Chapter 60|Retribution.

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**Isabelle's P O V.

The look on Alexander's face when we got to my room was priceless. His jaw when I touched it was granite hard.

"Alexand..." I began but got cut off the moment he turned from the door he just locked.

He took my face in both of his hands wearing an infuriated look. "I love you, and I don't want to lose you. I had a glimpse of what it felt like to live without you and I do not like it one bit, I hate the idea of imagining it again talkless of going through the process. I love you!" He groaned, looking and sounding pained.

"You're not losing me," I placed my hands over his on my face. "I'm not going anywhere and trust me I know what you went through when I was gone because I went through the same fear and pain and trauma. I love you Alex but I need this. I have to go."

My words had him flinching, then as though trying to protect and shield his pain from me Alexander retracted, he moved to the farthest end of the room.

I felt the volcanic emotions quaking in him from the connection we share. To soothe the tempest, my feet on their own accord followed after him and didn't stop until I was directly behind him. My hands went around his midriff and my chest got plastered to his back.

Gingerly, my right hand moved up until it was placed directly over the left side of his chest. His muscles tensed at my actions.

"I'm sorry." I whispered against the human broad brickwall I was gummed to. "I don't want to hurt your feelings."

A minute passed without a response from him. It felt like an eternity.

I rose on the tip of my toes and pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder, where my height could reach. When it still evoked no physical reaction I snaked around him to his front and found his eyes closed tight. With a barely suppressed smile I lowered his willing head to my face and covered his lips with mine.

From the moment I kissed his shoulder I felt the change in his feelings, his thoughts and knew he was close to surrendering. Then, after putting my lips on his I knew we both were gone because Alexander's hands went to the back of my thighs and had me straddling him. He took possession of the kiss and went from sweet to sensual, hard and possessive to all things in between until we were writhing in the sheets in a tangled mess.

.....

Arabella wringed her fingers together, in her head she was rehearsing her apology speech to Lucas. Apology for not acknowledging the bond between them and for forcing him to not acknowledge it too.

Clad in a red cropped top and white shorts she braced herself, summoned courage and walked out of the room to the gardens where she found him earlier litting a cigarette after dinner.

She felt his presence way before she found him in a state that had the grounds beneath her feet reverberating with a thunderous roar, he had his arms wrapped around the woman he brought with him to the pack and she was fully perched atop his lap with her lips fused to his.

Her whole world stopped.

Her blood roared.

Lost to the happenings of the world and enclosed in their sinful haze of pleasure Arabella stared until his eyes met hers, from the distance between them she found defiance in his gaze, his solid will to ignore any and every connection between them. She saw pride and a glint of satisfaction in his dark brown orbs. He was deliberately hurting her.

Her temper lit, her eyes turning a menacing shade of light blue as she raced from his sight, her wolf taking over, clouding her senses as all she could see was red. Arabella raced around the woods releasing series of howls filled with pain.

Her wolf cried for solace in the dark earth. The image of his denial captured and stuck in her brain she could see nothing apart of it. She was blind to anything else.

Wounded, she raced from one end of the territory to another, paying no heed to the distance she was covering or the danger in it. She was far too gone by pain and contrition that no logical thought could sit well in her mind.

Lucas let go of Kate who was staring at him in uncertainty. She had no idea why the atmosphere changed the moment Lucas took his lips off hers. She felt his distraction and found nothing when she looked behind her to the spot his eyes stayed rooted to.

"Fuck." He muttered under his breath laying her off him and slipping his hand over her shoulder with the aim of taking her back to his room. For the past two days Kate has been keeping herself company in the Pack with a handful of assistants at her beck and call. It was her dream come true. She relished in the attention rooted on her and spent the few days going through every designer mall within Staten Island as well as tasting the delicacies they offered while watching her weight.

Being literate of the existence of weres gave her the power and ability to go through their environment without them being wary of her presence. Lucas laid her off the very day they arrived into his home along with a black credit card that catered to her every whim and she was labeled the most satisfied woman on earth, at least in her perspective.

She didn't miss how much the strawberry blonde lady stared at herself and Lucas. In fact, given the chance to speak up her mind, she thought Lucas was deliberately touching her to spite the oval faced beauty because it wasn't his nature to be touchy behind closed doors. She gathered as much from the short time spent between them.

The relationship between them behind closed doors was basically platonic and nothing more. In fact, this was the first time he made an intimate move on her after their near mating got interrupted by a phone call in Seychelles.

He basically dropped her at the building and left, barely acknowledging her until it was time for dinner which she gathered wasn't taken lightly at the De Luca Pack.

Lucas stayed rooted to his spot at the sound of a howl reaching his ear. His fingers flexed around Kate's arm and his whole stance became rigid. He breathed out of his nose, the sound getting to the deepest part of him. It was wreaking havoc with his senses.

Subconsciously, his legs began moving towards the direction of the howl, Katie's voice calling out his name had him stopping in his tracks.

"You promised to watch a movie with me tonight and I'm not letting you bid out of the date. I'm leaving in a few days, a few hours away from the duty keeping you away won't hurt, or will it?" Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she spoke.

Lucas felt guilty for bringing her to his own home only to dump her with meager material things to fend for herself. He felt stupid for using her to arouse a reaction from his tenacious mate.

Sure, he's gotten the reactions he vied for. But, to say her howls of pain weren't reaching to his heart and plundering with all the might of a giant's axe will be a huge lie. He was barely surviving.

Knowing that he's already hurt one woman tonight made him pull Kate's arm to the direction of the garage where he planned to make out his promise and take her on a movie date because as much as he was a manwhore, Luke never played with women's feelings because they always knew what they were in for with him. But not one woman, the only one unsure of whether to act on base impulse or deny her soul's right, hurting him blalantly in the process and herself because the cries ringing in the air and especially in his ears weren't cries of pleasure. They were howls of anguish and Lucas never hurt two women in a day.

It wasn't his thing.

So he ignored his own wolf's response to it's mate's cries even though it was in despair and completely against his humane decison to satisfy Kate's request and not their mate's unspoken one.

.....

**Arabella's P O V.

It hurt to close my eyes.

It hurt to look at the manor walls.

It hurt most knowing Luke was somewhere around the Pack but completely out of my reach.

I caught the sign of dismissal in his eye when I practically found him humping his whore for all to see at the gardens. I knew it satisfied him knowing I was all-knowing of the vast string of lovers he had at his beck and call all he had to do was snap his fingers and one will come gliding with a come-hitherto look in her eyes.

It sickened me with so much disgust I thought I was going to throw up my dinner. My wolf was more hurt than I was. Anger was quickly dominating my hurt. Anger at him, my existence literally based on a lie, my grandfather and most of all the role I was forced to play as the villian, when I was supposed to be cherished by my mate. Ths most infuriating part of it was my ignorance in all of this. I still have no idea of my grandfather's true motives, zero idea of the truth behind all my grandfather taught and told me.

Rethinking the source of my anger and the reason behind it as my indignant refusal to acknowledge and accept the blessed bond between myself and the Alpha's brother might have cost me a few weeks living within the cozy cocoon of his embrace made my temper spark but my newfound determination to live a new life had me hardening my resolve with the need to getting everything I deserve not for what my grandfather and his sick lies had turned me to but as a person of my own. A person who accepts her flaws and wishes to remedy it even if it takes an eternity for her to be successful.

Keeping away my side of the story from the De Luca Pack members was deliberate because I more than anyone know just how many eyes and ears my grandfather have within the confines of the pack. I knew some but not all and have a firsthand experience of what Martin Miles does to those who betray him and switch sides which is exactly what I was doing, or have done already.

To be very honest, I didn't care about that right now. It wasn't my biggest problem.

Time wasn't on my side because Leah's disappearance meant my grandfather hearing about Isabelle's return and there's nothing that lits the rage in him more than the mere mention of her name. It brings out his scorn and fury and Martin lashes at everyone who dares to breathe in his sight if something is said to be to her advantage.

Isabelle's request to take me back to the Bane Pack was literally a ticket for me to escape from his reach. I have every intention of going there myself even if Alexander refuses to let Isabelle go. I need to have that closure before starting on a clean slate.

I need it badly.

Clad in a fresh pajama set I took out to Isabelle's room. I knocked twice before her voice came through and I alerted her that I was behind the door. She opened the door, looking my way warily.

I felt a tinge of hurt in my chest. But then, whose fault is it but mine? I made the closest person I had as a friend suffer most. Thinking that I once had the dream of marrying Alexander knowing he truly was rightfully hers and rid her of her mate makes me sick. It wasn't a normal thought to an average person.

Just some time ago I was on the brink of running mad over coming in contact with Lucas kissing some other girl. It made me feel like my heart was being forcefully ripped out of my chest. Only God knows what she felt whenever she came across me clinging unto her rightful lover and mate, the man who's already marked her in every way possible.

The Alpha's form appeared from the space created by her between the door and I felt like I was intruding on an intimate moment. A very intimate one. He was bare chested and she wore his shirt with her hair mussed up.

I cleared my throat, willed myself to stare only at her and spoke, "I will like to have a few words with you, if you'll be open to having a conversation with me."