Chapter 83: IN THE SHADOWS OF STEPHANIE

Ellen Evans Pov



Tears burned my eyes and covered my vision as I turned away, desperately wanting to leave the scene, to run away and escape the gnawing agony that eas now plaguing me, etched deeply into every part of thie damned ceremony.

I started to hurry out of the hall as the salty water began to make my vision really blurry. But before I could slip out unnoticed, a soft, familiar hand caught my shoulder and I looked up at the person.

It was Martha.

"Calm down child," she whispered to me as she led me out of the hall and to the palace gardens. She made me sit on the garden chair beside her. I embraced her, crying in her hands, pouring out loads and loads of wet and concealed pain.

"He does not want me any more," I told her in a whisper.

"My dear," she murmured beside me as she stroked my hair gently like a doting mother. I looked up at her and in that moment I missed my real mother. Her slightly wrinkled face was filled with worry for me. Her gentle touches and gaze soothed me though it didn't remove much of the pain that I was feeling.

"I am so sorry about Dylan my dear," she told me in a quiet voice. She took my palms in hers and I held unto it like an anchor in an overwhelming sea of blatant heartache.

"I should have left with the rest, no matter what would have become of me. I had thought that I could handle it, Martha," I choked out. "But seeing both of them tying the knot..." My voice broke as I remembered the wedding vows. She took me in an embrace, rubbing my back tenderly as she tried to console me, tried to bring me comfort.

"Do not say that. Think of your child Ellen. What would become of the child you bear if anything happens to you back at the Harné pack? So give him time, Ellen. Dylan's heart is conflicted, and part of it is your fault you know. But he is definitely a good man, even if he is quite lost right now. Stay strong and do not let anything get to you," she encouraged me with optimistic eyes. But it wasn't contagious, her optimism, I felt like it was all over. They had said their vows, they were married.

But still I moved back to look at her with a forced smile that I used to mask my hopelessness. "Thank you," I told her in a whisper. "I will try Martha and I hope I will be alright."

"You will," she told me as she held me close in offered comfort. It was a sharp contrast to the ice cold emptiness inside of me. "Listen to me, Ellen, You are not alone in this. You have your child and you have the strength to survive this. Do not let everything get to you." I nodded numbly as I tried to believe her conviction, trying to cling to Martha's words in the hope that they would be enough to see me through whatever this was.

But a rather vast and uncertain future was all I saw whenever I tried to envision anything, one in which I would no longer hold a place in my mate's heart. A fresh round of tears over mastered me.

"You are more than they will ever give you credit for, Ellen," she said to me as she reached out and brushed a tear away from my face. "Do not let anyone make you believe otherwise. You have a heart stronger than anyone here."

"Thank you, Martha," I whispered in a shaky voice. "I do not know what I would do without you."

"Now stop watching the ceremony and go up to the room and rest. It will all be over soon. Everything would solve itself before you know it."

"Thanks again," I said as we both got on our feets and I prepared to make my way to my bedroom and do just what she had asked.

"So this is where you were? No wonder I could not find you," a loud voice came. It was unmistakably the voice of Dylan's mother. I turned to behold her. Her eyes were sharp and mocking, filled with triumph at breaking me and Dylan apart. It seemed like she was there to gloat.

"Excuse me," I said as I made to go around her in avoidance. I just wanted to go to my bedroom for some peace and quiet and not stand in the afternoon sun trading words with my mate's mother.

"Oh you are not excused," she said to me with a devilish smirk on her face. Her gaze was fixed on me with that familiar glint of contempt. "And I almost did not recognize you, standing there in the shadows of Stephanie," she mocked me.

"Shadows?" I asked in an almost inaudible voice.

"Why yes?" She taunted me. I stiffened as my fingers curled into my palms, my nails digging deeply into my skin as I fought for control. I tried my best to keep calm while she sized me up like an unwanted insect with a long glance, her eyes blazing with unconcealed disdain. Her eyes lingered on my stomach too long and I proceeded to cuddle it protectively in case she wanted to try anything.

"How... quaint," she sneered. "So, you truly are expecting? I suppose you thought that would be enough to hold my son's attention right?" The words stung like venom, each one sinking deeper into my wounds.

I wanted to respond, to shout at her and explain to her that I had had no intention of baby trapping my mate with another man's child. I had not even known I was pregnant!I wanted to tell her that I was no scheming person and everything he and I had shared was undoubtedly real.

But I held back because I realized that it would not really matter, would not really change anything. It would only be a waste of my time because to everyone who knew about us, I was the one bad person, the villain. And that was why I had become an after thought, cast aside.

Agatha continued, her voice laced with smug satisfaction. "You never truly believed you'd marry my son, did you? Dylan deserves someone with...class. Status. A woman who knows her place."

"I hope you never truly believed that I would let my son marry you? Even if your pregnancy had not existed you would have never wed him. I would never allow it, allow him to wed a nonentity like you! Especially not when he has Stephanie and I! He deserves someone with class, a woman who would know her place without being told!" She snapped at me before she smiled in a smug and satisfied way.

I opened my mouth in a bid to defend myself but nothing came out. All the words I knew were slidged deep inside my throat, lost. And for the umpteenth time, I felt the weight of my humiliation reaching out to crush me to pieces.

"Please, stop it," I told her. "I have heard enough. Let me be." I wished desperately that she would leave me alone at that moment.

"That is enough now Luna," Martha said as she stepped in between the both of us. "Everything has happened and there is no need to hold onto it again. Let it go."

"Martha," she began to say.

"Let the child be. Do not gloat, you are more mature than that," she added in a low and steady voice. My mate's mother laughed at her words.

"Are you taking her side?" She asked her with raised brows.

"There is no side to take here. I am just protecting you both from hurting each other. Now off you go to your bedroom Ellen and Luna let's go back to the wedding ceremony."

"You always be so sentimental Martha," she said. "But you must know that she should not have come if she wanted to avoid this. Her presence was not required. She was only but a footnote in his big story, remember that Ellen."

"That is the reason I am sending her off to her bedroom, away from the wedding ceremony." She wrapped her hands around me and guided me towards the exit, going around my mate's mother who sneered."Go on! You do not need to stay here any longer child."

"I'm going back to the wedding," she said behind the both of us.

As I walked away from them, my mate's mother cutting words pierced my heart relentlessly.

"...a footnote in his big story." The words continued to echo inside of my head as I made my way to the bedroom while the leaving everything behind me.