Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Elara

‘Elara!’

Solena comes to hug me, and I hug her back. I smile at my brother, Khai, and hug him. He looks relieved to see me and hugs me tighter.

‘Elara, we were worried,’ he says. I inhale his scent, feeling better in his arms. Khai and I are close in age, and we grew up being close despite having different personalities.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say,

‘I was relieved when Zuriel found you,’ he breathed. I look at Solena,

‘They are looking at me strangely. What’s going on?’ I look between them. Khai scowls and Solena smiles tightly. It’s creepy. She only does this when she’s trying to conceal information, which is difficult because she’s terrible at keeping secrets.

‘Sol, you’re doing that thing with your lips and teeth again,’ I point. She stops and pulls a stoic face, but it soon contorts.

‘You’re so annoying. Can’t you be normal for five minutes?’ Khai says, bewildered.

‘I can’t help it. No wonder I was hiding out here,’ Solena cries. They argue back and forth. I roll my eyes at their bickering, tired of it now. I scream at the top of my lungs, and that always gets their attention.

‘What happened?’

‘Mom and Dad want to talk to you first,’ Khai says.

‘Is everything alright?’ I ask, worried.

‘Nothing is alright, Elara!’ Khai booms suddenly.

He is angry at me, his aura radiating off him in waves, and Solena takes a step back. Khai was a strong wolf, one of the best, second to Dad.

‘What happened?’ My voice quivers, and my heart racing. What happened? Did the pack know what happened?

‘Elle, explicit pictures and videos of you are circulating the internet, and you are the center of a scandal, not only here but amongst packs away,’ Solena informs me.

I’m mortified by this information, it had only been hours since I left Connor’s pack. How come everyone knows what happened already?

‘Your mate recorded a short clip of you having sex. His face wasn’t showing, only yours,’ Her voice shudders as she tells me this.

I grab her phone from her hands and check the video. Indeed, that was us. It was only thirty seconds long but you can see it’s me.

There are some pictures of the day I found him. We were making out in a dark corridor. Others I was in bed with him, moaning subtly. My body is shaking, and my wolf is growling and cussing at that bastard. She wants his blood.

I look under the comments.

Scandalous!

Whore princess!

She’s so disgusting. Her family should have taught her better!

And to think everyone wanted her!

I knew she wasn’t as innocent as she pretended to be.

Cunt.

‘Don’t look anymore, Elle,’ my brother says softly, trying to get the phone from my shaking hands, but I move away.

There is a scandalous article under it. The Alpha king’s daughter, Elara, is a loose woman and fucks around with different men. She has no morals and is a disgrace to the pack and her family. No man will want her now. Rumor has it that her mate even rejected her because of how immoral she was.

Tears streak down my cheeks as I continue to read all the vile things written about me.

Khai gets the phone from me and pulls me in a tighter hug. I am hyperventilating, unable to utter any words. I wasn’t like that.

I calm down after a few minutes and start to breathe normally.

‘H- how many people saw this?’ I asked, my voice still shaking.

‘Millions,’ Sol answered, her honeycomb eyes sad.

‘Don’t worry, Mom and Dad will fix this,’ Khai says confidently. I shake my head. How could they even fix this?

I’m the laughing stock, and my character has already been stained. I’ll be the center of media bully everywhere. My parents. My respectable parents, how will they face everyone?

Nothing is more frowned upon than a woman who fucks around with just any man.

My brother’s eyes cloud. It means he is mind-linking. He exhales once his eyes clear and looks at me.

‘Dad wants you in his office,’ he tells me. Why didn’t he mind-link me? Does he hate me too?

Pushing down my hurt. I make my way to his office, my brother wrapping an arm around my shoulder, and I’m thankful for that. I need his strength and support. Solena is walking with us, glaring at anyone who looks at me a certain way, but they can’t threaten everyone forever.

Even the servants on our wing are looking at me strangely. It isn’t the look of adoration I was used to. Khai growls at them, and they tear their gaze away.

When I reached my father’s home office. I contemplate getting in. Maybe I should just run away and be rogue, a wolf without a pack. I won’t have to face my parent’s disappointed looks.

‘Come in, Elara,’ I hear Das’s gruff voice says on the other side as I ponder. I still before slowly push the door open and step inside. I feel the power of the Alpha king’s aura fill the room, and I resist the urge to shake. I don’t dare raise my gaze to him. His actions surprise me. He wraps his arms around me and kisses my hair.

‘Elara, I was worried about you,’ his voice is gentle. I slowly wrap my arms around his waist, crying as I apologize profusely for embarrassing myself and him.

‘Dad, I’m sorry. I swear he was my mate, and I thought he loved me,’ I sniffed.

‘He made promises to me, and I believed him. I was a fool,’ I bawled in my father’s loving arms.

He pulls away from me, and his hand cradles my cheek,

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m glad you’re safe,’ he gives me a lopsided smile. My father is truly the best.

‘Where’s Mum?’ I croaked, looking around.

‘She is out with Halsey Crawford, but they will be back,’ he says. He runs his hand through his hair and looks at me again.

‘Dad, what are we going to do about this? We need to fix her reputation,’ Khai said.

‘And kill her mate,’ he growls.

‘Halsey came to us with a solution, and we think it’s for the best,’ Dad said. I raise my eyebrow. Halsey Crawford? She is Zuriel’s mother and a close friend of my parents. She is one of the wealthiest people in the pack.

‘What solution?’ Ara murmur.