Betrayal, Secrets and Lies (Werewolf)

Chapter 55

Casper's Point of View: 

Hope is a dangerous game. It teethers you on the edge of blindfold ignorance and mindless greed and never lets you fall. It keeps you holding onto nothing; glamourising an existence that is gone, keeping you pining over refuge in oblivion to rationalise an unfavourable outcome. Hope was my greatest friend and greatest enemy. It keeps you climbing up that hill even when your odds are against you, keeps you suffering in pain just for the bittersweet fantasy of what could be, it holds you captive to your destruction, finding meaning in agony and turmoil even though there is nothing left to mine. When hope dies, life is empty and all the suffocating and suffering is lost without purpose. When you're lost in hope, the world is a beautiful place, until you wake up and see eternity burning around you. That's exactly how I felt now, looking in Nate's unapologetic, unashamed, defiant green eyes.

The past year the two of us had been making progress. We had been learning to grow, love, hope, but that had been crushed onto the floor, broken into tiny shards of glass prickling at my skin over and over again like I was bolting onto the ground doing nothing but feeling. I should have known. The warning signs were obvious, blaring out at me in bright, fluorescent colours, stagnant against the deep maroon that made it's appearance when Nate touched me, held me, kissed me... Every heart felt touch, every whispered confession and every bittersweet glance were all full of lies. Nate would never change. Not now. Not ever.

Looking at Nate now, his eyes were unreadable, camouflaged by his old stoic expression I hadn't seen on him in so long. I wanted to see emotion. I wanted to see a mix of despair and agony for the life he had just ruined but there was none. His face was perfectly crafted to betray nothing yet give me everything I needed to know at the same time. It didn't matter. Whatever Nate had led me to believe and whatever I thought he felt for me was nothing but a lie. A beautiful, cunning, deceptive lie that I should have known was too good to be true. I didn't know I was on the slaughter table until the knife had drawn blood, and I didn't realise I was living in hell until heaven was whisked away by x little words. Nate's gaze was steady and stable whilst I felt like the rug had been pulled from my feet. I willed myself not to cry. I couldn't cry. Not here. Not now. I knew that as soon as I was in my bedroom i wouldn't be able to hold the tidal waves back but now I had to be strong. I couldn't let Nate get the satisfaction of seeing how humiliatingly I was betrayed.

Now that the tinted rose glasses had come off, everything all seemed to clear. Nate's trap seemed to present itself in front of me like a sculptured portrait that was stale right in front of my face the whole time. Growing up, Nate had always wanted to be the Alpha. He always shunned me, laughed at me, mocked me, because he wanted so badly to steal my fate and make it his own. Yet when he started changing the story and gifted me with fond touches and loving smiles, I had truly started to believe that he had changed. I had truly thought that Nate loved me more then he loved a title that promoted little democracy and high bloodshed and lies. Based on our laws, Nate couldn't be Alpha unless he had a mate. He needed me to fall in love with him and take his mark before challenging me for Alpha. He needed me to have already been roped into being his Luna. I had fallen right into Nate's hands and I have never felt so foolish.

I could hear the murmurs from the crowd around me but all I could see was Nate. Nate's hands running down my body, his comforting whispers and promises of love and adoration, his affection his undeniably unguarded affection... his lips, kiss, scent, smile that had been so warm had melted away any shred of doubt within my mind. Looking into Nate's gaze now, I only felt ice. The kind of ice that splintered your heart and made you incapable of any rational thought. The kind that wanted vengeance more than anything else but still couldn't bate to harm the one that you thought you loved... who you thought loved you too.