Chapter 96
There was a deep furrow between Jared’s brows.
“Veronica didn’t lie,” he said in a firm voice.
“How can you be so sure?” Damien snorted, “Were you with her when she met the Rogue King?”
“No. But I can tell from her face that she was telling the truth!”
“Either you are terrible at reading people’s facial expressions, or you are in this with them together.”
Damien took a step further, staring Jared straight in the eye.
“Your pack member committed treason. That was strike one. And now I caught you lying with them together. Strike two. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kick you out of this alliance right now.”
Jared’s eyes were slits of rage, “How about you double–check what you saw first before launching an attack against me? You said that the Rogue King is a woman. But how can you be so sure with all the mask and cloak? Maybe the Rogue King is just a lankier, slimmer guy!”
“I heard her voice.”
Damien said icily.
“I heard her calling out to the rogues, asking them to retreat. And I heard the rogues call her Rogue King. Your men were lying.”
“Bullshit!” Jared snapped. “Damien, I thought that you are a wise Alpha. And you would never blame an innocent person. But maybe I was wrong. Look at you now! You are petty, and jealous-”
“Jealous?!” Damien raised his voice.
“Hell yes! You and I both know that this is entirely personal! You were going after me simply because of me and Aurora-
“Enough!” Aurora snarled, cutting off their quarrel.
Damien and Jared didn’t try to keep their voices down, which meant that the entire crowd just heard their conversation. And everyone around was studying Aurora with curious eyes.
Aurora was embarrassed.
Great. Now that entire Crimson Fortress knew that the two Alphas were fighting about her.
“This nonsense has got to stop! Do you hear me?” Aurora hissed to them in a low voice, “Do you want the others to think that there is a riot? That we are fighting among this group?”
“Damien started it,” Jared said sternly.
“Yes, he started it. But simply because he had doubts. So instead of standing here and giving each other shits, why don’t we go talk to Veronica and verify things with her?”
Jared’s jaw clenched.
“I have nothing to hide,” he said grumpily. “So sure. Let’s talk to Veronica. And find out who is lying.”
He picked up his jacket from the ground and walked away in long strides.
===
Damien darted an angry look at his back before turning to Aurora, “I am glad that you were on my side-”
“You DID start it,” Aurora said.
Damien’s face turned dark at once, “You want to start with me now?”
O
“And you are jealous and petty,” Aurora said ruthlessly. “I can hang with whoever I want and that is none of your business. So stop acting like you have a say in my life.”
There was a storm looming in Damien’s eyes. It was such a terrifying gaze that it could easily bring a normal person down to their knees.
But not Aurora. She was no normal person.
She simply gave Damien an icy look before turning on her heels and walking away.
A few moments later, they were all gathered in Veronica’s cell.
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Glen was in her cell as well.
They were both shocked to see Damien, Jared and Aurora walk in together.
“What is the matter?”
Glen looked around at the three of them. He seemed on edge.
“Did something happen? Did you change your mind about me and Veronica?”
No. the doctor said that the damage might be permanent. So what is it that
you wa
Aurora softened her tone and said, “Relax. We didn’t change our mind. And how is Veronica doing? Did she get her voice back?”
Jared looked at Veronica, “Alpha Damien encountered with the Rogue King today. And
Veronica rounded her eyes.
“If you lied to us, better come clean before it is too late,” Damien said freezingly.
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said that….the Rogue King seems to be a woman.”
Veronica frowned and waved her hands in the air hastily. She still couldn’t talk, only making strange and ugly noises.
Aurora handed her a pad and a pen, “Slow down. Write down what you want to say on the paper.”
Veronica grabbed the pen and wrote down one word hastily in caps:
MAN
And as though that was still not enough to prove her point, she quickly wrote down another sentence underneath that word:
He was sitting behind a curtain, only a few feet away from me. I heard HIS voice. Loud and clear.
Aurora sighed.
Then she turned to look at Glen, “Have you met the Rogue King in person?”
Glen gulped nervously, “No. I received his orders through Veronica. And I swear that Veronica was telling the truth! She is counting on you to get her family back. She has got no reason to lie!”
Aurora shook her head helplessly.
Now it seemed that it was Veronica’s words against Damien’s.
One was a rogue. And the other was an Alpha.
It was pretty easy to decide whom they should trust.
Yet Aurora’s gut told her that Veronica was also telling the truth.
“Can you tell us anything about the man you met? Anything will do,” she asked Veronica.
Veronica frowned and thought hard on that. Then slowly, she began to write:
I remember telling the Rogue King that Glen is a Gamma and he started to laugh… Very joyfully…Then he told me in a brisk voice that I was a good girl and I fell in love with a great guy.
After a little pause, Veronica continued:
Before I met him, I thought the Rogue King was a cold and grim person… But he wasn’t. He sounded like a nice person….even with a pleasant personality…
“He was nice to you because he knew that he could use your boyfriend to get to us,” Damien said coldly. “If you have nothing else to say about the Rogue King besides complementing his pleasant personality, I think I am done here.”
He turned and walked out of the room.
“Aurora.”
Jared stopped Aurora and said to her in a worried voice, “Can you talk to Damien? I really don’t want what happened between us to affect his judgment.”
“I will try my best.”
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Chapter 96
Aurora gave him a firm nod and left the room behind Damien.
Damien was heading back to his tent. Aurora followed him behind his back. They didn’t say a single word to each other on the whole way.
When they were finally back at his tent alone, Damien turned to face Aurora with an expressionless face.
“Do you have anything else to say to me?” he asked, deadpan.
Aurora took his coat off and placed it on the table.
“I am here to give you your coat back,” she said.
Damien’s jaw clenched, “Why? Do you prefer his coat instead?”
“No. You two might have forgotten that I am a strong warrior myself. I can stand in the wind without an extra coat and still won’t catch a cold.”
She walked up to him and brushed dust from his front.
“You must be exhausted,” she whispered.
Damien lowered his gaze and stared at the bare skin behind her neck. He remembered the impulse of wanting to sink his fangs into her neck while they were having sex.
And that impulse was coming back to him now.
His wolf was howling inside of his chest, urging him to mark the woman that he loved as his own.
“So what have you been doing while I was gone?” he asked in a strained voice, “Did you spend the night with Jared again?”
Aurora chuckled lightly, “For your information, we simply had dinner and talked. Nothing else happened that night.”
“Really?” Damien asked hoarsely.
Jealousy was eating him alive.
He couldn’t stop thinking about them even when he was on the battlefield facing the Rogue King.
“Really,” Aurora confirmed.
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on his lips.
“And I certainly didn’t do this with him…” she murmured. “So did you miss me?”
His hot breath was on her face and his hands went around her roughly, under her clothes, against her bare skin.
“I miss you,” he said in a husky voice. “Like crazy.”
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