The Possessive Alpha
- The Cells: A Reckoning Part 2

CHARLES POV

I don’t know how long I have let my feet carry me in this small space as I struggle to stay upright, my legs burning with the need to quit, but I refuse. It’s been hours, and Olivia still hasn’t said a word, switching her position so that she is lying face down using her arms as a pillow.

Poseidon hasn’t made a sound either, his devastation worse than mine as he tries to block out his pain. Every atom I am composed of wants to rage, to become a monster she fears, and maybe then she will find the words to tell me what the f**k she did.

As I glare at the woman I have loved for more than half my life, a storm begins to form in the pack mindlink. Suddenly a woosh of air swirls around us as a surge of power flows through the entire pack, strengthening its members. A new pulse of life clings to the air as the distant howls of celebration can be heard in the distance as the New Moon salutes the marking and mating of their Alpha and Luna.

A moment of silence stills the air before a rush of removed memories force their way into my mind as I crash to the ground on my knees from how overwhelming it is. Clutching my head, a scream I don’t recognize vibrates the room.

Flashes from the past dance behind my closed eyes, the suspicion, catching Olivia and

Cynthia whispering conspiratorily, and a recollection of Olivia calling Penelope… Elle before we even knew her name. My eyes snap to my mate, who has finally lifted her head to watch what’s happening to me, sadness dancing in her eyes, but it only angers me more.

Meeting her eyes, the last memory, and the most heartbreaking one, pops into my head. I had been growing suspicious of Olivia and Cynthia’s refusal to fight Tiberius. Their instance to go through with the spells and complicated plan when it wasn’t necessary. I had figured out what Cynthia’s true plan was going to be…I was supposed to meet Alaric…but instead of showing up…it was Cynthia, Olivia, and a witch. Two days later, the spells had been placed on the children, and a week later

“I remember…” I whisper as all the love I had for my mate slips away into nothing, my heart growing cold against her. I watch as the b***d drains from her face, eyes wide as she sits up, quickly scooting away.

“That’s not possible…” she says, practically shaking as the anger rolls around me, letting it run free I hope it suffocates her.

In a flash, I am across the room with her neck clasped in my hand as I lift her and slam her into the wall. “Why?” I demand, no longer accepting her silence. “You either tell me willingly, you succubus, or I am going to make your life a living hell before I finally kill you.”

“Charles,” she says through her fake tears, “I…” she tries to find the right words. She tries to find another lie to cover her a*s.

“DON’T LIE!” I yell, slamming her into the wall; I know the guards are watching outside, but I know they won’t interfere. My aura is too deadly, too feral, and too unpredictable. Plus, none had ever seen me act this way with my mate, “you were the love of my life..” I whisper in her ear, “You lied to me for years; why wouldn’t those tears be the same? Now tell me what you and that b***h did to me.”

“I had to,” she says, not looking into my eyes, shame and guilt circling her, “I had made a b***d pact with her…”

“LIES!!” I scream, thrusting her into the wall once more, not caring that she is wincing from the pain, “those spells were not done until two days later.”

“Yes,” she replies, her nerves making her shake as she wets her lips, “that one, but I had made one with Cynthia years prior…” She doesn’t even have the nerve to look me in the eye as the tears run freely from her face.

“When?” I ask, and when she doesn’t answer, my hand stings with the impact of meeting her face in a forceful slap. “WHEN!”

“My eighteenth birthday,” she says, as my hand releases her neck, and I stumble backward. If I thought she couldn’t make matters worse, she does, as she rips my heart from the chest and sets it on fire. “Before I met with you that morning, Cynthia came by with a witch, and we made the pact.”

“We were dating then,” I reply, my eyes wide with shock. “What exactly did you promise her?” So much making sense, the reasons why her interference or deviation from the plan always was so painful. She didn’t have only one, but two.

“That if she were ever to have a Luna Born,” she pauses, her hands shaking as she rubs the bruises I left on her neck, “I would do whatever was needed to help make her the most powerful Luna Born in modern history.”

“Why would you agree to that?!” I question, curious what she was f*****g thinking. “Did you not think we would be mates?”

“I had a strong suspicion,” she replies, her hand covering her mouth like she is trying to keep the words in.

“And you still agreed?” I ask the rhetorical question, knowing the obvious answer as my debilitating anger spikes higher than ever before. “ARE YOU THAT f*****g SELFISH?

Who are you? You’re not the woman I fell in love with. That woman would never do this to me, to our son. How could you?” My face must hold a level of disgust she had never seen before as I rattle off question after question.

“Charles,” she whines, stepping forward, her hands reaching for me as if I would want her filthy lying paws anymore. “I never meant for it to go this far. I never dreamed that Damon would be her mate or we would have to deal with this mess firsthand.”

“Is that supposed to make this better?” I question, throwing my hands around, my voice going raw from the amount of screaming from the last twenty-four hours. “You just planned for some expecting Alpha to go through this? Why? What did you get out of it?”

“Charles…please…” she whimpers as I throw more energy at her. She may be my mate and a Luna for now, but she is of Gamma birth and no match against it.

“Tell me,” I say, my voice deadlier than a dagger to the throat, “tell me right the f**k now, Olivia. WHY would you agree to not only one, but two b***d pacts, an unbreakable oath with Cynthia.” She doesn’t respond, and that’s when it clicks into place of why she would do something like that…

“You were in love with her, weren’t you?” I ask, recalling the earliest days of her relationship when I would catch her looking at Cynthia with this look in her eye, but the longer we had been together and mated, I saw it less. Goddess, why didn’t I realize it earlier… f*****g spells and witches getting into my head.

“Did she know?” I inquire, my eyes piercing into her, paying attention to every little change in her demeanor.

“I never told her,” she glances away, shame-filled in her words. The saddest part is if she had told me she loved Cynthia in the beginning, I would have understood because once my eyes landed on her, I knew she was meant for me…All the happy memories of the last twenty years are a sham. “But I think she suspected,” she whispers tears starting to fall from her cheeks.

“Of course she did, the manipulative b***h,” I snarl, “how long?” I question her, too determined to know everything. Each answer is like another hammer being used to reshape my heart into an organ that despises her.

“What?”

“How long into our relationship did you feel that way for Cynthia?” I ask, knowing I won’t like the answer; she would have never agreed to that pact if she had felt anywhere close to what I did for her.

“After we were mated and marked.” she replies after a pause, as she plays with her hands, “and by that time, it was too late things had gotten so out of control, but my promises already bound me.”

“Jokes on me then, right?” I snarl, stomping to her, “where do we go from here, Olivia? Huh? Do you think the mate bond will fix this? Because I sure as s**t don’t! Did Nova get a say in this? Or did you just decide this for yourself?”

“The witch did something, and it was kept hidden from Nova,” she whispers, not even looking at me, as her sniffles grate on my nerves. Posiedon growls rolling around in my head, wanting to attack Olivia for putting his mate in this situation.

“If you have some fantasy that the mate bond is going to fix what you did to Poseidon and me,” I growl, wrapping my hand around her neck, squeezing until I hear the breath wheezing from her lungs. “Think again because no mate bond would fix how you have broken us. You don’t deserve a mate. You deserve NOTHING! No family, no mate, and no wolf.”

“Charles,” she coughs through my choking as she claws at my hand, trying to loosen their hold on her neck. Dropping her, I step away, putting distance between us, as Poseidon and I make a mutual decision about our nonexistent future together.

“I, former Alpha of New Moon-” I start the rejection, while she screams, running at me, begging me to stop, “please, Charles…please think about this…you’ll kill both of us if you go through with this…”

“I would rather die than have to look at your lying, manipulative face again,” I snarl, my fury dousing every word in gasoline, hoping they burn her in the way she has me.

“I, Charles Ledger, former Alpha of New Moon, reject you, Olivia Ledger as my mate and Luna,” I huff, through the burning pain searing my chest, turning my b***d into acid, while Poseidon howls in agony. Olivia isn’t any better off as she collapses to the ground clutching her chest; the pain is so excruciating she is twisting into odd positions.

Crawling to her as I breathe through the pain, I can barely see on the verge of blacking out while she continues screaming through labored sobs. “Accept!” I yell, collapsing on the ground next to her. “If you ever loved me, you will accept this rejection!”

She nods softly, meeting my eyes through the tears, “I, Olivia Ledger, accept your rejection to be your mate and Luna Charles Ledger, former Alpha of the New Moon pack.” As soon as the words fall from her mouth, my world fades to black, my body going into shock from the blinding torment.