Chapter 43: Trapped (III)
Rosalie:
Alastor’s eyes widened.
"Rosalie-"
"No." I cut him off immediately. "Answer me."
The hurt I had been holding back finally surfaced.
"Do you want me to spend the rest of my life hiding in the shadows while your Luna stands beside you?"
His face tightened.
"Do you want the entire world calling me a homewrecker?"
The silence that followed told me everything. He had never thought about it, not really. Because why would he? He was the man. The Alpha. The one with power. The one society would never judge. Meanwhile I would carry every insult, every whisper, and every accusation.
I laughed again. The sound more bitter this time.
"Of course you didn’t think about that."
"Rosalie-"
I pointed toward him. "Tell me how exactly this works." My voice shook. "Tell me how things stay normal when you need to mate with Charlotte."
His jaw clenched.
"Tell me how things stay normal when she gives birth to your children."
Pain flashed through his eyes. And I felt satisfied. For once I wanted him to feel even a fraction of what I felt.
"Tell me how I’m supposed to stand there and watch all of that." My chest tightened. "Do you think I’m made of stone?"
The silence that followed was heavy, almost crushing. He had no answer, no solution, and no magical future where everyone got what they wanted.
Finally I took a deep breath before speaking as calmly as possible. "The best thing we can do is end this."
His expression instantly changed. The guilt disappeared, the regret vanished, and the pleading faded. All of it got replaced by something darker. Something possessive. Something that immediately made my stomach drop.
"I’ll leave."
The moment the words left my mouth, his eyes hardened, dangerously.
"Rosalie." His voice was low, heavy with a clear warning.
But I wasn’t planning to back down. Not this time. So I held his gaze and said, "I mean it, Alastor. I’m leaving."
The room went completely silent for a moment. Then he spoke. Each word sounded slow, deliberate, and terrifyingly certain.
"No. You are not leaving." His gaze locked onto mine. "That isn’t an option."
My heart skipped.
He didn’t sound angry anymore. Instead, he sounded resolved, and somehow that was far worse.
"You belong here. You belong with us."
The words made my skin crawl. I shook my head immediately.
His jaw tightened. "You belong to me." Then he corrected himself. "To us."
A chill ran down my spine as I realized he had stopped trying to convince me. That he had stopped trying to reason with me, or trying to negotiate. Now, he had made a decision, and nothing I said would change it.
Several long seconds passed. Then suddenly he stepped away.
I stared at him in confusion as he walked toward the door calmly, as though everything had already been decided.
"Alastor."
He didn’t answer.
My pulse quickened.
"Alastor."
His hand closed around the handle. Then he finally looked back. His expression was unreadable, cold, determined, and utterly terrifying.
The next moment, he stepped outside. The door shut behind him and a loud click echoed through the room. It was the unmistakable sound of a lock turning. And only then did I realize what he had done. He had locked me inside. And he wasn’t planning to let me leave.
For several long seconds, I simply stood there staring at the door as the reality of what had just happened refused to fully sink in.
He had locked me in. Actually locked me in. As though I were some reckless child incapable of making my own decisions. As though my wishes no longer mattered simply because they disagreed with them. As though loving me somehow gave them ownership over me.
The initial shock quickly gave way to anger. Pure, blazing anger.
I spun around and paced across the room before turning back toward the door. Every instinct screamed at me to march over there and kick it until the entire packhouse heard me. But what would that accomplish? At best someone would come investigate. At worst they would simply tell Alastor and give him another reason to tighten his grip.
No.
I needed to think. Because waiting here wasn’t an option. The moment Alastor returned, he would try to convince me again. If that didn’t work, he would try to pressure me. If that didn’t work either, I had a terrible feeling he would simply keep making decisions for me while pretending it was for my own good.
The frightening part was that he genuinely believed he was right.
I pressed both hands against my face and inhaled slowly.
How had everything become such a disaster?
The answer came immediately - me. I had done this to myself. Not entirely, of course. The blame wasn’t mine alone. But I couldn’t deny my own part in it.
For years, I had built my entire world around these three men. My every dream, every plan, my future, and eerything else had somehow involved them. I had allowed myself to become dependent on them in ways I never should have.
Whenever there was a difficult decision, I sought their opinions. Whenever there was a problem, I relied on them. Whenever I felt uncertain, I turned to them. Little by little, piece by piece, they had become my entire world. My home. My family. My safe place.
And because of that, they had eventually started believing something dangerous.
That I couldn’t function without them. That I would always come back. And that no matter what happened, they would remain the center of my life. And now they were using that belief against me. Maybe not maliciously, but they were still using it intentionally.
Alastor truly thought locking me inside this room would make me calm down and realize I belonged here.
The problem was that he couldn’t understand one simple thing - the more he tried to force me to stay, the more determined I became to leave.
My gaze swept across the room.
The door was locked. And the window...
I walked toward it and pushed the curtains aside. And the sight immediately made me grimace. One look outside and I instantly recalled I was in Kaiser’s bedroom on the third floor. It was far too high, meaning jumping from the window wasn’t even an option. Unless or until I wanted to spend another several weeks in a healer’s house recovering.
I leaned forward slightly, studying the distance to the ground below. There were no trees nearby, no balcony, and no conveniently placed roof. There was nothing except for a very long drop.
I sighed and stepped back.
Still, giving up wasn’t even remotely possible. I hadn’t survived everything these past weeks only to become a prisoner in the very place I was trying to leave.
There had to be a way out. And if there wasn’t? Then I would create one.
Because one thing was absolutely certain. I wasn’t staying here. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
And before Alastor came back expecting to dictate the rest of my life, I intended to be long gone.
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