Chapter 95

I wince at the deadly tone of his deep voice.
Vi’s hand slides from my hair as if it has lost its strength, while Emma, on the other side of me, seems to go completely still.
“What do you mean this time?” Ethan demands.
I say nothing. 
“Fuck. This time. Fuck.” 
“You’re swearing a lot,” I blurt out. “Somehow, it makes me feel better.” I start rambling, “Maybe I’ll try it myself. Fucking fuckity fuck—”
“Little Dove,” Ethan warns.
I shut my mouth immediately. I don’t usually swear, and yep, I didn’t feel any better afterward.
Ethan takes a step too quickly toward me, and I whimper. Memories of what just happened flood my mind.
A string of new good curse words comes out of Ethan’s mouth with so much force that the entire room becomes more silent than before. 
He doesn’t step back, though. 
“It’s okay,” I say, pretending my body isn’t trembling. 
“It’s not okay, Alicent. It’s not fucking okay that someone hurt you,” he replies so forcefully it makes me wince again. 
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, recalling Logan’s words telling me I deserved all of that because I let him hit me. 
“Look at me.” Ethan’s powerful, commanding tone forces me to do nothing but obey him.
I raise my head. Our eyes finally meet each other since I’ve arrived here. His dark eyes lower to mine. Even though he looks like he is ready to kill someone, deep down, I still feel like I’m safe right where I am. 
“Don’t say sorry, my Little Dove. It’s not your fault,” Ethan says gently. 
*My* Little Dove.
Okay, I don’t think too hard about how my heart beats faster because of that. No, I don’t.
“Allie, you don’t have to tell us what happened if you’re not ready yet,” Emma offers, patting my good hand on my lap.
“We just got into a fight...” I find myself telling her. Ethan and Vi’s mother has such a comforting tone that it feels like I can tell her anything. “Usually, Logan had taken out his frustrations on me... though it’s never been *this bad*.” I point to my face. “Sometimes Logan just… He just got drunk and mad and then threw something, and it happened to hit my face.” I try to convince them, but I can taste the lies in my mouth. “After he hits me, the Logan I know that I married always comes back with regrets and tells me he’s sorry and that he’ll never do it again. But this time...”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Ethan asks at the same time as Vi.
My eyes dart back and forth. “I, uh...” I don’t know how to say it. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you guys to know that I let that happen... I didn’t want you guys to think less of me. Couples fight, right?”
I cover my injured hand with my good one as if that’s enough to keep them from seeing my wounds.
“That’s not just a fight, Allie,” Vi says through gritted teeth. “That’s abuse.” 
“Vi’s right, Little Dove. That motherfucker abused you.” 
When I look up at Ethan, a shiver runs through my body. The man looks like he is ready to murder someone.  
Logan abused me, but what I did...
I’m such a hypocrite for calling Ethan a murderer and almost doing the same to Logan. I don’t tell him or his family, though. I’m too much of a coward to tell them about it. Just like I keep quiet about the flash of light that appeared on my body when I retaliated back at Logan. 
I feel deep down that if I had killed Logan, I would have *awakened* something in me that I would have no way of running away from.
“I left you there to him.” Ethan’s voice is so quiet I can barely hear him. And somehow, I don’t need to be told that is a very, very bad sign. 
“You didn’t know.” I look up at his black eyes. “It’s not your fault, Ethan.” 
His eyes blaze as they stare down at me, horror filling them. “It is.” 
“You didn’t hurt me, Ethan. You didn’t choke me with your hands and grab my arm and twist it up my back until my shoulder almost popped out. You didn’t slap me, didn’t punch me in the face, and didn’t hit me in the ribs either. Didn’t step on my knee. And you didn’t grab a knife... You didn’t do any of that, Ethan. Logan did.” 
More silence. 
I can hear everyone breathing hard. 

🐺 🐺 🐺
***Alpha Ethan***

“Your ex-husband twisted your arm behind your back, nearly snapping it—along with your leg and ribs?” I ask. 
I don’t need her reply, considering that’s what she’d just told us. Still, she nods slowly. 
“Oh, Allie, look at your face!” Vi says, tears dripping down her eyes. My sister runs her hand through her back, and I almost growl at her. She’s mine! 
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” With her good hand, Little Dove cups her swollen cheek and eye. 
“You forgot about being hit so hard that your eye’s almost swollen shut?” I breathe hard. “Your face is bruised!”
“Why’s that, Allie? because... it’s happened often?” Mom softly asks her. 
“Uh, I wouldn’t say often,” she tells us. “See, Logan usually avoids my face. But I wasn’t leaving the house, so...” 
I just stare down at her small frame. It is taking every ounce of my control to keep from losing my shit.  
As soon as I found out she was in my pack, I couldn’t believe it. Now, nothing will keep me away. It’s been taking me too long to figure out how to reel her in and get her within my grasp where she won’t despise me for taking her in and for what she saw. Alicent was mine before the curse, and it’s time to make her mine again because I’ve been hers this whole time, too. I have been since day one. 
My hands clench into fists, and I have to work hard to relax them as I look at her because I don’t want to scare her.
But how can I not react like that when I see the great love of my life like this? 
So broken. 
A large bruise marred one of her hands, and a cut bisected the perfect line of her collarbone. Her neck is already showing signs of choking and something else that looks like dried blood. Her delicate face... Fuck! The punch she took to the face was anything but weak—a deep cut near the bone just above her cheek marked the spot where her asshole ex-husband’s knuckles must have landed.
Definitely, it’s going to be a special place in hell for him. And for me, after I find him.
I can’t understand how that asshole was able to have a son like Az. 
Azrael is a golden child. 
Ever since I woke up after the curse was broken, I’ve been missing that little pest. And it’s not just because of our morning training, which I happily attend to because I want that child to grow up and become a great Alpha. I thought I would never find my fated mate, and I’ve felt deep down that Az could be the next Blackmoon’s Alpha since he and Lily are fated mates. And even now that I have found out that his mother is my fated mate, I still feel in my bones that he will be the Alpha of this pack one day. 
I’ve been so proud of him ever since I found him in that dark alley disoriented. 
The way Az defends his mother only makes me admire him even more. 
The way he said that I didn’t go to them made my throat close up with emotions. Az expected me to come to them, not just for Little Dove but for him, too. Whereas I just wanted him to be happy. 
The hurt look in his eyes when he said so much will sure as shit haunt me for years to come.
My parents keep talking to Little Dove. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Vi squirm and shift in her seat, pulling her long-sleeved shirt to cover her hands as if she were cold.
When I told my parents that Alicent was my fated mate, they immediately wanted to go after her. I already knew the mate bond was very important to werewolves. However, I was very surprised to watch my father kneel down to apologize to her. I’ve never seen the former Alpha do that before. I don’t know what they said to her, but I get that if it was anything close to what they’d said to me that time, they really deserved to apologize like that to my love.
She is so pure, so sweet that she accepted their apologies without even insisting much. Or maybe she got hit too hard on the head, though... 
But despite everything, my parents always wanted the best for her, afraid of what might happen when I found my fated mate. They never acted meanly in front of me, on the contrary, they seemed distressed for both of us.
‘You knew that, Vi?’ I mindlink my sister.
Her eyes meet mine, wide with disbelief. ‘Are you crazy? No! But...’
‘But what?’
‘I suspected something wasn’t right, Ian.’
‘Did she tell you something? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘She didn’t tell me exactly, but the signs she gave off were always of someone who had been through something, uh, difficult.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know I can be super pushy, and sometimes I probably don’t let it go. So, I suspected because she always wore baggy clothes when we first met, but after what she told me about her past, I thought it might be the trauma or something; I never imagined her ex-husband could do that to her. She’s so small and innocent.’ 
‘He’s a dead man walking,’ I say.
‘For sure.’
My mom says something to Little Dove, and she almost manages a small smile.
I can’t even look at the tiny woman without my breath getting caught up in my throat and my stomach all twisting up. Even though she’s like this, she’s so damn beautiful. It hurts.  
I miss her so fucking much. 
I think I would’ve missed my Little Dove even if we’d never met. 
My gaze shifts from her beautiful face to her aura, and it has something odd. It’s like a cloak of death clinging to her instead of her usual sun-bright aura. The black cloak-like aura of her is tempered by big peek-a-boos damn near blinding rays of light. I could see some of the darkness in her aura opening up holes for more sunlight as she forgave my parents. It is as if she has a whole sun inside her that is hidden by clouds.  
What happened to my Little Dove? 
Why is her aura like that? 
Is it because she’s in pain? 
I sense that she isn’t telling us everything, but that’s to be fucking expected after everything she’s been through.
“I’m so glad you came straight here, Allie, even in this... state,” my sister says.
“It was the first and only place I could think of... You always assured me that I would always have a place here, Vi.”
As she addresses my sister for that, my breath catches in my throat. 
If Vi hadn’t always been by her side, my Little Dove wouldn’t be here today. 
I don’t even have to look at my parents to know they feel guilty as well.
I feel like shit.
Little Dove’s meadow green eyes look up at me. “Please don’t take that the wrong way.” 
With all that she’s been through, she is still worried her confession would hurt my feelings, even though I messed up badly. We both know it. 
But that pure, tender heart is as beautiful as the Full Moon in a cloudless sky. 
“I’m not just glad. I’m relieved that you’re finally here,” I say, and she stops, fidgeting her hand on her lap.    
“I hate humans so much!” Mom mutters angrily. “No offense, dear.”
“Uh, none taken?” Little Dove answers with a cute little frown before wincing.
“How could anyone do that to someone else? To punch the very person they swore to love? I just don’t understand!”
“He, uh, only punched me in the face a dozen times or so,” she answers my mother. “He usually aimed for my ribs.” 
Mom takes a deep breath. “And what offenses are deemed to this punishment?” 
Little Dove almost shrugs. “Mostly when I talked back.” 
I search the ceiling for calm and patience. Finding none, I just close my eyes for a little bit.
Yes, my Little Dove is a mouthy little thing, but I quite liked it. It makes for excellent entertainment, especially when accompanied by that defiant sparkle in her green eyes.
Wait. Ribs.
She has a scar on her ribs, and I never asked her about it because she always tried to cover it up. 
She’s been hurt this whole time, and I have never bothered to ask what happened.
“Did he give you that scar on your ribs?”
I thought it was a scar she got as a kid or something.
Her eyes fill with tears as she nods slightly.
What. The. Fuck.
I’m going to track that bastard down and annihilate him.
“I’m going to kill him! Now.”
Kral goes ballistic inside me.
“What?” Little Dove asks. The fear in her eyes is almost too much for me to take. “Why?”
“Why?” I repeat angrily. “I’m going to kill that fucker for laying a hand on you.” 
It hits me like a bullet to the chest when she says, “You can’t keep killing people, Ethan!”