Page 161 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
She was out of the mountain, with Lumie, and Kein was staying close. She nearly felt grateful to the clans for being so brave and maintaining the gathering despite the dragon nearby.
Now, all she needed was the right opportunity as soon as this gathering started. Alezya was barely suppressing the need to call Kein now, but she couldn’t risk a commotion when two orthree hundred men surrounded her. Moreover, she was slightly curious to see how the gatherings actually went down.
There was something so tense that she couldn’t help but want to see what the other clans had to say, what else her father had lied about. It felt like something big was going on, something she shouldn’t miss.
So she decided to wait quietly, holding her baby a bit tighter and making sure Lumie was wrapped in the fur coat.
“We shall start,” an older man with a long silver beard that reached all the way to his belly announced, stepping into the triangle created by the three firepits. “Welcome to the gathering, dear friends, neighbors, and allies!”
After he spoke, a handful of men stepped into the same triangle, including Alezya’s father—the clan chiefs, she guessed.
A few of them checked the sky before they spoke, and though it was still around, Kein wasn’t showing any sign of coming down yet. One by one, they greeted the others, acknowledging each other with tense nods.
The tension was so palpable that Alezya had a hard time believing in their “friendship.” Every clan was there because they felt the need to, this much was obvious.
The gathering started with pleasantries, with each clan mentioning how little the weather had affected them, their good hunting results, weddings, and births. It was all for show, as Alezya could tell, aimed to present each clan as far more wealthy and well off than they actually were. There were a few mentions of daughters and sons of age to marry, a couple of promises of marriage talk in a more private setting later.
Still, while the discussion went on, Alezya noticed her father spoke very little, instead keeping on a barely concealed smirk. She could guess he was dying to gloat and only biding his time for effect.
“Darak, Chief of the Deklaan Clan!” the silver-bearded man finally called him. “How unusual for you to be so quiet!”
“And for you to bring a woman,” another clan chief, the one with long braided hair, frowned.
He was from one of the clans that had brought women with them, and because he resembled one of the women, Alezya guessed it was his relative, perhaps a sister or mother.
Craning her neck to see past the heads of the men surrounding her, Alezya inspected the faces of the other clan chiefs, and sure enough, several were staring at her. Some were frowning at the child in her arms or at her, but none seemed offended by her presence; Alezya truly realized her father might have distorted a few truths about the gatherings to keep women out of it... or perhaps to spin other tales to his advantage.
Alezya had always believed her clan was one of the strongest, or so she had been told since childhood. It might have been true in terms of numbers, but seeing the other clans, she definitely found that their people were lacking in other areas. Some of the other clans boasted warmer outfits, better-crafted items, improved weapons, intricate hairstyles, unique accessories, and so on. Compared to others, Alezya even thought her people seemed… unrefined. Maybe their obsession with war with the Dragon Clan had stalled their cultural growth.
Either that or their pathological misogyny, Alezya thought darkly.
“How dare you bring that witch here?! You said she was dead!”
All eyes turned toward a man behind one of the clan chiefs, and Alezya’s blood instantly went cold, a shiver crawling up her spine.
Her ex-husband.
Vasilias, son of the Exkiu Clan Chief, had just stepped out of the thick crowd that represented his clan to point an accusing finger her way.
Either he hadn’t seen her before or had not recognized her sooner, he was now looking absolutely beside himself with anger.
Alezya unconsciously took a step back, but she didn’t shy away from his murderous glare. It felt strange to see Lumie’s biological father after so long, but her body recoiled on instinct. How had she ever tried to love this man? How had she been so desperate to please him, to forgive and forget the animal he could turn into? Now, the only desire he ignited in her was to puke and crawl out of her own skin.
And then, she saw it.
The dark, unnatural veins twisting beneath the skin on the side of his jaw and neck, like roots of something rotten. A network of sickly scars, as if his blood had once turned to poison and never fully faded. He was still marked by it, and likely still suffering. His fingers twitched, as if resisting the urge to claw at his own skin, but instead, he glared at her, his hatred boiling over.
Alezya forced herself to hold his glare; she wasn’t scared or ashamed. Instead, she returned his menacing expression like the witch they believed her to be. He could loathe her all he wanted, but Alezya refused to ever shy away from his glare again.
So what if she had been rejected by this man? She had been chosen by adragon.
“You said that vixen was dead!” he insisted. “After how she humiliated me! After how she cursed me! I want her head!”
Alezya realized she now feared the man far less than she hated him, and it felt good.
It felt even better to know he hated her as much as she hated him as if it solidified her own hatred. He really thought she hadcursed him, and she would gladly let him think it, because she had certainly thanked again and again the ashweaver spider that had gotten revenge in her stead.
All of the pain she’d endured made her stronger, and she could focus her hatred on two men: her ex-husband and her father. Witnessing the hatred seeping out of the two of them, Alezya wasn’t ashamed to nurture the vicious desire to have them both dead. After all she had suffered, everything she had been subjected to by their hands, it felt like justice. It wasn’t something she had dared to nourish before, but now that she knew what a good man was like, she knew those two deserved no forgiveness from her.
