SEQUEL: THIRTEEN

Alina threw herself on her shared bed with Madeline in anger - there was a guest room at the penthouse suite but they preferred to share a single room as it was more than big enough to contain them both.
She buried her face in the pile of pillows and just breathed deeply for a few minutes so that she would break down crying.
Roman didn’t have to show up if he didn’t want to so why did he keep coming? She knew him well and he wasn’t the type of person to do things that inconvenienced him and he clearly didn’t want to be here, he didn’t even want to help her so why did he keep showing up?
The man that she was to be mated to solely for the sake of merging territories together had shown up for her more in less than twenty four hours than her Dad had ever done in her entire life.
He hadn’t even looked like he was going to leave even after she greeted him with a wine glass to the head and yelled at him to get out.
But it was his own fault, how dare he get her hopes up? She would just remain in the bedroom until he left, by then she would be sufficiently calm enough to face Madeline.
She was also going to stop trying to reach out to her Dad, she had been holding out her arms ever since she was a baby, and he never took her hands, why would he do so now?
She was twenty-four and she wasn’t getting any younger, it was time to face the cold hard fact that her father would always be too busy for her.
Besides, he had a tracker on her, if he really wanted to see her he would. With that, she slowly sat up, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.
What did she want to do with her life? She had already given away a huge part of it to her absent father who clearly didn’t want it and she also went ahead to agree to mate someone she couldn’t stand, giving away even more of her life.
It was a little funny how quickly she had snapped out of something she had spent her whole life working for. One moment, she just wanted her Dad to show that he cared, and now she was thinking of building her life far from him…
Or at least, it was what she wished would happen. Although she was trying to put on a brave front and give her father this space he so obviously wanted, deep inside of her she knew that she couldn’t do that for long.
Her Dad was the only constant in her life ever since she was a child, she was so deeply attached to him, and she just wanted physical affirmation that she actually meant something to him.
She sighed and ruffled her hair, sending her bleached blond locks into a disarray. She had never had to think so deeply before, and it was all that annoying Alpha King’s fault.
After spending a couple more minutes listlessly sitting on the bed with nothing to do, Alina pushed to her feet to peek into the living room. She had to make sure that ROman was truly and well gone before she stepped out.
And she was right because Roman was just heading out the door when she peeked in, without waiting for him to completely leave, she strode into the living room, her steps faltering when Roman glanced at her before leaving.
She half expected to see anger in his eyes because she had thrown him a wine glass within a second of him entering the penthouse but the only thing his ice blue eyes held was a bored detachment.
Well, fuck him too. Alina certainly didn’t care about what he thought and she wasn’t going to have his child no matter what clauses would be put into mating contract.
“Alina,” Madeline whirled around, looking a tad nervous.
Alina frowned slightly at this, “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing, nothing!” Madeline said in a rush.
This only deepened Alina’s frown, “He couldn’t get any information on Iyla?”
Madeline blinked, waving her hands frantically, “No, no, he did… sorry, I’m just a little bit distracted… Are you alright?” She flipped the conversation.
Alina curled up on the sofa she had chosen to sit on, dressed in an oversized shirt and silk shorts. “Yeah, I am.” She said quietly.
Madeline thought that her friend didn’t sound like she was at all fine but she didn’t push it, she already more or less knew what was wrong after all, it would be insensitive to act like she didn’t.
“Um, Roman was able to get a detailed report on Iyla,” She said cautiously, both due to the fact that she was abruptly changing the topic and also because Roman’s name was mentioned.
Alina sneered at the sound of Roman’s name but she said nothing more, “So we’ve got an address?”
Madeline wondered why Alina hated Roman so much when all he had done was help. Maybe it was because she was looking to get together with him and that was why she couldn’t help but see him in a good light.
“We absolutely do,” She grinned, coming closer to sit beside Alina only for her smile to wane a bit. “But there’s a bit of a problem, she belongs to Alpha King Lukas’ territory.”
Alina’s eyes widened in shock and she was about to blurt out that that didn’t make it a problem at all but then she remembered what her father said about staying away from Lukas and fell silent again.
“What is it?” Madeline immediately picked up on her mood change, “Oh wait! I can’t believe I forgot, she belongs to Alpha Lukas’ territory so you could just tell him to punish her for you, easy peasy.” She perked up.
Alina’s expression soured, “We can’t do that unfortunately, my Dad said I should stay away from him.”
“Because of the tramp human mated to him?” Madeline scowled. She hadn’t met the human Luna Queen in person yet but she knew all she needed to know because Alina had told her everything.
“Of course! It’s all that bitches fault!” She lashed out.
Madeline knew that Alina could never go against her father no matter what so she didn’t bother telling her that she could just go ahead and do what she wanted.
“So we’ll just have to do this ourselves.” Madeline shrugged, unbothered by this.
She hadn’t cared much about Lukas anyway or his human mate because she knew that she could never have him. She also thought he was dumb for not jumping at the chance to date Alina when had father had the largest werewolf settlement there was.
“We’ve got the bitch’s address, let’s go pay her a little visit.” Madeline tagged on, a sinister look in her eyes.
Her words gave Alina purpose, the bleached blonde shooting to her feet with determination blazing in her dark eyes. “You’re right, this is between her and us after all, my Dad never said I couldn’t go to Lukas’ territory.”
A slow smile formed on Madeline’s face, “Right you are. If you don’t want your dad to know about it, I could get Peyton to send some people to teach her a lesson.”
Alina waved her words away, “No, we’ll do this ourselves,” She said instead, the determination never leaving her eyes. “We’ll bitch slap her and then get her to tell us why she did what she did in the first place, not to mention lying about what territory she belonged to, what was that about?”
Madeline looked thoughtful, she had been so distracted by Roman that she hadn’t really been paying attention but there was a lot more to Iyla than what met the eye.
“If she lied about that, what if she lied about Cali too?” She pointed out.
“No fucking way! Why would she even do that?” Alina asked in disbelief.
“Only one way to find out,” Madeline rose to her feet, “Let’s get dressed and go down to Cali’s place, and if she has something to do with Iyla, I’ll punch her teeth in.” She threatened darkly.
“You spoke my mind,” Alina smiled.