Chapter 96

#Chapter 96 – Rejection Victor turns, slowly, to face Amelia at the door.

“Evelyn,” his voice is soft; he doesn’t look at her as he speaks. “Are they okay?”

He hears a huff behind him. “No, Victor, obviously they’re not okay –“

“Evelyn,” it’s a bark this time, his voice thick with command. “Do they need medical attention.” He doesn’t take his eyes off of Amelia for a second.

Evelyn pauses, understanding now. After a moment of looking over the boys, she answers. “No…no, I think they’re okay.”

“Good.” That taken care of, he prowls forward to Amelia at the door.

“Victor,” she says, standing up straight, her own face angry and stern. “This is a misunderstanding –“

“Enough, Amelia!” He cuts her off and her mouth snaps shut. Still, the stubborn expression has yet to be stripped from her face. He realizes that she still thinks she’s going to win this fight, stand her ground and have things her way. Slowly, he shakes his head and turns to the crowd.

“I apologize.” His voice is a resonant growl that echoes throughout the room. “For the disruption to the wedding. I know that you all traveled far and delayed other plans to celebrate this day with Amelia and I.”

Amelia too turns to look out on the crowd, her face turning a bit smug.

“I apologize, further,” Victor continues, turning his fury on Amelia as he says it. He wants to see her face. “For continued disruption to this wedding, as it has been cancelled.”

The crowd gasps, and Amelia snaps her furious face to his. She opens her mouth to speak, but Victor interrupts.

“Moments before she walked down the aisle, Amelia took it upon herself to lock my two children – my sons and heirs – into a closet in the Bridal Suite.”

The crowd begins to murmur and Amelia starts to turn red with embarrassment. Clearly, she hadn’t expected her act to be thus discovered and announced.

Victor raises his voice to be heard over the throng, who hush in order to listen. “This is an assault on my family, on my pack, on my lineage, on my heritage,” he says, his voice rising with every item in the list. “All done, I assume, because this…woman,” he sneers as the says the word, “refuses to share our day with my flesh and blood.”

Victor rips his gaze from Amelia’s as her mouth falls open in protest. Any of her words are drowned out as he roars: “It shall not be borne!”

Amelia’s face goes almost instantly from an angry red to an icy white. Her hands start to tremble as she anticipates what is coming next. Victor turns to her then, focusing his ferocious gaze on her alone. It could be just the two of them in the room now, for all either cares.

“Amelia Jones,” he snarls. “I have recognized you as my fiancé, my partner in life, my mate. I have cared for you, housed you, welcomed you to my pack, and provided for your every need. In return, you have disrespected me, betrayed me, and endangered the health and safety of my sons.”

She sinks to her knees, shaking her head no, her hands drafting up to her mouth. This can’t be – she always wins with Victor – always gets her way –

“For this, Amelia,” Victor says, his voice dripping with molten rage, “I reject you.”

The crowd gasps at this, almost as one. Never, never would they have expected Victor and Amelia, this shining pair, to end like this.

“I break whatever bond is between us,” Victor continues, viciously slicing the air between them with his hand. “I refuse your rights as my mate, my fiancé, my partner. I mark you as a Rogue wolf, expel you from my pack, and let you fall upon whoevers hands will take up your worthless form.”

Something snaps between them in that moment, inaudible but…felt, there, below the breastbone. An ending, a closing of the circle, a separation of what was once joined.

He takes one step forward to glower over her. “After this day, this moment, I never wish to set eyes upon you again. To me, you are a dead thing. Worse,” Even those in the back of the room can hear him whisper over the hush in the room, “it is as if you were never born.”

A sob rips from Amelia’s throat, the loudest sound in the room. But Victor turns his eyes from her, away from this woman whom he had loved, with whom he had shared so much.

It was too much. Too much for his trust, his heart, to bear. He couldn’t marry someone so selfish that she couldn’t share the spotlight for one moment with two little boys, his children. Someone who would endanger them, so she could take the attention and the glory alone, on what was supposed to be their day.

He takes slow, measured steps away from her and back into the vestibule before the Bridal Suite.

There is no need to rush anymore.

Victor realizes the importance of the next few moments, knows that all eyes will be upon him as he leaves the vestibule. What he presents next is important.

He kneels down next to Evelyn, and his boys, who still cry softly but seem to be coming around.

“Are you all right,” he says quietly, calm, as he runs a hand over Ian’s hair and wipes a tear from Alvin’s face.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Ian says, still hiccupping.

“We’re going to go now,” Victor says, his voice still soft. He takes a minute to glance around the room, again noticing the bridesmaid passed out on the floor. He notices that she is breathing, but she has passed out, her face is still pale and clammy.

“Is she all right?” He asks Evelyn.

She shrugs, looking over at her. “Victor…I think…I think Amelia poisoned her,” she says, a little breathless and awed at the woman’s ruthlessness. “As a way to distract me, so she could lock the boys away. She planned all of this, Victor –“

“Of course she did,” he murmurs, still looking to the woman with concern. “She’s nothing if not deliberate.” He takes a beat and looks Evelyn up and down, knowing, in his gut, that he can’t walk out of this vestibule with another woman. As much as he knows he wants her close – the media, the press, the gossip –

It would give Amelia too much fuel for retaliation.

“Will you stay with her,” he asks, “until medical officers come?”

Evelyn nods, looking at the woman, and then back at Victor. “What will you do?”

“I’ll take the boys,” he says, straightening up and gathering Ian up in his arms. “I’ll bring them down to your suite, where they can rest. Where we can explain to them what’s going on.”

Evelyn bites her lip, not wanting to be separated from her children, but nods. She looks up at Victor and communicates that she understands. He doesn’t smile, but nods, grateful.

She stands as well and lifts Alvin into Victor’s other arm, so that he has a boy on each hip, his arms wrapped around each of their waists. Alvin buries his head against his father’s shoulder, but Ian looks out at the crowds outside the door.

“All right, boys,” Victor murmurs to them. “We have to be brave for a moment, until we get to the elevators and down to the room. Can you do that for me?”

Both boys nod, though he only feel’s Alvin’s assent against his shoulder. With a final glance at Evelyn, Victor leaves the vestibule to increased murmurs from the crowd.

He carefully steps over Amelia, who sobs on the floor into her mother’s arms. He doesn’t spare Amelia’s father a glance, the worthless man. Instead, he walks calmly to the elevators and waits, patiently, for the carriage to arrive after he has pushed the button.

When the door dings and opens, Victor steps inside and turns to face the crowd. He stares out at them all, determined, daring them to challenge his choice and his decision.

No one says a word.

The doors slide shut and Victor heaves a huge breath as the elevator steadily begins its journey down.