#Chapter 36 Three Against One

“I don’t want that,” Herold says, breaking the long, ebbing silence in the hallway. “I don’t want to forget about you. I never have and I never will.”
I can feel the hot tears on my face, the music from the ballroom downstairs so distant but somewhat upbeat. I can just picture her now, spinning across the dancefloor with Alpha Connor, using her maleficent charms on that pathetic Alpha. I bite my words, my frustrations, and feel my back sulk against the wall.
“Shh, relax,” Gabriel hums, his arms caressing around me tightly. He hold me in place, my mind finally realizing that I wasn’t up against a wall at all, but instead the dominate Alpha King. He brushes my cheek with his warm lips. “Everything is going to be okay, my dear.”
“It’s not,” I groan.
My stomach aches, just like my head. “No one—no one believes me…”
“I didn’t—’ Herold says, pushing himself to unsteady stance. “I just know what I was told about Olivia’s death and I—”
I flinch at the mention of my name, every wolf aware of it. I push from Gabriel’s arms, wobbling a path down the hall. I intend to shut this party down, to just use my Queen Luna powers to send her to jail; it could just be that simple, right?
My legs give out and I hit the ground in a heavy, exasperated heap.
“No one is on my side.”
Eugene kneels beside me, his palm wiping at my damp cheeks. “No one said that. We just can’t let you obsess over it like you have.”
I give him a narrow look, breaking through our pack link for only us to communicate.
You know what she did to me, I growl. She killed me.
I know that, Olivia, I know what she did. She deserves every punishment possible but if you continue to break out like you have been, no one is going to believe you, he says back with a sad, cold look on his light features. You’re sounds a little… crazy.
I look away at that claim. I may be a little passionate but I shouldn’t be considered crazy for hating that woman. She took my life from me, my mate, and I think I’m upset about this issue an appropriate amount. How could Eugene, of all wolves, tell me any differently?
“Let me talk to her,” I hear Alpha Herold chirping from down the hall.
“You’ve done enough talking,” Gabriel replies. “If you make her any more upset, I’ll have you kicked off my pack lands for the rest of the night.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Eugene parts from my side, making room for his brother who collapses beside on the floor. His eyes are rubbed red and raw from tears. He looks over his shoulder, then to me, as if gauging the company of this conversation. For a minute, I don’t care. Let them know I am Olivia; it wouldn’t make them believe me any more than they already don’t.
“What happened?”
I wince with his question. He’s sad or trying to appear as such. “I shouldn’t even bother telling you, Alpha Herold. You don’t care anyways.”
“I do care,” he pleads, “I really do. Just tell me. What really happened?”
I roll my lower lip through my teeth, my head spinning endlessly. “She may not have used the knife personally, but she most definitely gave it to the woman who did.”
Alpha Herold breaks slowly, something so mortal about his emotions. It’s pathetic and wispy, his light cries like slow rain on a tin roof. It brings me comfort to see him mourn his mate, to mourn me, and I can’t help but relish the sight of him finally feeling what I had felt.
“She killed Olivia and the baby?”
“Your baby,” I say, nodding at his question.
Alpha Herold is up at once, stomping down the hallway. Eugene stays to help me stand but Gabriel runs past us both, chasing after Herold who is already probably in the ballroom. I straight myself out first, Eugene wiping my cheeks dry.
“You shouldn’t have told him that,” Eugene groans, staring grimly down the hall.
“Why?” I bark. “He doesn’t even really care, Eugene, he is just pretending to care—”
The music comes to an abrupt halt, a few shrieking screams ringing out down the hall. Eugene doesn’t intend to leave me behind and drags me over to the archway of the hall that overlooks the ballroom downstairs. I lean over the railing a little, for a better view, my eyes only finding a light, furious wolf in the middle of the ballroom.
When I see Gabriel’s wolf size up to Herold’s I can tell I may have misjudged my ex-mate’s grief just a little bit.
“Eugene,” I breathe, in utter shock as the two wolves corner one another with every intention to fight, “This is all for show, right? He didn’t care about me before. Why would he—”
“Guilt,” Eugene grunts. “It’s nothing more that petty guilt. He was wrong about Alicia and that came back to bite him in the ass. If she goes after Alpha Connor and becomes Luna, it will only leave my dear brother looking stupid. He won’t allow that.”
My friendly doctor has to be right. “Yeah, I suppose that’s just it.”
We watch from above as the rest of the party filters outside, leaving only the Alphas in the ballroom below snapping at one another. I don’t want there to be any more fights, not even with the Alpha I can’t stand the most, Herold.
I break from Eugene, making my way into the ballroom and between the angry wolves. Gabriel is furious but he stands down at the sight of me. Herold, on the other hand, his eyes are bloodshot red, like he’s a rogue with rabies, and he doesn’t seem filtered by the sight of me.
He growls in my face, his teeth exposed and awfully sharp. I almost feel threatened at the sight, but something else takes over me. I back up, shifting into my wolf, feeling my bones realign and my fur spike out down my spine. I feel normal in this form, even if this wolf isn’t all of my own.
I sneer a growl right back into Herold’s face, his eyes wide in shock.
He melts back into his other form, on his knees before me now. “Your—your eyes.”
I turn to see Gabriel back into his non-threatening form as well. “My dear, what happened?”
Dammit, Olivia, Eugene barks into my mind link Your eyes.
What about them?
One of them is gold, like the Queen Luna’s wolf. The other—it’s purple.
Herold sobs now, “it’s just like Olivia’s.”