Page 34 of The Alpha's Reclaimed Mate

“No,” said my father. “What you speak is a blatant lie.”

“When would he have taken you shopping, anyway?” asked Emma. “You’ve been banished to the outskirts of the territory for days!”

“Exactly!” I squeezed my fists again, resisting the urge to step closer. My parents were on the defensive. I didn’t want them to think I was about to attack anyone, even though my anger was already manifesting into action. “You have no idea what I’ve been doing except for hunting. Or trying to, without you sneaking into my cache and destroying everything I caught.” My eyes burned into Emma.

She knew I was referring to when she and Cassie sabotaged my food stores. Her lips tightened into a smirk as she folded her arms. “How sad. You can’t even take responsibility for your failed hunts when the evidence is right there.”

“This isn’t evidence of a failed hunt,” I said, holding out my arm where a deep bite wound had been wrapped up in bandages by Esther. “This is the result of a Rogue attack!”

A gasp spread through the crowd that had gathered around us. Emma’s arrogant smirk weakened, clearly thrown off as the attention left her and shifted to worry about the news of a rogue attack.

“What? Haven’t you all heard?” I looked at my packmates around me. “Didn’t Oswald warn you about the Rogues?”

“Enough, Aria! There’s no need to spread frightening rumors,” said my father.

“You have no idea what I’ve been doing. You didn’t even realize I was missing yesterday, did you?” I latched my gaze onto him now, the hair on the back of my neck prickling.

“It’s not our responsibility to know where you are. You’re not a child anymore, Aria,” scolded my mother.

“Yet you would have neglected me no matter how old I was,” I fought back. “Even if I was still a child, you wouldn’t have defended me from the rumors, Emma and Cassie’s sabotage, or Mara’s claims against me. You would have let it happen no matter what because I’m not as pretty or charming or perfect as them.” I was beginning to see the truth of it all. This entire time, my only redeeming quality was that I had been Oswald’s fated mate, and now that Mara was his mate, I was worth nothing to them! “That’s why you treat me like an outsider, isn’t it? You act like I’m… some kind of leper! Like having sympathy for me will cause the rest of the pack to look down on you!”

“You brought it all on yourself, the way you acted with Mara!” shouted my mother.

“I didn’t deserve any of it! I was trying to be the best Alpha Female I could possibly be! But when I lost my chance—because Oswald never wanted me—you turned your back on me!”

“We all had to make sacrifices, Aria!” My mother’s voice rose in a way that made me want to flinch, her tone cutting. “You know that everything your father and I do is for the good of our family!”

“So, what? Am I not considered part of your family anymore?”

I could tell my mother wanted to snap back at me, but with the crowd around us, she kept silent and only glanced at my father.

The rest of my packmates heard the argument, developing opinions of their own, and to my surprise, not all of them seemed to take my family’s side.

“I’d think Aria’s made enough sacrifices,” said one of the girls on Emma’s soccer team. “It’s not like she tried to force her way back into the pack after Oswald’s punishment.”

“That’s right,” said somebody else. “I haven’t seen her since Oswald ordered her to be touch-starved. She did as she was told.”

“Her sisters are the ones tormenting her, trying to keep her from eating.”

“Hey!” Emma barked at the crowd. “You don’t know anything about us. Or her! Aria’s an irresponsible, jealous brat, but none of you realize it because she’s been putting on the illusion of being this hard-done-by little girl. Being Oswald’s fated mate made her entitled and spoiled! She thinks the world owes her something when really it doesn’t!”

“I’m not putting on any illusion!” I argued. Had it not been for Lucas, I might have thought Emma was right, but I realized now that the way my family was treating me wasn’t right. No family should treat their daughter like she is an outcast for being rejected by her fated mate. I’d done nothing wrong. I worked hard every day, even after being rejected, cast aside, insulted… The Silent Shadows Pack saw the value I possessed. My family turned a blind eye to it simply because it didn’t match the narrative they spun about me. They were the ones who were wrong!

And now the rest of my pack was beginning to see it.

“I don’t know what you’ve been getting up to outside of the villa, but clearly, this is some kind of scheme to get revenge against Oswald,” said my father. “I won’t have it. Anyone who speaks against Oswald’s decisions may as well be declaring treason against him!”

The pack murmured.

“Do you think Oswald’s rejection changed her?” they said.

“No, she was always hateful. We just never saw it until now.”

“Oswald made the right choice turning her away.”

The inferno raged inside me as I heard my packmates call me hateful. Yet the ones who sympathized with me argued back, saying I only acted this way because of what was taken from me. The few packmates I had interacted with before came to my defense, but that was the downside of my intense Alpha training. I’d never been given the chance to make friends. I had nobody else to take my side except for the few who witnessed my training, and they were grossly outnumbered by the ones fearful of inciting treason. The topic of the Rogues came up again as my packmates wondered out loud why Oswald hadn’t warned anybody about them yet, but some brushed it off as a rumor. Others turned it back on me, accusing me of bringing the Rogues into our territory and planning the attacks in the first place.

Chaos erupted in the crowd as my packmates argued among themselves. Their oppressive judgment bore down on me, suffocating me. I hadn’t meant to cause so much drama, but it seemed everywhere I went, there was an argument waiting to explode. Even if I wanted to back out and flee from the argument, they surrounded me. I couldn’t leave.

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