Kela arched her perfectly made brows at Cassandra, a mocking smile crawled its way back to her heavy lips. She flipped her raven hair back over her shoulder.
"Did your mate inform you of the whole truth behind his curse? And the curse which plagues the pack? From the looks of it, I don’t think so." Her smile had morphed into something sinister as she halted, enjoying the angered contortions of Cassandra’s face.
While, she understood this woman wanted drama and to form a ridge between her and Siroos. Their relationship was just about to begin and she couldn’t have someone tarnishing it even before it cemented into something beautiful.
"He did, and it seems like you were so insignificant that he forgot to mention you," Cassandra answered, nipping the ugly jealousy down and taking hold of the slipping control.
Like a sly serpent who had been hit on the head, Kela’s tongue poked out from between her teeth and she made a hissing sound but didn’t back down from the insult.
"Then he must have told you that you will be his mate just in the name. He will never bed you, never sleep with you or mate with you. Alpha Siroos cannot father a child with you. I will be the mother of his children and once I give birth to his son, his attention will automatically be reverted to me. Pack will follow in his footsteps and you will just be a trophy, kept in this room to serve the purpose of keeping the curse at bay. What a sad life you will have. You are important but not important enough."
Kela lifted her hands and dramatically brought them down. Each and every word uttered from her vile mouth was so venomous that Cassandra understood why she had the snake spirit. They stung and poisoned her body, paralysing her in that position.
Kela could be lying just to get under her skin and make her react so that this ceremony would be postponed but it could also be the truth. The pack feared Siroos, why would she risk such a lie?
"How shameless you are, talking like that in front of your future Luna. I think you are just bitter from being jilted," Cassandra shot back, rooted in her steps, still pondering over Kela’s words. Kela spoke again in her grating voice.
"He watched me dance for him yesterday. I am his personal favourite, as a dancer and in bed too. You can ask Lana if you don’t believe me. I know he didn’t tell you about me, sparing you the pain but it is what it is."
Cassandra had never been a violent person, but at that moment, she wished to scratch Kela’s face. Jealousy had left her side long ago when Razial had refused to give her any attention. But Siroos had crept himself into her heart with his care and words, giving birth to this monster that wished to devour her.
Before she could react and slap her, a tap was heard on the door. Cassandra tore her rage-filled eyes away from Kela and permitted entrance.
It was Lana.
Seeing Kela with a smirk and Cassandra with her fists tightened and face coated in anger, a bad feeling emerged inside Lana.
"Kela! Go check if all the arrangements are in place. I will be bringing Nissa down in a few minutes. The ceremony is about to begin," she sternly ordered.
Kela let out a low giggle which sounded more like a snort of derision. Throwing a taunting glance in Cassandra’s direction she left the room in a glide, leaving the scent of her vileness behind. Her heavy hips swayed so provocatively.
Once she was gone, Cassandra let out a breath she wasn’t even aware she was holding. That woman had some heavy aura and the truth she had spoken almost tore Cassandra’s heart out. But she kept her spine erect; so many people had played with her emotions and broken her, but not anymore.
"Lana!" She turned towards her beta female and addressed her with authority.
"Yes! Nissa," she quickly answered, sensing the shift in Cassandra’s voice.
"Is Kela, Siroos’s lover? Was he watching her dance last night before coming to me?"
Lana’s face lost colour and she visibly gulped at the question. This was what she had been trying to avoid, but how long could they hide the truth? Cassandra was to discover it someday.
"She was close to Alpha but he has stopped her from visiting him after he found and brought you here. There is nothing between them now. Believe me, whatever Kela said was just to make you jealous. Don’t believe her." Lana tried to reassure Cassandra but the former’s heart was constantly being jabbed by these truths.
Siroos made fun of her fiancé so many times but refrained from mentioning that he had a lover.
Did she come in between them?
Was it so easy to discard a woman for him?
Will he do the same to her, or if what Kela said was true, then he was just using her for that curse?
A million questions had gathered in her brain now. But she needed to ask the most disturbing one.
"Can’t your alpha bear a child with his mate?" She painfully asked and then held her breath.
Lana was hyperventilating at this point. This was not a topic they were allowed to openly discuss and she couldn’t incur her Alpha’s wrath by giving Cassandra this information.
"Nissa! I am sorry but I cannot answer this question. You have to talk to the Alpha about this." She respectfully shook her head with a pleading look, hoping Cassandra would understand.
Her reluctance to answer and that quiver in her voice told Cassandra that whatever Kela had said was indeed true.
Her legs shook, so many hidden truths, such elaborate schemes. His words that her life would be difficult. It made sense now.
Cassandra felt dizzy, the truth hurt, the ugliness of it bit and bruised her. She had begun to trust him and he held the truth from her.
She felt that Kela was that gold vase which is set in the centre of a room. It is polished, cleaned and admired.
While she was a flower it contained. Smelled for a short time and then discarded just to be replaced by a new one.
Was that her fate? Was she a flower for him, to be scented for a while and then forgotten and thrown out on a heap of waste?
The answer terrified her and she didn’t wish to move from that spot.