Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
That was when another thought hit me. My parents were gone all that time investigating. They were investigating murders. The murdered people were like us. They were wolves, felines, bears, vampires, witches, Fae, and whatever else that these people could find.
“O..oh mmy G..G..Goddess.” I rose to my feet and stepped away from Clovio. “Y..you’re part of it, aren’t you? Y..y..you’re part of that group that is.. that is.. that is killing our people. Y..y..you’re murderers.” I felt sick to my stomach. “Y..you killed those people in Europe. A..and now you want to kill people here. Y..you’re one of them, aren’t you?” I was shouting at Clovio by the time that I was done. I could feel a burning hot rage boiling inside of me. “Y..you are one of th..those monsters.” I placed a hand over my mouth and my stomach at the same time. “Oh my Goddess, I..I can’t believe that I fell for this. Y..you were just using me. Y..you were going to kill me, weren’t you?”
I was looking at Clovio through a haze of red. The anger that was coursing through me was stronger than I had ever felt in my entire life. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to rip something to pieces. I wanted to destroy something and make sure that it wasn’t able to continue on. I wouldn’t do that though, no matter how much I wanted to. I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t a mindless beast like he probably thought that I was.
“You must have thought that it was pretty fucking funny, huh?” I snapped at him. My words and angry tone of voice were the only weapons that I was going to use against this asshole. “You must think that I was pretty damned pathetic. You knew who I was from the start, didn’t you? That is why you didn’t look shocked to hear the title of princess, king, and queen. You knew who I was. You knew what I was, and you were just using me. This was nothing more than a game to you, huh? What was all of this meant to prove, huh? That the eldest princess was a stupid na?ve girl that you were able to trick into dating you? How far were you going to take this, huh? Were you going to sleep with me and then try to kill me? Were you going to make sure that I was fully in love with you before you tried to kill me? What was your end game here, huh Clovio?” I could feel the tears streaming down my face now. I hadn’t even known that they had started to flow, but now that they were, I couldn’t stop them.
“Rika.” Clovio was looking at me with wide eyes. It was like he hadn’t even heard half of what I had just said. “Y..you were falling in love with me?”
“STOP IT!” I snapped at him. “Stop acting like you’re happy to hear that. I shouldn’t have been. I should have been smarter. But dammit, Clovio, you were the first boy that I liked. You were the first boy that I ever went out with, and you betrayed me. I don’t know what I was feeling. I thought it was love, but I don’t know anymore.” I wrapped my arms around myself as I tried to hold myself together. My parents, Lyssa’s parents, Lucas, Westin, all of them were staring at me and Clovio as I exploded at him. This was not how I wanted to hash this out, but I guess that I didn’t have much of a choice.
“I swear, Rika, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Y..yes, I was supposed to get close to you and your brother. I was supposed to be friends with you and nothing more. B..but I really do like you. I wanted to be with you. I didn’t care why I had been sent here anymore. I was falling for you too, Rika. I swear.”
“STOP LYING TO ME!” I snapped at him. “I don’t want to hear this anymore. You are horrible, Clovio. You are horrible and I never want to see you again.”
I spat the words at him angrily. I would have liked to slap him across the face, but I was afraid that if I lashed out physically that I wouldn’t be able to stop. And I didn’t want to because of that monster. He and whoever else was with him wanted to kill my people. They thought that we weren’t worth keeping alive. They probably thought that I was nothing more than a stupid dog. A mindless killing machine or whatever. And I refused to be that right now. I wasn’t going to give him or anyone else in his group of assholes the satisfaction.
“I hate you, Clovio. I hate you so much.”
I couldn’t stop myself anymore. I let the sorrow overwhelm me and ran from the room. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this man again. I didn’t want to be near any of them at all. Except perhaps Lyssa. And since she followed me out of my room and up to my room, I wasn’t going to stop her. She was just as hurt as I was. She had been betrayed just as thoroughly as I had been. She might even be feeling worse than I was right now. She was mated to Warrick and had been lied to by him.
All I was able to do when I got to my room was collapse onto my bed and sob into my pillow. Lyssa mimicked me, crying next to me into another pillow as we both let loose every single tear in our entire bodies. I cried over Clovio. I cried over what I had thought I had with him. I cried over the truth that I had learned about him. And I cried over the gaping hole that I felt in my chest with him having betrayed me like that. Everything was over with us, but it hurt so much because this was the first time that I had ever felt something like this.
****
Riviana
****
I had just watched Rika and Alyssa run out of Joaquin’s office in tears. They had found out the truth about the men that they had thought were meant to be their forever loves. They had been betrayed in the most hurtful of ways. These men had broken their hearts, shattered them into a million pieces that would never be quite the same ever again.
I was seeing red. That was how angry I was at the moment. And I knew for a fact that I wasn’t the only one in this room that was seeing that bloodshot rage boiling in front of their vision. Joaquin, Dietrich, Shawn, Lucas and Westin were all feeling it as well.
Only one person ran after Rika and Alyssa when they left the office. Westin, Rika’s guard, left the room after just a moment’s hesitation. He was hot on their heels, but I didn’t know what it was that he intended to do. Unless the girls left the castle, which I doubted that they would, he wouldn’t be able to do much but listen to the two girls crying as they settled themselves down. I had never known Westin to be the emotional type. No, he wasn’t going to be able to make them feel better, but he would let them know that they weren’t alone in their vulnerable time of need.
“Clovio?” I growled his name through my teeth. “How dare you toy with my daughter’s heart like that? That was a despicable thing to do.” I felt like he was nothing more than the trash under my shoe. Or the gun found under the bleachers. He was a disgusting creature that warranted no niceties from me.
…..
“I swear, Queen Riviana, I was not toying with her. I meant to meet her, yes. Her and your son Reagan. They were both on the list of people to meet when we got here, but that was all. I was supposed to keep tabs on them. To report their movements back to the administration. I was supposed to be a spy, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to do what they wanted me to.”
“Oh yeah, and why not?” Joaquin snapped at him, his voice filled with righteous fury.
“Because she was not like they told us she would be. She was not a monster. None of you are. Even Reagan, who never liked me, even from day one, he wasn’t a monster. Levi, Luka, Alexa, Lyssa, Rika, Ilana, Rowan, Elias. None of them were how we had been told that they would be. And there were others at the university too. Other nonhumans that were just as nice, friendly, and caring. I couldn’t bring myself to follow my orders.”
“STOP LYING TO ME!” Joaquin snarled and roared at the boy that was spouting his nonsense. I was still stuck on the fact that he knew who all of the kids were. Everyone that we had sent to the university this year. He was in on it all.
“I am not lying to you.” Clovio had flinched at Joaquin’s roaring tone of voice, but he was holding firm to his story. “When I got to know Rika, I knew that she was a sweet and caring person. She told me that she learned to be that way because of her parents. That you are generous and loving people that will help anyone. She didn’t outright say it, but she was implying that you didn’t care if those people were human or not. You care for them all.”
“Yeah, but that kindness doesn’t extend to your family,” I snapped at him angrily. “I draw the line at people who kill my people.”
“I haven’t killed anyone. I am not that type of person. Please, believe me. I like Rika. I still do. I know that she will never trust me again, but I was not lying to her. She is special. To me and to the world. And I swear to you, I never once reported back to the administration. I never once told them anything. The others haven’t either. The communications were supposed to come from me and me alone. They know nothing of what has happened since I met Rika. I have pretended that communication is difficult at the moment, but I knew that wasn’t going to last.”
There was a new kind of fear in Clovio’s eyes when he said those words. What was it that he meant? What had happened? Was any of what he was saying true? Could I trust a single word that he was saying? This was not something that I was willing to put up to chance.
鈥榁incent. Gabriel. I need you in Joaquin’s office right now.’ I called out to them mentally. They were the only ones that would be about to tell me if what they were saying was true or not. They were the only ones that I would trust at the moment. They would see the truth unerringly.
It wasn’t even ten seconds later when the two of them came running across the hall and into Joaquin’s office. They had been listening to what was happening from my office, and they were most likely happy to be part of the scene now. I didn’t blame them. They had probably heard the shouting and could guess what was happening. Or at least part of it.
“Wh..who are these men?” Clovio looked at Vincent and Gabriel with utter fear. He seemed to be afraid of most of the men that were here with them. Probably me too, but he was at least able to talk to me calmly.
“These are two more of my personal entourage.” I didn’t take my eyes off of Clovio as I started to introduce the newcomers. “Vincent and Gabriel are able to find the truth in anything. They are blessed by the gods and can see to the heart of anything. They will tell me if you are telling the truth right now or not. And it is up to them if we trust anything that you say to us.”
“Good. Have them verify it all. I have nothing at all to hide from you. I will tell you everything.” There was a resigned and pleading sort of look in Clovio’s eyes. I saw the same one in Warrick’s eyes as well. What was it that they were thinking right now?
“Tell them what you told me. All of it, as close as verbatim as you possibly can. I don’t want to see you trying to leave anything out or slipping something else in there. Tell them what you said to me.”
“Yes, Queen Riviana.” Clovio bowed his head and closed his eyes. “I will tell them what I told you.”
I have to hand it to the boy. He was almost perfect with his recall of what he said. Yeah, yeah, there might be a changed word here or there, but the meaning stayed the same. So far, the boy was able to do what he was told to do. Now, let’s see if anything that he said was true.
I watched Gabriel and Vincent as they listened to the man speak. They were trying to verify it all in full detail. They weren’t going to let him slide with anything. And when Clovio’s recount of the conversation was over, I called the two of them over to me.
“So, what is the verdict?” I was looking into their eyes, trying my best to guess what it was that they were going to tell me. I saw that they turned to look at each other, nodded their heads, sighed, and looked back at me. “I take it that he is lying through his teeth.” I grinned at the fact that they had all but confirmed that to me with those little gestures.