragement, but I couldn’t see any way I could possibly pick myself up from this.

“Is she still in there? She’s been crying for two days straight,” said Emma, her voice muffled in the other room.

“Yeah,” said Cassie, “it’s so pathetic. She brought it on herself by being a bitch to Mara. Why can’t she own up to it and admit she fucked up?”

“Because little Aria never does anything wrong.”

“Well, just because your fated mate is the Alpha doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to become the Alpha Female… I think that’s become obvious. She can’t expect people to feel sorry for her forever. She has to get over it and start working just like the rest of us.”

I stood in front of the door to my bedroom, listening to my sisters gossip about me, hesitating to turn the knob and show my face. I wanted so badly to argue with them, but I was beginning to wonder if they were right.

My schedule had become unnervingly empty. Without training or Alpha duties to keep me busy, I didn’t know how I was meant to serve my pack. I thought my destiny was to lead with Oswald. What was I supposed to do? Maybe I should just swallow my pride and ask for help.

With a glance in the mirror, I tried to make myself look a little less pathetic than what my sisters accused me of. My tears had long since dried on my cheeks, and my eyes were no longer red, just sunken into dark circles. I brushed my hair and got dressed in jeans and a grey t-shirt. Then with a deep inhale, I opened the door and stepped into the living room.

Emma and Cassie were surprised to see me.

“Look who came crawling out of her dungeon,” said Emma. “Did you finally get tired of wallowing?”

“I got tired of hearing you talk about me like I’m not here,” I said dully.

“Can you blame us? You barely do anything,” sneered Cassie.

I prickled with humiliation and anger, knowing that she enjoyed my suffering. “I take it you have some ideas? What do you suggest I do then?”

Emma scoffed. “It’s not our job to figure out your life. Maybe go ask Oswald if the office needs a janitor or something.”

At least cleaning toilets was more useful than kicking a ball around, I wanted to bite back. Instead, I just breathed in and gathered my composure, replying with crisp compliance, “Fine. I’ll ask Oswald to give me a job.”

“About time,” said Cassie.

“Maybe you can clean up our family’s reputation, too, since it became such a shit smear after he rejected you,” added Emma.

Cassie patted Emma’s shoulder and laughed. “Yeah, right! Only thing that’s going to fix our reputation is if Aria just miraculously stopped existing.”

“Ugh,” said Emma. “Now we have to work twice as hard to make up for you being such an embarrassment.” Her glare cut into me.

I couldn’t handle the way they looked at me, the way they spoke to me—with so much disdain for my very being. Before my overwhelming anger risked saying something rude, I turned for the door. When did my sisters begin to hate me so much?

But by the time I shut the door behind myself, I realized what I had just condemned myself to. These past couple of days, I couldn’t imagine talking to Oswald again. Now I had no choice but to confront him, accept that I lost everything I had going for me, and beg for a job.

The atmosphere in the pack was different now. As I walked between the buildings, there was only judgment from my packmates that I passed by. I felt their stares and heard the undertones of their jeers. I knew rumors were already flying after I’d hurt Mara, but now it was all anybody ever talked about around me. “Did you hear she screamed at Mara after the ceremony, telling her she didn’t deserve Oswald?” they said. “I heard she threatened to beat up Mara. After she won that fight against Preston, I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually tried. She’s dangerous,” said someone else. “You should stay away from Aria if you know what’s good for you.”

A chill ran up my spine at the thought of my packmates isolating me, depriving me of companionship. That would be the worst possible consequence of these rumors. Wolf shifters thrived on attention and touch. We needed physical contact, or it would drive us mad. I’d longed for Oswald’s Alpha touch, but the touch of my pack and family had been enough. What would happen to me if my packmates alienated me completely?

Hurrying into the office building, I made the dreadful journey up three floors in silence, down the corridor to where Oswald’s office sat. His door was open. I mustered up my little courage and knocked on the door.

Oswald didn’t look up at me, just wrinkled his nose as he tapped away on his keyboard. “It’s over Aria. Don’t waste my time asking me to reconsider because I’m not going to.”

His harsh voice was a punch in the gut. My courage was already crippled. “I didn’t come here to talk about that,” I managed to say.

“Why are you here then?”

I hesitated. “Can I come in?”

“Ugh.” Oswald leaned back in his chair and glared at me. “Fine. Close the door.”

Within my chest, my wolf whined. I kept my head down as I shut the door behind myself but didn’t take my usual seat before his desk, instead fidgeting with my hands as I stood near the door. “Since I’m not doing what I was trained for, I… I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“What do you mean?”

I had the feeling he just wanted to hear me admit how much of a loser I was. “I don’t have a college lined up. I didn’t train for a trade here in the villa. I’m not a great hunter. I don’t know how to serve the pack now.”

Oswald growled. “Why is that my problem?”

“I thought maybe you’d have something in mind for me, if not to be the Alpha Female.”

“That’s something you should have considered. Figure it out.”

I couldn’t resist frowning. “You never even implied that it was a possibility that I wouldn’t become Alpha Female. You and everyone else always talked to me like that was my future.”

“Don’t blame everyone else for your shortcomings,” said Oswald.

“I’m not!” My eyes darted up to Oswald. “I was just explaining why I came here to ask you for advice!”

The moment my voice rose, Oswald stood up from his chair, planting his hands on his desk. “The fact that you would have the guts to even talk to me about this is appalling. Is yourself the only thing you care about?”

“No! I care about the pack. I want… I need to have a purpose!”

“You still haven’t apologized to us. What makes you think you deserve to be part of this pack?”

“What?” I stared bewildered at him. “I kept trying to apologize! You never let me talk to you or Mara! I don’t understand, Oswald. I don’t understand why you’re shutting me out and then acting like I’m the villain when I’m… I’m just… trying to do the right thing!”

“If you were trying to do the right thing, you would have dropped your Alpha training and moved on!” Oswald snapped.

“What… Why?”

“Haven’t I made it clear?” He leaned forward, digging his nails into the desk. “I never wanted you, Aria. I never wanted to touch you or talk to you. I was never attracted to you. I always thought you were a weak little runt. It should have been obvious. I tried to reject you without saying anything because the rest of the pack would have judged me if I rejected you before it was time, so I tried to discourage you, break your heart, and make you not want me—but you didn’t get it. You kept trying, and that’s your fucking problem. That’s why I had to reject you in front of everybody because you were too stupid to see that I never wanted you in the first place.”

My eyes widened with the weight of that revelation. Oswald’s cruelty had always been intended to break me. It wasn’t that he was too busy to give me affection or show he cared about me—the truth was that he really never wanted anything to do with me. This entire time, I’d just been too ignorant to realize it.

“I was even going to let you down easy. I would have talked to you before the ceremony, but after you started attacking Mara, I had to punish you. And what better punishment than humiliating you in front of the entire pack? So no, Aria, I’m not going to help you out by giving you a job. You can figure it out yourself since you’ve always been so determined to get what you want. Just leave Mara and me out of it.”

Coming here to talk to Oswald had been a mistake. I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it hurt. Every part of me hurt. I backed against the door and clenched my fists.

“And don’t even think about talking to Mara. She’s everything I want, Aria. She’s perfect. Don’t dare taint her with your selfishness and greed,” warned Oswald.

“Don’t worry,” I muttered immediately, “I’m going to stay far away from you and Mara. Thanks for nothing.”

As I turned my shoulder to Oswald, he snarled. “What did you say?”

I didn’t linger. My anger urged me to ignore Oswald and slam his office door, leaving him behind to tackle my emotions once more.

Then, everything I’d felt until I was alone again was numbed by shock.

My entire life was wasted on a man who never wanted me. All the friendships I could have made, the bonds I could have forged with my sisters, and the careers I could have pursued were thrown away for a life that was never destined to be mine. He knew he was never going to make me his mate, and he made me endure four years of training all the same, believing that someday he would love me. He had expected me to read his mind, to know that he didn’t want me—my own fated mate. And then, because I was too focused on my studies, he punished me for something I didn’t even do. Well… he could have Mara.

Now that I knew the truth, I wanted more than anything to expose Oswald’s lies and betrayal. I yearned for someone, anyone, to understand what I was going through. My heart was aching. All I wanted was a little compassion. But would anyone even listen to me?