The Alpha’s Daughter Chapter 04
“You dare?” Mara shrieked. “I want to see Alpha Rowan! I will tell Alpha Rowan that you, this unfilial daughter, want to kill your own mother!”
“Shut her mouth.”
The housekeeper behind Luna Evangeline understood at once and rushed forward, slapping Mara twice across the face.
Blood slipped from the corner of Mara’s mouth. She made muffled sounds, unable to speak, her eyes fixed on me with hatred.
Luna Evangeline paused as well, as if she had not expected me to truly want Mara punished.
She looked at me with a complicated expression. There seemed to be pity in her eyes.
I froze for a moment, then understood.
Luna Evangeline probably knew how badly Mara had treated the heroine. She likely thought I had finally broken after years of being bullied, and that I only wanted to frighten Mara this once.
But I really did want to kill her.
After all, she was the heroine’s birth mother, not mine. I felt nothing for her except disgust.
Luna Evangeline said in a low voice, “Mara, you offended the blood of the Blackwood Pack. But you did give birth to Aurora. I will not kill you. Take her to the old west wing of the territory. From this day forward, she is not to take one step outside.”
Mara collapsed to the ground, unable even to cry.
I did not look at her again. I followed Luna Evangeline back to the pack house.
Only after we reached Luna Evangeline’s private room did she tell me to sit.
“I heard you killed one of your guards recently.”
I nodded. “When we were attacked, he pushed me in front of the attacker. I suspect he was working with them.”
“Wasn’t he your puphood companion?” Luna Evangeline looked at me. “I remember you once said the two of you were close. To save him, you even came to me for help.”
“The son of a traitor. Nothing more. There is no closeness worth mentioning.”
Luna Evangeline nodded with satisfaction. “That is how you should have been long ago. You were too soft before, too kind. Now you have finally grown up.”
I bowed. “It is all thanks to Mother’s teaching.”
“Good.” She touched my hair gently. “That is my good girl. If anyone dares make you suffer again, tell me. I will stand up for you.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Mother.”
When I returned to the building where I lived on the Blackwood territory, I saw Selene at the door and thought I must be mistaken.
Was she no longer afraid of death?
Before I could speak, the man beside Selene spoke first.
“How could you throw Selene out? How is a delicate woman like her supposed to survive in the Northlands?”
“Do you know when I found her today, a rogue wolf was harassing her? If I had arrived even a little later, she would have…”
Lucian pointed straight at my nose. “I know you are jealous of what Selene and I have. Let me tell you this, Aurora. Even if I marry you because of pack pressure, Selene will always matter far more to me than you do.”
“She may come from nothing, but she is kind. You may be the daughter of the Blackwood Pack, but you are not worth one of her fingers.”
I fell silent.
In my mind, I asked the Script: [Which important male character is this?]
This time the Script knew better and begged in a small voice: [He is the heroine’s second key love interest. An important character. Please, you absolutely cannot kill him too.]
I looked at Lucian.
He wore a black suit and gold-rimmed glasses, elegant as a professor.
No wonder he was the second key love interest.
Lucian was the heir of the Greymark Pack.
The Greymarks had once been a pack on the verge of bankruptcy. My father saw value in them and gave them money and protection, dragging the Greymark Pack back to power with his own hands.
When Lucian was young, he had been hunted by enemies because of his pack’s debts. Badly wounded, he collapsed in an alley near the Blackwood territory.
The heroine saw him while she was out and pitied him. She secretly had someone give him cash and arranged for a doctor to save his life.
Lucian had been too injured to see the heroine’s face. He only saw the moonstone brooch pinned to her dress.
He survived because of that money. Later, with the Blackwood Pack’s support, he returned to high society and became the Greymark heir acknowledged by my father.
At a full-moon gathering where he made his public return, the heroine saw him in his tailored suit, handsome and polished, and felt the first flutter of a young girl’s heart.
Luna Evangeline noticed and told my father.
My father sent someone to ask whether Lucian was willing to be engaged to me. Lucian did not refuse.
But when he saw Selene, he fell in love with her.
Because Selene had taken the heroine’s brooch, Lucian mistakenly believed Selene was the one who had saved him.
Selene never corrected him. Instead, to gain his sympathy, she told him how hard it was to live under someone else’s roof.
Under her guidance, Lucian lost every bit of goodwill he had for the heroine. He decided the heroine was petty and cruel.
He treated the heroine coldly. Later in the story, after the heroine’s father died, he publicly broke off their engagement, accusing the heroine of forcing him into it and shamelessly seducing him. For a time, the heroine became the laughingstock of the Northlands.
The Script trembled as it reminded me: [If too many key characters die, this novel world will collapse. You will not survive either.]