#Chapter 20 Rules Of Three

Olivia’s POV
I meet with Eugene in the afternoon, busy trying to check on Reese’s health after his morning checkup with the royal pack’s favorite doctor. Eugene has found his new office fitting, sitting behind the large desk in his stunning white coat and gold framed glasses. He’s intellectually charming, and I can’t help but admire when his beautiful light eyes meet mine.
“How are you, Olivia?” he says, leaning back lazily in his desk chair.
I shudder at the mention of my real name.
“We spoke earlier about the truth on your identity but I didn’t get to tell you everything, Olivia,” he says, smiling sheepishly. “You’re beautiful in this form, just as you were the last. I would recognize your soul anywhere.”
“How can you say that?” I shake my head, knowing that for my entire past life, I was a substitute for Alicia. I was the Luna Herold had when his real lover abandoned him, and then I was the only thing in his way when she returned.
“I can say that because it’s true, Olivia. You’re worthy of so much love; love that someone like me would cherish every single day.”
I swallow hard. I’ve been unloved all my life and to now hear three wolves want me with them, I can’t help but feel so dead inside at their claims to have my heart. Eugene has always been protective of me, but I thought it was out of pity. This can’t be right.
“I value us being friends, Eugene,” I breathe.
“I don’t want your friendship,” he snaps. “I want you to know love like none other. I loved you first, after all. My stupid brother squandered everything you gave to him and I regret seeing what it did to you. But now that you’re back, you have another chance to be loved by someone who can truly show you your worth.”
I hang my head at his kind words. “I’m not worth being loved.”
“That is a lie,” Eugene snarls. “I would know your soul anywhere, Olivia. You are generous and kind. You’re charitable. You would have done anything to save your brother, even when we both know your health was in a worst state.”
I hold myself, as though to keep myself intact in this moment. “I failed protecting us both,” I admit. “I got killed and Reese doesn’t seem to be doing much better.
“That’s not true, either.”
I perk up at his claim. “My brother is okay?”
“He’s stable,” he corrects, pulling out a file from his desk and holding it between us. “I have run a few tests and compared them to his records at the last hospital. I have a few concerning remarks, Olivia.”
“Like what?” I move to the edge of my seat, forgetting entirely about how he confessed his love for me and focused solely on my brothers health. “Is he okay? Will he heal?”
“Easy with the questions, sweetheart,” he says, smiling gently. “I have the file here. It shows how his wolf has been muted for years over some kind of poison. It exists purely to make a wolf ill and stun them useless.”
“Wait,” I say, shattered to the core. “My brother was—was poisoned?”
“Is seems so,” Eugene growls. “The only wolf capable of being so heinous—”
“Alicia.”
He nods, his smile gone now as he flips through Reese’s paperwork. I move my chair beside him, examining his file endlessly with the top doctor at my side and I couldn’t feel more hopeful over this news. He may have been poisoned but knowing that information is bound to help him overcome it.
I feel Eugene staring at me thoughtfully, his crisp blue eyes cold against my cheek, his hands folded neatly in his lap although he yearns to hold me. I am glad he doesn’t reach for me now, instead holding onto the desk to curb his appeal to my body.
“You’re truly worth loving, Olivia,” he mutters breathlessly.
I wave off his falsity. “You’re wrong, Eugene. I spent my first life trying to be loved and I ended up dead. I can’t let something like that happen again. I want to focus on my brother, on wolves like him, and I don’t want to beg for affection ever again. It’s useless. Love is useless.”
Eugene seems wounded by my claim. I don’t want to hurt him but I can’t lie. He is a great doctor and a good wolf, he promised to protect Reese before I died and I needed that reassurance. I would have thanked him forever for protecting my brother then but now I fear he does it to get closer to me.
He wants my love but I have none to give anyone ever again.
I stand to leave, feeling his hand brush my wrist, a caressing plea to stay.
“I have to go find Alicia,” I growl. “She not only messed with my life and got me killed, but she is the reason Reese is so sick. She cannot mess with my brother and get away with it. I won’t allow it.”
I think to the money I was awarded today and how I can very easily use that to find Alicia and make her pay for ever thinking of touching my brother. She is a wicked beast and I won’t allow her to hurt anyone else ever again.
“I have to make things right,” I tell Eugene, yanking my hand from his.
“I understand that but you can’t go at her alone. You die again and—” he shakes his head, looking aside. “I can’t lose you again, Olivia. I won’t allow you to get hurt ever again. I love you. Does that mean anything to you?”
Swallowing hard, I shiver slightly with his outright claim.
“I can’t love in this life,” I say. “It will only cause me pain.”
I rush from his office, holding Reese’s paperwork as I hurry from the hospital. I can’t stand knowing what I know now and that Alicia has seemingly gotten away with such a heinous crime. She will pay for doing this to my brother; even if it’s the last thing I do.
I stop when I’m outside, though, perplexed to see two fairly familiar cars parked on the curb. One of them is a sleek black car, meant for luxury and ease where Gabriel stands outside the car, leaning back onto the hood. The car behind it is flashy and sporty, Herold waiting next to an open door, as though to usher me inside.
I look at them both, bewildered by what I see.
“Let me drive you home,” Eugene says, behind me suddenly and holding a set of flashy keys. “It would be an honor.”
I stand between the three wolves, each one as powerful as the last, but different in so many ways. I wish I could explain the pang in my chest when I see them all standing here, vouching for my attention and my affection, but it doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t think I could choose, even if I wanted to.