Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose.-Chapter 340: An innocent man.

Zevran.

In my entire life, I have never seen her look so broken, so devastated... so hurt. Goddess, she looked like something worse than a shell of herself and cried so brokenly, the sounds of her tears made my chest ache.

I couldn’t bring myself to speak, in fear that I wouldn’t have the right words to say and Kael, as if understanding my confusion, glanced at me briefly, nodded and asked; "How?"

I had half expected her not to respond to him at all. I had imagined that at this point, we had all gotten to the end of our conversation. So when she sighed and lifted her head slowly, her gaze meeting ours, I was stunned.

But my shock soon morphed into mortification when I heard the next words she had to say. She drawled slowly; 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"My biological father, Ragnar, was looking for a way to get my mother and me out of Malakai’s clutches. He was an Alpha not a thief, but due to some bad blood between him and Malakai, especially since Malakai had just found out then that he was trying to elope with my mother, he was falsely accused and was then executed by you three."

And by the gods, those words... those words felt like a bombshell, causing my ears to ring and tingle. They slammed into me with brick force, twisting everything I once thought I knew and exposing me to a reality that I found too outrageous to accept.

I opened my mouth just then to speak, but just as I began to talk, Leilani’s eyes rolled upward. She clutched at her neck desperately, gasping for air; But before I could make sense of what was happening, she fell to the ground with a loud thump.

I froze. For a second. Goddess it was only a second.

When I finally came to, I realized that Caelum and Kael had rushed to her sides, and while one of them busied himself with fanning her, the other was trying to get her to a sitting position.

"Move the fuck!" Kael growled at me, "...she is passing out!"

For a moment, I couldn’t move and could hardly make any sense of what I was doing or what I’d just heard. My body shook violently too and I found myself staggering forward; And when I arrived just where she was, sitting limply with her back pressed against Caelum’s chest, I began to lightly smack her cold cheeks.

"Wake up!" My voice was rough. Desperate. "Wake up. We are sorry!"

My words made my brothers turn to look at me, and as if suddenly realizing where I was coming from... as if suddenly realizing the gravity of our situation, and the toll that this new improvement may have on our relationship with her, their faces paled.

"Lani—"

"Leilani—"

Our voices came as one. But it was not just our voices that were in uniform, it was our fears too. Our panic and confusion... and this sudden sense of regret that had clouded our minds like a storm cloud.

At this point, Leilani had finally stopped gasping for air. In fact, she looked so peaceful and snored quietly like someone who was sound asleep.

Seeing her like this, I couldn’t help but feel some of my panic dissipate, but that didn’t stop the other fear from growing. It didn’t stop me from wondering just how deep this anger she felt towards us now ran.

As if having a glimpse of the kind of thoughts running through my mind, Caelum’s breath caught in his throat. He turned to me after a moment and finally asked; "What would happen when she wakes up?"

At his words, Kael lifted his head to look at him and so did I.

I couldn’t bear to think about it... couldn’t bear to live with that shame... that guilt of knowing that I had hurt her beyond imagination.

I lowered my head and shook my head, my voice coming out as nothing but a whisper as I said; "I do not know."

"She hates us now," Caelum cried exasperatedly, "...did you see the way she looked at us? Did you not witness what she did to Kael?!"

Yes I did. I did see what she did to Kael, and personally, I believe that it was incredible yet scary on all levels.

My throat felt tight when I looked down at her outer worldly face and I croaked out; "She may never forgive us for that."

"Z."

"She may never forgive us for this one. We killed her father, and if the things she said are correct, then my brothers, we killed an honorable man and left him to rot in the same manner one would do to a common thief!"

"But it wasn’t our fault," Kael snapped back argumentatively, "it was not our intent to hurt her this way. We would’ve never killed the man if we knew he was innocent."

"Would we?" Now, that was Caelum. That was Caelum asking the extremely difficult question. "Would we have done anything then even though we knew he was innocent? Remember we were desperate young lads three years ago. We were boys who were desperately craving for our father’s approval. Killing Ragnar in that manner gave us what we needed— the respect, his love. Goddess, it even made people fear us, and that was the reason father retired knowing fully well that we could handle the pack."

"Like barbarians." I hissed under our breath. "We proved to him that we could be barbarians, and in turn, he gave us the pack on a platter."

"Stop talking like that!" Kael snapped, rising to his feet. His sharp voice made Leilani stir in her sleep but she didn’t wake up.

I guess she must be tired and devastated... goddess, only you know the amount of hurt she must be experiencing right now!

"We didn’t know he was innocent!"

"We didn’t care to know!" I spat back, "...did you? Because I did not! And if the rumours were correct, then you cannot deny that you heard and overheard him telling everyone that he was innocent. Several times, he said to everyone who cared enough to listen that he was being framed but we never cared to know how or why he would say that! Instead, do you know what we did?"

"I forced that stinky sticky elixir down his throat..." Caelum hissed under his breath,

"And I beheaded him... myself. With my own new sword." I finished, my voice breaking.

Kael looked away from me and for a moment, I thought that he didn’t want to have this kind of conversation with us. But to my utmost surprise, he cleared his throat and lowered his head.

He whispered; "And I ordered the guards to leave out his carcass until it was so rotten and smelly, the entire street stank."

I gulped.

"So we’re just as guilty as father and Beta Malakai. We executed the hit they couldn’t bring themselves to... we dirtied our hands with an innocent man’s blood. They couldn’t do that."

"And I think we have to right our wrong," Caelum drawled, his expression so serious, it frightened him.

"There’s no way we can undo what we did." Kael tried to argue, but was immediately waved off by Caelum.

"We can. We can go against the people we were so desperate to impress."