Chapter 6: Aria

Chapter 6: Aria

I paced in the living room, waiting for my family to get home. For the first time since my ceremony, I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I felt angry. And that anger churned within me for an hour before my parents stepped through the door.

“Aria. I see you’re finally feeling sociable again,” drawled my mother, setting down a paper bag full of groceries while my father walked past us to his office.

“I spoke to Oswald,” I said to them both.

My father paused and looked at me with disappointment. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to find a new purpose,” I replied. “Instead, Oswald told me the truth about why he rejected me during my ceremony.”

My mother crossed her arms and stood next to my father. They exchanged a dismayed glance, their faces darkening.

“He never wanted me. He was always planning to reject me because he wasn’t attracted to me, but he didn’t want to upset the pack by coming off as shallow because of it,” I said, the words like poison on my tongue.

“He has the right to make that decision for himself,” said my father.

“Would you rather he mate with you and your relationship be a lie?” added my mother.

“No. I would rather he have told me instead of dragging it out and humiliating me!” I looked between them, searching for any sign of support. “Don’t you think what he did was shitty?”

My mother’s disappointment intensified. “What do you hope to gain by making accusations like that?”

“Everybody’s blaming me for not trying enough or trying too hard. But no matter what I did, Oswald still would have rejected me!”

“And? What would you have us do about it? Our family is already under scrutiny for raising the little monster that you turned out to be!”

“Little monster?” I echoed incredulously. “All I ever did was train and do what I was told!”

“Yet you still let jealousy control you. You attacked our new Alpha Female!”

“I didn’t attack her!” I shouted.

My mother recoiled, and my father protectively stood in front of her. “Don’t raise your voice at your mother. You don’t understand the hoops we’ve been jumping through just to keep our home in the Lodge. To keep our rank in the pack!”

“I don’t care about our rank! I just want someone to listen to me!”

“Of course, you don’t care! You take everything for granted!” my mother screamed. “All you had to do was prove yourself worthy to Alpha Moore, and you couldn’t even do that!”

“He never wanted me!”

“He could have!”

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” I strained desperately.

They didn’t get it! There was nothing I could have done to change Oswald’s mind. I could have completed my training early, done all my projects perfectly, taken on extra work, and tried to seduce him—but none of it would have ever worked. The moment he realized I was his fated mate he knew he didn’t want me. I would never have been good enough!

My blood was boiling, but I didn’t know how else to prove to them that I’d done all I could. “Why won’t you just believe me?” I asked, looking up at them with tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.

My father shook his head. “We can’t risk losing everything we’ve worked so hard for. Our family started with nothing. We all paid our dues to be respected by the pack. All of us except for you.”

My anger flared. “Nobody would have even looked twice at our family if I wasn’t Oswald’s fated mate!”

“You arrogant girl,” gasped my mother.

“It’s not personal,” said my father, trying to mediate the electric tension between us. “You just have to prove yourself worthy of being listened to.”

The embers of my anger fizzled out in disbelief. “I’m your daughter.”

“That means nothing to us,” said my mother.

I stared at her, the embers cold. My heart shattered further. “What…?”

“Perhaps it’s best that you stay in the visitor lodgings for now,” my father suggested.

I couldn’t believe it. My own parents weren’t willing to stand up for me. “You… You want me to leave?”

My mother pursed her lips, looking down at me in hard contempt while my father sighed. I could tell he hated being the mouthpiece, but if my mother were to do the talking, she would only insult and degrade me further. “It’s what’s best for our family,” he said.

All my life, all I cared about was serving my pack, but more than that, serving my family. I wanted what was best for them. And now they were telling me what was best for them was if I was gone.

“Fine.” My voice trembled. I wanted to say more, but grief suffocated me, and my eyes burned too much for me to keep eye contact. Ripping away from the conversation, I shut myself in my room and packed a bag, my hands shaking and tears dripping down my chin. I never would have imagined that I’d be kicked out by my own family, left to fend for myself as the consequence of my mistakes. I always thought they would support me. But this proved once and for all that I meant nothing to them!

I didn’t even say goodbye as I hauled my duffle bag into the hallway, unable to look in my parents’ direction, knowing they wouldn’t spare me any sympathy. It was just my luck that Lacey turned the corner ahead of me. She peered at the bag in my hands and didn’t have to guess what had happened.

“Good luck, dearest little sister,” Lacey snickered as she walked past me.

I resisted the urge to shove my shoulder against her. Chances were it would spiral out of control into another rumor about me being uncontrollably violent. I just kept my head low and kept walking, my jaw tight.

Thankfully, nobody passed me on my way to the visitor lodgings. They were hardly up to the same standard as the suite my family lived in. But, for visitors to the Lodge, they were sufficient enough. I had to report to the front desk in the common room in order to get my key, then was assigned to a small room with a single bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a kitchenette—a sink, a counter, and a microwave. I had a small bathroom with a toilet and a standing shower too. The plain white walls were suffocating, like a jail cell. I sat on the edge of the bed and immersed myself in the silence. The loneliness was unfamiliar, but in a way, I supposed I had been lonely for a long time. My sisters were never really my friends, were they? At least this room was better than being homeless.

Unpacking my duffle bag, I filled the dresser with my clothes and then set a framed photograph on my nightstand. When I crawled into bed, my parents were smiling back at me from the photo. It hurt too much knowing they couldn’t bring themselves to smile at me in real life. I tipped the photo down and rolled over.

The loneliness yawned over me like a void. Nobody would hear me crying all night in my room. It was better that way.

“Do you have any books on nursing? Or food sciences?” I asked the Lodge librarian.

He regarded me skeptically, clearly trying to figure out why I cared about these subjects now that my studies were over, but the stigma attached to me kept him from asking. I wanted to justify myself, but I felt he wouldn’t really care. “This way,” he said, leading me through the aisles. We paused a few times for him to grab books off the shelves, then at the desk, he pushed the books toward me and adjusted his glasses. “They’ll be due back in a week.”

“Thanks.” My voice was still hoarse from all the crying. My eyes flicked up at him, then back down. It was hard for me to produce anything stronger than the ghost of what my smile used to be, especially when I could feel the disdain burning off of everyone I spoke to.

Gathering the books, I quickly left the library and headed for the common room. There wasn’t enough surface area for me to study efficiently in my own room, and I thought at least it could defeat my isolating loneliness by sitting somewhere public, but I quickly regretted it after staking my claim at a table and catching the stares of my packmates. I tried to ignore them, burying my nose in the books.

Nursing and cooking were two of my interests I thought I could pursue. Maybe my parents would take mercy on me and pay for me to go to college. Or the pack could fund my tuition with a loan. At this point, I was grasping at straws, but if there was anything I could do to prove my usefulness, I had to try even if my heart wasn’t entirely in it.

Eventually, I tuned out the mutterings of my nearby packmates enough to read a few chapters, but my focus ruptured when the air suddenly changed. It seemed to get colder, stinging my nose with an unpleasant smell. Or maybe that was just the memory attached to the smell. I looked up, and there was the silver-haired beauty, Mara, speaking sweetly with a packmate near the door.

I averted my eyes, but it was too late. She caught my glance and walked over.

“Aria, what a lovely surprise. I haven’t seen you around lately,” Mara crooned, standing across the table from me. “What are you reading?”

None of your business, I wanted to snap. Instead, I tensed my jaw and looked up at her, forcing my tone into politeness. “The Science of Cooking.”

“Oh. What for?”

“It might be something I want to pursue in the future.”

“You want to become a chef?” Mara remarked with the faintest undertone of condescension that only I seemed to detect. “Your training didn’t cover any of that, did it?”

“No.”

“No, I suppose an Alpha Female would be too busy for homemaking,” she said on the heels of my answer. “It’s kept me busy lately, that’s for sure.”

Resisting the urge to sigh loudly, I only hummed and turned my eyes down to the book, wishing Mara would evaporate.

She lingered, leaning over the table. “You haven’t once congratulated me.”

“What would I congratulate you for?”

“Arising to the role of Alpha Female of the Grey Creek Pack,” Mara said with a blink of surprise, “especially after its intended recipient fell short.”

The shame of my inadequacy threatened to devour me. I kept my eyes downcast and calculated exactly what I should say in response to her. The wisest choice would just be to congratulate her and hope that she walked away, but my tongue wouldn’t move. I couldn’t bring myself to stifle my pride. Pain and embarrassment turned my blood to magma inside my veins.

When the doors to the common room opened again, another new scent twisted my stomach. “Mara. We have to get ready to meet with the Moonstone Betas,” said Oswald before his voice dwindled at the sight of me at the table. He snarled in disgust. “What are you wasting your breath on her for?”

Mara gasped and straightened up, arching her body away from me like I’d just spat poison, “Why would you say something like that, Aria?!”

Her voice, which had previously been whisper soft, suddenly raised, and I blinked in shock at the tears forming on her face.

“W-What?” I gaped at her.

“I know what happened hurt you, but to say something so cruel?” Mara’s voice shook with a precision that would have any producer weeping tears of joy. “I’ve never wished you harm in any way!”

“What’s going on?!” Oswald was already by his mate’s side, his arm around her protectively.

Mara buried her face in his shoulder, “N-Nothing, let’s go. Please.”

As her voice cracked, I got to my feet. “I didn’t say anything! Why are you lying?”

The rage in Oswald’s eyes had me wilting.

“Tell me the truth, Mara!” Oswald snarled. “What did that bitch say to you?!

Bitch?

Before I could even absorb his harsh words, Mara lifted her head, tears streaming down her face. “She wished—oh, Oswald, she told me she hoped you and I could never have children! That I would be barren! You know how much I love children!”

“What?!” Oswald roared.

I prickled at the blatant lie, leaping to my feet and looking around at our packmates in the common room. “Are you serious? I didn’t say any of that!”

But I was a fool to think Oswald would listen to me. He stormed around the table, grabbed the collar of my shirt, and without even thinking, slapped me.

The sting of his palm left my cheek throbbing. I stared in shock up at Oswald as everyone else in the common room fell silent. The sound of the slap still resonated in my ears, the feeling numb across my skin.

All the while, Mara stood behind Oswald with her hand covering her mouth. But even as my head reeled, I could see the creases in her cheeks from the wide grin she hid behind her palm.