To ruin an Omega

Chapter 283: Mirrorball

MADELINE

I walked back down the corridor. My footsteps echoed against the walls and each one felt heavier than the last. The weight of what I’d just done pressed down on my chest until it was hard to breathe.

I’d turned him away. I’d looked Cian in the eyes and told him no.

The hurt on his face burned itself into my memory. The way his voice had cracked when he’d said he didn’t know me anymore. The desperate plea for help that I’d refused.

But what choice did I have? The moment I touched that delicate, she would see everything. Every secret. Every lie. Every choice I’d made to protect the people I loved. She would see Aldric’s hold over me. She would see the things I’d done for him. The information I’d passed along. The ways I’d betrayed Cian without him ever knowing.

And then Cian would know too.

He would look at me with more than just suspicion. He would look at me with hatred. With disgust. With the kind of loathing that came from being betrayed by someone you’d once trusted completely.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t watch that happen.

So instead I’d chosen to let him think I was selfish. Petty. So hurt by his words that I’d let an innocent person suffer rather than help him.

Better that than the truth.

My throat tightened and I blinked hard against the burning in my eyes. Not here. I couldn’t break down here in the middle of the hallway where anyone could see.

I turned the corner and nearly walked straight into Aldric.

He stood there in the corridor like he’d been waiting for me. His hands were in his pockets and that familiar expression of mild amusement played across his features. Like he’d just witnessed something entertaining.

“That was fun to watch,” he said.

The cruel monster had been listening in on us.

His voice carried that casual tone that made my skin crawl. Like we were discussing a play we’d both attended instead of my relationship crumbling to pieces.

My hands curled into fists at my sides.

“A blinded delicate,” Aldric continued. He tilted his head slightly and something gleamed in his eyes. “That is certainly interesting.”

The disgust rose in my throat like bile. Hot, acidic and all the more impossible to swallow down.

“Fuck you, Aldric.”

The words came out low and vicious. I didn’t care anymore about maintaining the pretense. About being careful. About playing his games.

Aldric’s eyebrows rose. He looked almost surprised by the venom in my voice.

“Fuck me?” He spread his hands in an innocent gesture. “What did I do?”

I stared at him. At the false confusion on his face. At the way he stood there like he hadn’t orchestrated this entire situation.

“You could have said yes to him,” Aldric said. His voice stayed light and conversational. “But you did not. That is not on me.”

I turned away. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I couldn’t stand the sight of his face or the sound of his voice or the casual cruelty that dripped from every word.

But I only made it a few steps before I stopped.

Something inside me snapped. Some fragile thread of control that I’d been holding onto finally broke.

I turned back to face him.

“Do you enjoy it?” I asked.

My voice came out quieter than I expected. Almost wondering.

“Do you enjoy making me suffer?”

Aldric’s expression shifted. The amusement faded and something else took its place. Something that might have looked like sincerity on anyone else’s face.

“Of course not,” he said.

He took a step toward me and his hands remained in his pockets. He wanted to look relaxed and as unthreatening as he could manage.

“I want us all to win. I get the Alpha seat and you get Cian.”

The laugh that escaped me sounded hollow. Empty of anything resembling humor.

“I don’t think that will ever be possible,” I said.

The truth of it settled in my chest like a stone. Heavy, as it was cold and undeniable.

“I don’t even think I want that anymore.”

Aldric watched me. His eyes tracked every micro-expression that crossed my face.

“The only reason I am even fucking stuck here…” I closed the distance between us until I stood close enough to whisper. Close enough that my words wouldn’t carry down the hallway. “Is because of my family.”

“I know,” Aldric said. His voice matched my low tone. “I know you well.”

He paused and his gaze held mine.

“But you’re here to wreck Fia and get back Cian as well. Do not forget that.”

I wanted to laugh again. Or scream. Or maybe both at the same time.

“Look at what I just had to do,” I said. “It’s never happening.”

Aldric smiled then. Not the cruel twist of lips I’d come to expect. Something closer to genuine amusement.

“A wise woman…” He paused and his smile widened. “Well, I wouldn’t call her wise. She should have known better than to have an heir and two spares with no girls in the mix. But she did tell me something once.”

He leaned in slightly and his voice dropped even lower.

“There is nothing a baby can fix.”

My stomach turned.

“Heat season is coming soon,” Aldric continued. He said it so casually. Like he was mentioning the weather forecast. “Most werewolves aren’t in control of their needs then. Animals will be animals. Anything can happen.”

The implication hit me like a physical blow. My breath caught in my throat and for a moment I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t form words around the horror that flooded through me.

“You are so disgusting,” I managed finally.

Aldric shrugged. One shoulder lifted and fell in a gesture of complete indifference.

“Well, you will do it.”

“I will do no such thing.” The words came out sharp and hard. “There are limits to the monster you can make me.”

Aldric laughed. The sound rumbled low in his chest and echoed in the empty corridor.

“We both know that is not true,” he said. His eyes locked onto mine and all traces of amusement vanished from his face. “I will bend you however I want and you will bend.”

He reached out. His hand moved toward my hair and I froze. Every instinct screamed at me to pull away. To step back. To put distance between us.

But I stood there.

I stood there while he adjusted a strand of hair that had fallen loose. His fingers brushed against my temple and the touch made my skin crawl.

I could kill him. Right here. Right now. My hands or even my magic could be around his throat before he even realized what was happening. I could squeeze until the life left his eyes and he stopped breathing and stopped talking and stopped ruining everything.

But then what?

Then all my family’s sins would come to light. Everything we’d done. Everything we’d hidden. It would all be exposed and they would suffer for it.

My father. My brother. My mother. Everyone I’d been trying so desperately to protect.

So I stood there and let him fix my hair like I was a doll. Like I was something he could arrange however he pleased.

“Do you want to know how I know?” Aldric asked. His hand dropped away from my hair but he didn’t step back. “How I can still exert so much power over you despite the fact that I know how dangerous you are?”

I didn’t answer. I just stared at him and waited for whatever poison he was about to pour into my ears.

“Because I am still breathing,” he said. “And that… That is your greatest weakness.”

My jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Each word felt like pulling teeth. “I am nothing like you and I cannot play my family like a fucking ball or use them as trash.”

Aldric studied my face for a long moment. His expression shifted into something that almost looked thoughtful.

“I don’t like giving people smart advice because it can come to bite me in the face,” he said. “But sometimes you need to realize a lot of the people you carry so high are dead weight and need to be let go. Family even.”

He paused and tilted his head slightly.

“If it wasn’t for them, wouldn’t you and Cian be married currently? Wouldn’t you be happy?”

The tears came before I could stop them. Hot, unwelcome and impossible to hold back. They blurred my vision and slipped down my cheeks and I hated them almost as much as I hated him.

I wiped at them roughly with the back of my hand.

“My father is flawed,” I said. My voice came out thick with emotion. “But he is not the reason I am unhappy right now.”

I forced myself to look at Aldric. To meet his gaze even through the tears.

“I have a lot of hand in it myself.”

Something flickered across Aldric’s face. Something that might have been sympathy on anyone else.

“You look so tired,” he said. His voice softened in a way that made my skin prickle. “It makes the paternal side of me come out.”

He stepped closer and his presence filled the space between us.

“Confess what you did and I will be kinder for a few days. I promise.”

I looked him dead in the eye. The tears still fell but I didn’t blink. I didn’t look away.

“Confess what?”

“That you got into my room.”

A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest. It sounded slightly unhinged even to my own ears but I couldn’t stop it.

“I didn’t,” I said.

I wiped at my face again and straightened my shoulders.

“Now if you will excuse me, I will go eat and continue to fucking suffer.”

Aldric leaned back against the wall. His posture relaxed like we’d just finished a pleasant conversation.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But I will figure it out because what could you need that book for?”

I stopped walking and turned back to face him one more time.

“Unless you have a fucking powerful grimoire that could change the hands of time, no,” I said. “I don’t need anything from you. Especially not a fucking book.”

Then I walked away.

I walked away before he could say anything else. Before he could dig any deeper or make any more threats or twist the knife he’d already buried in my chest.

My footsteps carried me down the corridor and back toward the dining room. Back toward the breakfast table where Elara probably still sat picking at her food.

Back to the performance I’d have to continue giving. The smiles I’d have to fake. The pretense I’d have to maintain.

And with every step, I felt the weight of it pressing down on me. The choices I’d made. The person I was becoming. The distance growing between who I used to be and who I was now.

Cian was right.

He didn’t know me anymore.

But the worst part was that I didn’t know myself either.