Chapter 462: Prove it.
Darius.
She has no rights making my heart race like this. No right questioning me like we were having some sort of interrogation.
This was my thought until my eyes met hers and for the first time since I have come to know her, it wasn’t confusion I found glistening in those wild purple eyes. It wasn’t curiosity or respect either.
It was coldness.
An eerie icy chillness that sent tremors running down my spine. I gulped before realizing that I had done that then shook my head at her.
"I do not understand what you mean by that, Lani."
But as soon as I said those words, she rolled her hardened eyes at me, took a couple of steps back like I stank and crossed her arms over her chest. She scoffed; "You understand me clearly, brother, why do you always try to pretend to be clueless?"
Brother.
Brother.
That suffocating word stung me like it was a hundred blades slicing their way into my soul all at once. It filled me with anger and apprehension... and disgust all wrapped together. But there was something else... something darker. Something that I never understood until now, but I now did.
Possession.
And for the first time in my life, I felt the need to possess something—someone. I wanted to possess her. I wanted to own every single inch of her. To be responsible for everything that she stood for and to be the one she hung onto, not those good for nothing lads that I could still smell even from here.
My hands balled into tight fists as I turned to glare at Leilani, and with a voice so hard, it even made me tremble slightly, I hissed; "Don’t you dare call me your brother!"
She froze.
"Don’t you dare try to do that to me after everything I have done to make you mine!"
Her eyes widened at my outburst, but frankly, I didn’t care. Now, I didn’t give a damn about anything else in the world but this. But us.
I hissed; "Your father is dead. He has been dead for four years. Courtesy of your mates, yet, I am the one you come to with these outrageous claims!"
"Asking you about the details of the man who took care of you is outrageous?!" She snapped so loudly, her voice made my ears ring.
I watched her squeeze tightly at the handle of her bag. I saw the murderous look in her eyes as she took another precarious step closer to me. Her voice trembled slightly but I do not know if it was due to fear or anger as she hissed;
"Isn’t he your father too?"
I froze.
"He was and that’s the reason I’d love for him to rest in peace."
Saying those words made me shiver, especially since the face of that man kept floating around my mind, messing around with my brain until all I could see was him. And all I could feel was the inferiority complex that I had felt standing so close to him that day.
The demeaning look in his eyes still haunted me. But that was not the only thing that haunted me, his words did too... that more than anything.
I snarled; "Let the dead man be."
Something about those words may have ticked her off because she immediately smacked me so hard across the chest that I stumbled. My eyes widened in shock and embarrassment but she didn’t stop.
Instead, she pushed me again and again until my back hit the wall with a loud thump and until I was so mad, all I could see was red.
"The dead?!" She clapped back so fiercely, it scared me. "Didn’t he make you who you are today? If he’s really ’the peaceful dead man’ like you claim he is, then why did you never try to investigate his death?"
"Stop!"
"You’re powerful! Everyone knows that Lycans are more powerful than werewolves! So I cannot for the life of me understand how werewolves were able to kill a Lycan Alpha so easily and why you Lycans never tried to get justice for his death! For someone who was your Alpha!"
I gulped thickly. "Because he was a traitor and a thief!"
"Or because you were too scared to!" She seethed, causing my already racing heart to somersault precariously in my chest. "Maybe that, or because you knew about what happened to him."
My ears rang. "What? Are you accusing me?!" I yelled but she didn’t answer directly. Instead, she stopped hitting me and hissed;
"Why would he try to steal when he has everything he’s always wanted?" She barked and goddess, hearing her sound so cold, so frightening made the hairs on my skin stand on end.
My eyes twitched as I subconsciously took a step away from her and hissed; "It’s not as easy as you think..."
"Darius..." she suddenly called out, making me frown. "You gained the most from my father’s death. After he died, you became Alpha. You got the company. You got everyone to respect you despite not being his biological child... and you did nothing."
I frowned, took several steps forward until we were almost standing chest to chest and drawled; "What are you trying to say?"
I had hoped that being intimidating would make her back off. That she would swallow her words and probably agree to my bidding. But do you know what she did instead?
She scoffed. "What I am saying is: I think you killed my father. You may not have directly ordered the hit but you killed him. You made him vulnerable and weak and worked with Malakai and Zach to have him eliminated!"
Something about her words and the way she had said them made my heart begin to race wildly in my chest. I stumbled forward, my throat suddenly feeling dry as I tried to hold on to her but she abruptly shrugged me off with so much force, I would have tripped and fallen over if I didn’t have this much stamina.
"You plotted with my adoptive father and the Late Alpha of Stormborn pack, didn’t you? You let them kill him for a crime he didn’t commit because you wanted the pack, and now, because the elders back at the pack have decided that you are no longer a good fit for the throne due to my presence, you have decided to wed me to keep me in check... not because you love me but to control me. Am I right?"
Goddess, she was too smart. It was frightening.
"That’s wrong." I muttered.
"Then prove it." She snarled, "prove your innocence. Make me believe you!"
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