Chapter 8 : The command

*Charlotte*

I paled, blanching as I realized what I’d said straight to Alexander’s face. His gaze on me darkened, indifference turned to anger, and I honestly felt a little bad. He had brought me out of the bar, torn up my debt contract, and possibly killed the creditor for me.

Even if I now knew he had only been doing those things at the request of his parents, he had still helped me out of a shitty situation. It felt a little unfair to call him an asshole, but then again, the little devil on my shoulder whispered to me, I couldn’t exactly change his personality could I?

He’d been rude and pushy, cold and mean at times, looking at me with nothing but disdain the entire time I’d met him.

Refusing to answer my questions, treating me like a piece of baggage he had to lug across the palace, no matter how noble or cultivated he was as a so-called prince of werewolves, it couldn’t fix that personality of his.

I was the innocent party in this so there was no excuse for taking his bad mood out on me. I soothed my guilty conscience, nodding to myself as I nibbled on a cookie, avoiding the pointed glare on my face from said asshole.

Alpha Finnely, however, was not offended like his son. He roared into laughter, slapping his knee. Luna Diana pressed her lips together to seem disapproving, but even she was stifling a laugh as she avoided eye contact with her son.

“While he is a bit… indifferent,” Luna Diana recovered first, giving a pointed look at her husband, who was still chuckling with tears in his eyes, then turned to me with kind and understanding eyes, “He is still a kind boy underneath all that cold exterior. He won’t mistreat you, I promise.”

“Besides,” Alpha Finnely wiped a tear from his eye, smiling with a hint of sadness at me, “Your father saved my life. I offered him all amounts of wealth in this world, prestige and honor, even a title here with us, but he just laughed it all off saying it was what anyone would do. Your father was a great and selfless man. All he asked in return for saving my life was that I marry my son to you and we would care for you after he passed away. It took a long time to track you down but now that you’re here, I’m more than happy to welcome you as a daughter-in-law.”

Hearing those words, after three years of being told over and over again that my father was stupid for taking out so many loans, that he was useless for being crippled after his accident, that he was a good-for-nothing who’d only been able to pass on his crippling debt to his daughter, hearing Alpha Finnley speak so highly of him was the ultimate gift to me.

No matter what kind of life I’d lived because of his debt after his death, I loved my father dearly to this day.

No one in this world had been as kind and compassionate.

“And why has nobody asked for my opinion?”

Alexander glared at me and then at his father. I flinched at the coldness in his eyes.

“Alexander, be reasonable-” Luna Diana frowned but it didn’t seem like that was in his cards.

“I won’t take anyone but the one I love as my mate, especially a girl this ignorant and vulgar. She’s a human girl - she doesn’t even belong here. She thinks we’re all monsters. I refuse to marry someone like that. End of story.”

“Alexander!” Alpha Finnley got to his feet, yelling at his son, who simply coldly turned away, resolute in his words.

Meanwhile, I was sent reeling, staring open-mouthed at him as instead of the fear I normally felt when someone was angry at me, I felt upset and furious.

Ignorant?

Vulgar?

Who the hell did he think he was? I could understand being mad about being forced to marry someone you didn’t want, I could even be sympathetic to having to come and rescue me from that dirty place, but accusing me of being vulgar and ignorant?

He saw with his own eyes the kind of environment I had been living in for the past three years! Did he think it was sunshine and rainbows? And that I would have time to learn stupid social etiquette? God, he probably was one of those rich kids who had tutors who taught him how to raise teacups with his pinky finger out!

While I was fighting to eat the scraps from the kitchen garbage every day, he was learning how to bow properly! It’s simply rude to compare my simple and poor life with his rich kid upbringing.

I was right, I thought vindictively, he was an asshole.

Besides, he wasn’t the only one not happy about this engagement. My father never even told me about this, but why? This seems kinda important, you’d think he’d mention it in his will or something, but nope!

Which brought me back to the one person still alive who had those answers.

Alpha Finnley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose now that his son had spoken out his defiance.

“Don’t push him, Finnley,” Luna Diana whispered in his ear, placing a hand on his shoulder to lead him back to sit down beside her. “You know how stubborn he can be.”

“Um, I don’t mean to intrude,” I spoke up over the tense silence between father and son, and all eyes turned to me as I turned to the loving and clearly caring man beside me. Uncle Cookie, someone I hadn’t thought about in years since all this hell had begun.

Who apparently had promised my own father to make me his daughter-in-law.

“Why didn’t my father tell me about this? You said you promised him but there was nothing in his will or belongings about it,” I said, pointing out an obvious flaw in this whole thing. Maybe there had been a mistake along the way?

Or he’d gotten me confused with another girl?

“He didn’t? I’m surprised!” Alpha Finnley blinked rapidly, frowning as he pondered the question. “Well, it was over ten years ago. I’d been chased by some enemies, I was attacked on an outing and I got separated from Diana. I was seriously injured.”

Alpha Finnley traced the three scars across his neck, a haunted look to him as he remembered his near-death. “I thought I was about to die. It was your father who found me just in time. He took me in to recuperate in his home, which is when I met you. According to werewolf law, since he saved my life, I offered to repay him in any way I could. He refused at first but I kept offering him anything I thought he might want, yet he never accepted, just kept telling me to rest up.”

With these details, little memories I’d buried began to surface. How Uncle Cookie had stayed on our couch for a while and once he was back on his feet, began to try to do any of the chores he could, following him around persistently for some reason I never understood back then.

I just thought he was weird but…

“Didn’t you set our laundry on fire?” I asked curiously, remembering the smell of smoke and my father’s panicked look.

“Yes,” Alpha Finnley laughed and this time even Luna Diana sent him a look like he’d gone insane. “I kept trying to help to repay my upkeep but I’d never done such menial tasks before. I had no idea the machine could explode like that. Your father agreed to my request after that."

Now it was all starting to make sense.

I sighed, slamming my palm over my head as the pieces started coming together. My father was a kind but normal person. He didn’t know about werewolves or that he’d saved the king of a pack, he just found a hurt person and took them in, that was the kind of person he was.

He hadn’t taken this so-called favor seriously in the slightest. He’d probably just spouted the first thing that came to his head.

Since I used to get teased by the boys at school all the time, I became very anti-marriage, spouting to my father every single day that I would never get married to any of those boys cause they were mean.

My father held it over my head for a long time, saying he worried I’d always be a spinster and never marry. He must’ve just thrown out the engagement as a joke, not thinking it could ever be real, but Alpha Finnley didn’t know that.

Just like he had no clue that my father had only agreed to his request so he would stop ‘helping’ with the chores.

Dad, what did you get me into? I wondered, glancing at the ridiculous situation I was in now.

“Regardless of how it happened,” Alexander butted in, “I already have a fated love and I will never marry Charlotte. I would rather leave the pack than be forced into marriage.”

Well, that was a bit dramatic, I thought as I raised an eyebrow at him.

“You think you’d last a day as a rogue?” Alpha Finnley huffed, crossing his arms. “You’d come crawling back within a week, I guarantee it!”

“Try me,” Alexander bit back.

“Stop it, nobody is leaving,” Luna Diana cut them both off with a stern look. She looked over at her son with a hesitant look. “Dear, this is a matter related to Alexander’s lifelong happiness, perhaps we should consider this a bit more carefully.”

“You would’ve lost your father and Diana, your mate if not for the kindness of her father,” Alpha Finnley shook, eyes bleeding a deep gold as he shook his head. “I will repay my debt, no matter-”

He cut himself off, staring downward. I frowned, following his gaze until I saw exactly what he had just seen. The deep scars on my wrist were exposed, both old and new, and still blue and purple with the new bruises. I quickly covered it up, blushing in shame as I tried to hide on the couch.

“Where did you get these, Charlotte?” Alpha Finnley was so gentle, eyes heartbroken as he took my hand in his, and I could only stare ashamed as he pulled my sleeve, revealing the bruises and scars that traveled all the way up my arm.

“I… I…” I glanced over at Alexander, whose expression had softened a bit until he noticed my stare and turned away, still indifferent. Knowing I wouldn’t get any help from him, I had no choice but to tell Alpha Finnley the truth.

With every new detail he learned, I could see his heart breaking even more, guilt and sorrow welling up in his kind eyes. Luna Diana looked even more sympathetic, tears in her eyes as she listened to my story.

Only Alexander remained utterly stone-faced, uncaring to the core.

When I was finished, Alpha Finnley took a deep breath and then glanced at Luna Diana, who seemed to have no more opposition as she nodded slightly. Alpha Finnley turned to Alexander with a determined look, still holding my hand gently like I was a doll about to break.

“As the Alpha of Dragon Wing, Alexander, As a repayment for the life her father had saved, unknowingly saving your own in the process, I give you the command to marry Charlotte and take good care of her.”

Silence reigned after his command was issued.

Before all hell broke loose.