Chapter 29: Chapter 29

[Malia’s POV]

Tears trickled down my eyes as I puffed out smoke from my nostrils and mouth. Tyler had betrayed me. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t seen it coming, but I had just chosen to be blind and had ignored the warning signs.

I poured more whiskey into the glass and gulped it down all at once. I closed my eyes, trying to forget the abominable act I had just seen with my two eyes, but the harder I tried to forget, the more it all replayed in my memory. I couldn’t just forget about it, I couldn’t command my mind to focus on any other thing. It was clear and vivid in my memory… everything; the moaning, the grinding, the screams, and I had just stood there by the window in utter dismay.

It wasn’t just sex; he had made love to her, and my heart ached because I knew that we had never shared the same kind of raw passion or intensity despite the number of times we had slept with each other.

The sky had darkened and the full moon was slowly emerging from the clouds. I looked up from my bedroom window and laughed bitterly, then without thinking, threw my glass at the window.

“Liar! Liar! Liar!” I screamed. “Was this what you meant when you said you’d love me forever and that it will all be over on the day of the full moon? Did you mean it will be over for us today? Had you meant from the very beginning to break my heart and ruin me?” I yelled at no one in particular, but with a mental image of Tyler in my head.

My dad rushed into my bedroom just a few seconds later as he heard me scream and was immediately appalled once he entered and saw that I was up to no good. There were broken pieces of glass lying on the floor and the whole room was clouded with smoke.

The first thing he did was to drag the cigarette from my hand and put it out. “What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled.

“Just leave me alone!” I screamed at him, pushing him away.

“Talk to me, Malia. You’re the only daughter I have. Isn’t today the full moon? Aren’t you supposed to be the happiest person today?” he inquired.

The tears doubled and kept rolling down my cheeks nonstop. “That’s what I thought, too, daddy,” I said, breaking down more.

“What’s wrong? Who hurt you? Isn’t the Alpha going to reject the girl anymore?” he asked.

I tried my best to be calm, but couldn’t and just kept crying and choked on my sobs. My dad rushed to my bedside table and poured some of the water in the jug in a cup which he handed over to me.

“Here, have some water,” he said.

“I don’t want anything,” I refused, looking in the other direction.

He placed the glass carefully on my study table and punched the wall aggressively. “How dare the Alpha play with my daughter’s heart like this? I’ll go to the palace right now and kill him. I don’t care if I die in the process; no man can hurt my only child and get away with it!” he screamed and turned around to leave.

I quickly stood up and went to block his path. “No, daddy, don’t do that. You don’t even know what happened yet,” I said to him.

“Do I need to know what happened? You’re a mess right now and the only thing that is capable of causing that is if the Alpha betrayed you and decided to accept that cursed thing as his mate. I’m your father, you can’t lie to me,” my dad said.

“Dad, listen to me…”

He cut in. “I don’t want to listen to anything, Malia. This is why I told you to end that silly thing of a relationship since he hadn’t come to me yet for your hand in marriage, but you continued. I knew about it, but chose not to say anything. You’d sneak out at night, and sometimes, he’d come in through the window, but because you were happy, I chose not to get involved. Now, see what you’ve brought upon yourself,” he said.

“It’s not his fault, daddy. It’s the mate pull,” I said, trying to defend Tyler through it all.

“Well, if he had really loved you in the first place, he wouldn’t have gone to the mating ceremony,” he retorted.

“He needed to lead by example,” I said.

“Of course, he did. Then, what stopped him from killing the omega to be free from her and making you his Luna if she didn’t want to accept the rejection?” he asked.

“He said she saved his life and he couldn’t turn around to kill her. He was going to reject her today, but…,” the words hung in the air.

“But what? Speak, Malia. You’re his mouthpiece, his lawyer, his defender. What’s his excuse this time around? What stopped him from completing the rejection process this night?” my dad inquired in a loud voice.

I hung my head low. “I… he… they… I caught them. They… they were making love,” I revealed with a stutter.

My dad began to laugh hysterically as he paced around the bedroom. He was going to do something dangerous; I could feel it. “You saw that and you’re still standing here defending him?” he thundered.

I shook at the sound of his voice. “Dad, I’m sorry. It’s just that…”

“It’s okay, Malia,” he said in a calm tone. “It’s okay. If Derek hadn’t suddenly died, all these wouldn’t have happened. You’d have been happily married to him and the Alpha wouldn’t dare to hurt you like this,” my dad said, stopping his pace right in front of me.

I began to cry even more now and he pulled me into his arms and embraced me warmly, patting my shoulder and letting me just cry freely. “It’s okay, Malia. Let it all out. It’s not your fault, just let it all out,” he said.

One might wonder why I was nineteen and mateless. Well, it wasn’t always that way. I once had a mate, his name was Derek Manchester. He was the first son of the Pack’s doctor and he was best friends with the Alpha and went everywhere with him. He and the Alpha were also my best friends, although my dad didn’t want me playing around with boys.

As fate would have it, we had been mated during the mating ceremony two years ago when I was seventeen and he was nineteen. It was great news because he had had a crush on me for the longest time, and since he was one of my oldest friends, I loved being mated to him. For as long as I could recall, we were happy and things seemed to be going well, until he died one sunny afternoon in his sleep.

I was heartbroken, depressed and nearly went crazy, but for the Alpha who stayed by my side through it all. We both comforted each other. He had lost his best friend and I had lost mine as well, and in the process of healing, the Alpha and I had fallen in love with each other or so I had thought.

“Dad, thinking about it, Alpha Tyler and I have so much history and maybe that’s why I’m defending him. I can’t just let him go, dad. He promised to always love me,” I said, withdrawing from my dad’s embrace.

My dad wiped the tears from my eyes and heaved a deep sigh. “You can’t keep holding on to him, my sweet child. Apparently, his heart belongs to someone else now,” he said.

“No, dad, it doesn’t. This is all the fault of the mate pull and nothing else. Trust me, if Nivera is out of the way, he’ll come back to his right senses. He’ll come back to be by my side, where he belongs,” I explained.

“What are you suggesting?” he asked, even though he already knew what I had in mind.

“You have some rogues that do your dirty work for you, don’t you? Assemble them for me, and I’ll handle everything,” I replied.

“Malia, what do you have in mind? You’re not planning on doing something stupid, are you?” he asked.

“Is it stupid if I’m taking matters into my own hands and doing the best I can to ensure I don’t lose another partner? Is it? Clearly, the Moon Goddess hates me and doesn’t favour me. It’s time to stop being daddy’s little girl and stop crying like a little child, and get rid of the problem which is Nivera once and for all,” I said.

“Malia…”

“This is way better than you going alone to the palace to pick a fight with the Alpha. It’s pointless and you’ll only end up being beheaded for treason. Give me a chance, father. I want you to be more than just the Pack’s beta. I can make you the father of the Luna and the Alpha’s father-in-law. Just trust me this once, please,” I said in a calm tone.

He thought about it for a moment, and finally reached a decision. “How many of my rogues do you need?” he inquired.

A smile lit up my face as I gave him an appropriate answer to his question. The full moon was now high up in the sky and could bear witness to the fact that I had no other choice in that moment than to decide my own destiny. Alpha Tyler was mine and no one else’s.