Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose.

Leilani.

For a moment, all I felt was shock, an intense kind of shock that rushed through my veins like water down a stream.

Like this, his breath still fanned my face, and heavens, I could swear that the smell of cigar on his breath intensified with each time he breathed against my skin.

I couldn’t help the frown that creased my forehead nor could I stop the tears that burned at the corners of my eyes. When the pain he was inflicting on my upper arm became too unbearable, I flinched and drew back my arm, causing the small spots where his fingers had once dug into to spread into a large gash due to the force.

I cried out.

"Get away from me!" I screeched, but it was unintentional.

Goddess, even you all know that I would never ever yell something like that in Jarek’s face if the situation was not so dire.

However, despite my outburst, he didn’t flinch. Instead, he drew closer and grabbed my wrist tightly, ignoring the blood that now flowed down the open cuts on both sides of my arm as he continued to speak.

"How can I trust you when all you’ve ever done is lie to me, Leilani?" He barked in my face, and for the first time tonight, I smelled the booze on his breath. "How when you told me you would never be with Kael, Zevran and Caelum, yet here you are, playing house with them!"

Oh, not this again...

At the mention of their names, the triplets who had once been focused on getting Maya back into the house turned around. Kael was the first to notice the blood on my arms, and as soon as he saw it, he literally flew.

Heck, ’flew’ was the only way to put the kind of speed he’d used in getting to me in seconds. He roughly pried my arm out of Jarek’s forceful hold and shoved his elbow into his chest when he tried to grab at me again, his voice cold as he spat;

"Stay back!"

Jarek stopped at his words, cocked his eyebrows at Kael and then threw his head back to laugh. His laughter rang through the air, sounding so maniacal I could swear that it made me instinctively want to stick my index fingers into my ears.

Zevran and Caelum charged over next, standing between Jarek and I, and when Maya successfully went into the house, Gavin joined in with eyes blazing with so much fury, it was almost comical to see.

Almost.

"Look at you... look at the four of you protecting her from me like you care, when in truth, you’re only doing this to make yourselves look good!" Jay slurred, and then poking his finger into their chests, he seethed; "there was a time I used to protect her from you!"

"And I am grateful..." Gavin snapped back at him, shocking us all. "I am grateful for those times you protected her from us, Alpha Frostclaw, but that doesn’t mean I would let you hurt her simply because I feel indebted to you."

For a while after he said that, silence reigned. It was so silent that one could hear the sound of a pin dropping if it fell.

But that silence was soon disrupted by Jarek. "Who the fuck are you to talk to me in that manner?!" He bellowed, staggering slightly, and as soon as I noticed that, I facepalmed myself.

Why?

Because I have been talking to a drunk man for the past thirty minutes without knowing.

Because I never, even for once noticed the difference in his character until he had begun to hurt me.

I was however snapped out of these thoughts when Gavin pushed forward until he was standing toe to toe with Jay and sneered; "I am a Beta." He hissed, "I am the Beta of Stormborn pack."

And for the first time since I heard the news of the triplets deciding to appoint Gavin as their beta, I felt proud. No, scratch that, I always felt proud, but for some reason, hearing him say it aloud to someone else made me feel even prouder.

I saw the surprise flicker on Jay’s face before it slowly disappeared. He leaned close to him, so close, and dropped his voice a few notches as he sneered; "You are a puppet."

"A Beta." Gavin argued,

"A puppet all the same. One who stinks and is at the beck and call of a lady who’s not so important in my pack!"

"Jarek, enough!" I shouted, but he didn’t stop. If anything, our collective discomforts spurred him on.

"He needs to be subdued!" Someone else screamed. I do not know who it was, and I do not care but there was no way I would agree with them. So I shook my head.

"No."

"He needs to be!" Zevran gritted out, obviously strained from all the chaos happening around us.

I let my eyes meet his and when it held, I shook my head again. "No."

"He would try to hurt you or anyone else. He is not in his right frame of mind and if he tries to come close to you, I’ll hurt him..."

"Or I’ll hurt you." Jay snickered back, causing everyone to turn to me.

For a second, no one spoke— not even Jarek who was heavily drunk. It felt as if they were all leaving the mantle up to me. Like they were all waiting for my response, as if quietly saying; "You either choose him or us."

But I couldn’t choose.

Goddess, that was the hardest thing to do.

My eyes brimmed with tears as they darted from one young man to the other, and when it became clear to me what I ought to do, I pushed forward and gritted out;

"You all, let him be."

And as soon as I said that, the expressions on the triplets’ faces went from hopeful to sour. They moved away immediately without any form of argument, leaving Gavin who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Jarek.

I placed my hand on his shoulder softly and whispered— but not too low, so that everyone else could hear me. I said; "Let him go."

He froze and then turned to cast a look at me as if to say: you are stupid. But then he moved out of the way too just as I had asked him to.

Seeing that everyone was gone, Jarek leered down at me, but just as he tried to grab my arm one more time, I squeezed my eyes shut and punched him hard in the face.

*Crack!*

The sound of his bones breaking was the last thing I heard before his agonizing scream ripped out of his throat. And the stunned look on everyone’s faces was the last thing I saw before I turned around and walked into the house, but not before Jarek fell flat to the floor and passed out.

"I don’t know what’s with her and bringing men to their knees!" Caelum murmured, but I didn’t turn around,

—because I didn’t want him to see the smile on my face.