Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose.-Chapter 336: The lies we hold most dear.

Maurice.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO...

I didn’t know what I expected to happen when I chose to marry Malakai Blackthorne despite knowing that I was head over heels in love with Ragnar.

After learning about my engagement, Ragnar asked me to elope with him. He asked me to be with him, tried to force me into seeing reasons why he should mark me before Malakai and his family would come for their due.

But I was a debtor just like every member of my family.

I was indebted to the Blackthorne family, and I knew that there was no way in hell that they would ever let me go Scott free.

I also knew that running away now meant running away for the rest of my life, so what was the point? What was the point of a love without peace? What was the point in choosing Ragnar, who was some lowly commoner over Malakai who could give me a debt free life?

Moreover, he loves me.

I know that I do not share in that love but I can feel it in the way he looks at me. I can sense it whenever he holds me close. He loves me and is certain that I am his mate without the mate bond.

And this so-called love for me is the same reason he never threw me out of his house even after finding out that I had cheated on him with Ragnar. I mean, who wouldn’t know? Who wouldn’t catch on to my infidelity when a living proof of it was literally in our faces with bouncing silver hair and a bubbly smile that could melt away a titans glaciers?

Who wouldn’t see through my facade when Leilani was everything that her biological father, Ragnar, was, and everything that Malakai wasn’t?

My hands and legs trembled as I took a step back from the man who had my heart in his hands, my voice shaky as I said the words I had recited over and over again on my way here;

"We need to stop seeing each other, Ragnar. No good thing could ever come out of this."

"Is that what you have been made to believe? Is that what that scumbag, Kai, has put you up to say to me?!" He barked, his eyes flashing so dangerously, my breath hitched in my chest.

Shortly after my marriage to Malakai, Ragnar was made to ascend his grandfather’s throne— one that had been vacant for so long. One that had automatically made him Alpha only a few weeks after I was taken by another man.

I should have waited a little while... I should have stalled that wedding—

I was forcefully pulled out of these thoughts when he roughly grabbed my arms, sending jolts of electricity rushing through my veins. His face was inches away from mine and his warm breath fanned my face as he desperately said;

"Love, I have the resources now. I can take you out of there. You no longer need to be with him! Goddess, you should have left him years ago!"

"He’s the father of my children..." I argued, sounding weak.

"And I am the father of your child." He fired back at me, "...and I want my daughter to grow up with me. I want to love her... to watch her grow. I want to teach her our ways..."

"Your ways?" My voice was crisp and concise. The words burned their way up my throat, and when Ragnar’s frown returned, I found myself wanting to ease it away.

He nodded. "Yes, my way... our way. The Lycan way."

"You forget that my other kids are werewolves. What way would you teach them then? Would you make them feel inferior, seeing as werewolves are usually inferior to Lycans?"

"Do I make you feel inferior?" He asked instead and I gulped before shaking my head.

"So I won’t." He answered quickly— a little too quickly, "What is yours is always mine. I would love them like I love you... I cannot promise that I wouldn’t make them a little stronger than other werewolves though." He finished with a smile,

And I believed him.

Goddess, I believed him so much, and my unshakable faith in him was the reason I found myself clutching at my pearls the rest of the way home.

I was happy by the time I bounded through the halls of Malakai’s excessively cold home, ready to start packing all I had to my name... and ready to leave all of this behind.

That was until I found him already waiting in my room, a sleeping Leilani on the floor, and a large syringe in his hands.

It was the first time she had been exposed to the Moonveil draught. The first time he had given her the shot.

A loud cry tore its way through my lips as I crashed to the floor, thinking that she was dead. But to my utmost surprise, she was warm and breathing. Her small fragile fingers circled around my index finger and she looked up at me worriedly— she was always so full of warmth and compassion— as she asked;

"What is it mama?"

My heart broke. It shattered into a million pieces only to reform and re-break all over again.

I shakily brought her to my bosom, my red-rimmed eyes looking up at Malakai as I seethed; "What did you do that for?"

"That is to keep her Lycan side subdued. Better this way than going ahead with your devious plan to take my children away from me."

As soon as he said that, my mouth fell open. Shock like none other slammed into me and I found myself unable to speak or move. Just stunned.

"You’re surprised I know?" He snickered, a flicker of disdain creeping into his face. "Well, let’s just say I have my eyes and ears everywhere... So the next time you try to flee or do as much as meet with him, I’ll kill you, and I’ll kill him. But first, I’ll make sure this accursed daughter of yours dies in the most grotesque way possible. Do you understand me?!"

Fear was the only thing I knew at the time so I found myself nodding desperately.

"Use your words!" He snarled and I flinched. Even my sleeping daughter’s eyes drifted open.

"Yes," I cried, shaking all over. "Yes, I understand."

"Good." He spat, and with that, he stormed out of the room leaving me with my heart completely bleeding and raw, and crying my eyes out until I felt I would die from heartache.

You would think that blowing Ragnar off without an explanation would be enough reason for him to leave me alone, right?"

RIGHT?!

Well, it wasn’t.

Instead, that seemed to spur him on. He tried several times over several years to reach out to me. He was desperate to see his daughter and tried all he could to get us out from Malakai’s clutches, but failed woefully.

That was until three years ago...

Three years ago when he was suddenly branded a thief because he had sneaked into the mansion.

Malakai knew who he was. The retiring Alpha knew who he was, but they both decided to act blind. To pretend that they were ignorant. And then they accused him of stealing from the house of the Alpha...

The rest is history.