Chapter 86: Chapter 86 The Price Of Truth
Phoebe’s POV
"Please, Perry, trust me for this one time. I don’t want to lie to you," I begged him. I stared at him with desperation, searching for any way to make him believe me. "I started telling you the truth, so I don’t want to lie now."
His eyes turned to slits, and I could see the rage burning there. The way his jaw clenched told me he wanted to hurt me, yet something held him back from doing permanent damage.
"Telling me the truth? How do I know you are telling me the truth?" His voice cut through me like a blade, low and merciless.
Those words hit me like a punch to the gut. My worst fear—people not believing me. It had haunted me before, and now here it was again. But Perry had believed me once. For a while, he’d trusted what I said. Losing that trust felt like losing a piece of myself.
I forced myself to breathe slowly, fighting the panic that threatened to consume me. But it was useless. The look on his face said everything—he was wounded, and no matter what I said, he wouldn’t believe me.
Still, I found my courage and tried once more.
"Perry, I was wrong to do something so terrible behind your back. I’m sorry. But we weren’t getting along then, and you frightened me. Please—I wasn’t lying when I told you I stopped giving you the poison before we even left for the Crimson Moon pack."
"Should I believe you?" He knocked my hand away harshly when I reached for him. The force of it stung, and I saw a flicker of guilt cross his face when he realized how hard he’d hit me.
"Please..."
"So tell me—what changed your mind?" His eyes narrowed dangerously, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I battled the panic flooding my thoughts as my throat tightened, making it nearly impossible to speak. This couldn’t look worse.
Around us, Timothy had ordered the warriors out since this conversation wasn’t meant for outsiders. He held Mason back himself.
"I..." I couldn’t answer that. If I spoke the truth, it would only make him more stubborn. Knowing Perry and his temper, he’d do the exact opposite just to defy me. He’d go to extremes for that.
So I couldn’t tell him the real reason, and I couldn’t find another way out. I dropped my head, but then words spilled from my mouth without my permission.
"Because I don’t want you to die."
It wasn’t a lie. I really didn’t want Perry to die. I’d glimpsed his gentler side. Like elder Tricia said—somewhere deep inside Perry, that sweet boy still existed, and I wanted to see him too.
"You don’t want me to die?" He laughed bitterly, like he’d just heard the worst joke ever. "You didn’t want me to die, so you stopped giving me poison? If it hadn’t been slow-acting and I’d died, do you think you could say that to me?"
I twisted the hem of my dress between my fingers. I didn’t know how to explain this without making things worse, but whatever I said would just dig my grave deeper.
"Perry... please, I’m sorry... I didn’t want to kill you. Not anymore." I shook my head frantically. "You can poison me to make it even. You can kill me."
My suggestion made him explode. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me violently. "Do you want to die so badly?!" he screamed in my face. "I will not let you die, Phoebe. Not this easy. I’m going to make you beg for it."
Torture.
The realization hit me—he was going to torture me, just like Kevin had. No, with Perry it would be a hundred times worse.
"Perry," Timothy called out, trying to calm him down before he made a mistake he’d regret.
"Shut up! SHUT. UP!" Perry roared, shoving me to the floor.
I gasped as pain shot through my lower abdomen when I hit the ground hard. I bit my lip to keep from crying out—I couldn’t make him angrier than he already was.
"Perry, calm down. We need to talk about this first," Timothy said, trying to block Perry from reaching Mason. But Perry shoved his royal gamma aside and lunged for Mason’s neck.
Timothy stumbled, not fast enough to stop him.
"Do you want to kill me? Good luck." Perry snapped Mason’s neck in one swift motion. It happened so fast that the omega didn’t even have time to blink before her head separated from her body and rolled across the floor.
From where I sat, I could see everything clearly as blood sprayed from the headless corpse, some of it spattering across my face.
I’d been tortured. People had been cruel to me. But I’d never witnessed this kind of violence before.
At first, my mind couldn’t process what had just happened. I stared at Mason’s head rolling across the room and her motionless body lying in a growing pool of blood.
Blood covered Perry’s hands. Timothy was speaking rapidly to him, but I couldn’t make out the words.
My brow furrowed as nausea overwhelmed me.
I dry-heaved as my chest constricted.
The last thing I heard was Perry calling for the warriors to enter.
"Throw the body out and put her in the dungeon!"
