CALISTA
"Calista," the Lycan King called, his terrifying gaze fixed on me. "What did you say happened again? How did a wolfless Omega successfully stab you, the Gemini wolf? You are more powerful than her and could easily overpower her."
I froze, my throat bobbing up and down. Ayla had been set up, a measure my sweet parents and the pack council had taken to save me from being permanently bound to the Cursed Lycan King.
I hadn’t asked to be chosen for the Lycan King either. I simply wasn’t stupid enough to sacrifice my life when there was another way.
Ayla had taken the fall while I became the Luna of Blood Moon Pack, a position I had always coveted. My half-sister had been so delusional to think that Ryan would make her his Luna. I had just been waiting for the right time to make him choose me all these years, and the stupid man fell for it. And now, he had brought me here as his date.
I didn’t expect to be drawn back to the event that happened at the Blood Moon Pack. We thought we had gotten away with it and that Ayla had been perfectly eradicated from our lives, used as a scapegoat. But now, the Lycan King had reverted to the issue, asking me a sensitive question I had to answer with wit.
"A response, now!" he growled, his dominant aura pouring out and making me jump back in fear.
"Your Highness," I quickly bowed before him, feigning remorse. "I am sorry about what happened. This bitch took away your surest chance of breaking the curse. If she hadn’t done what she did, then you and I..."
"You aren’t answering my question!" he interrupted, his voice dangerously low.
I bit the inside of my cheek nervously, juggling every active cell in my brain to come up with the perfect lie to tell him.
"You see, you have nothing to say because they were all lies. You and your evil cronies implicated me," Ayla snarled, and I shot my gaze at her.
"Shut up! You always cause calamity wherever you go, starting with your mother, whom you killed at birth. You murderer!" I growled, redirecting the attention back to her.
I knew how much those words triggered her, and I had intentionally said them to spark a reaction. And as usual, she fell for the rage bait.
"What did you just call me? Do you think it was my intention to grow up without my mother?" she growled, her nose twitching furiously with rage. She had no wolf to bare its fangs, but she looked feral right now, and I could tell she was trying to control every ounce of anger within her. I just needed one last trigger to make her explode.
"You are so unbelievable. It’s no wonder Rowan left you. Your mother also left you. You do not..."
She broke past the Lycan King, who stood as a barrier between us, within seconds, pouncing on me, and I willingly allowed her to knock me down.
"Ouch!" I screamed exaggeratedly, subtly looking at the Lycan King to make sure he saw what was happening. "Do you want to kill me?" I screamed, rolling over and quickly getting back on my feet so it wouldn’t be too obvious that I had allowed her to overpower me for a second.
"Yes. I want you dead!" she growled viciously. "You and every single person who put me through this hell. I hate you all from the bottom of my heart."
I glanced at the Lycan King, putting on an innocent expression. "I am sorry, Alpha Ezra, that you are stuck with her. She’s usually like this, and we have tried everything to help her behave, but to no avail."
"Help me behave?" Ayla scoffed as she lunged towards me again.
"Enough!" Alpha Ezra growled, grabbing her arm and pulling her closer to him.
While his hand remained on her arm, he pinned his gaze on me. "You triggered her," he grumbled.
My stomach dropped. He hadn’t bought my lies.
"However, now I see how easy it could have been for her to attack you. You were caught off guard, and that gave her an advantage," he continued, and I sighed in relief.
"She even served me wolfsbane, weakening me," I added salt to the injury, and I saw the darkness in his eyes deepen.
Ayla shook her head desperately as she looked at him pleadingly. "Do not believe her. She’s lying. I am innocent. You said it yourself, I was triggered, and that was why I reacted the way I did."
"You wanted the crown, and that is why you attacked me," I said, wrapping my arms across my chest and looking at her with calculating eyes.
"Enough! Both of you. We have to return to the ball now, and you, Calista, will go in Ayla’s place. Your face will be covered, and since you have the same build, no one will suspect a thing."
Fear crippled my entire body, and I staggered backwards. The twin crescents on my back had never illuminated before. I had tried several times under the full moon, but nothing. My parents and everyone else believed I was the Gemini wolf, but I didn’t feel like one. I had just one wolf, and for a while, I believed the second one would eventually show up, but it never did.
No one knew that information aside from me and my parents, and I’d be damned if I told the Lycan King.
He didn’t even wait for my response before disappearing into his walk-in closet and coming out with a long thick black robe. Then he instructed Ayla and me to exchange clothes in the bathroom. I did everything reluctantly, my heart pounding in my chest while I tried to figure out a way to evade this impossible task he had given me.
If he found out I didn’t possess the powers of a Gemini wolf, then the entire pack and I could be in danger for deceiving the Lycan King into believing I was the Gemini wolf.
My hands clutched the robe tightly to conceal my face, my legs threatening to give out beneath me as Alpha Ezra guided me back towards the hall. The closer we got, the worse my anxiety became.
What should I do?