[04]

AUTUMN:

Beta Maddox looked like a god who had walked here on earth. All the women had gaped at him as if he was what they were worshiping. 

“Beta Maddox.” 

The crowd dispersed and parted. With my heads bowed, I waited for the footsteps to stop until I could see footsteps right in front of me. 

"Bullying in front of the daylight?" Beta Maddox asked. 

Why do you ask when you even rejected me. Secretly. 

‘Why? You want the world to know that he rejected you that you want it to be out in the open?’ Trisha asked. 

“Sabrina!”

The woman paled. 

She should. Bullying was prohibited in the pack, but it was not strictly implemented. 

Sabrina was  too flabbergasted to answer.

“It’s the woman’s fault, Beta Maddox! She stepped on my new shoes.”

Her shoes? I did not even know if I stepped on something earlier. She just threw an egg in my head and that was it. 

A low growl escaped his lips.

He was angry. Because of what? Because of me? Or because he wanted the worse to happen to me? 

Or maybe he was  he defending me?

Why would he do that when he and the alpha had been treating me coldly when I turned eighteen years old? No. It was way earlier than that. 

After my family's death, the two had stopped befriending me. Maybe it was because they were scared that they would also be cursed. 

At the end of our friendship, Sabrina started bullying me. 

“Your shoes? Is that the only thing that is important right now?”

He and Alpha Hugh did not stay in the pack for how many years and we almost forgot his existence. Until when the previous alpha and beta were already old enough to lead the pack, he  and Hugh seized the opportunity and became Hugh’s beta. The boys who were nothing but children became fine men and strong too. 

“It’s new. My dad bought it for me. This is a gift! I want them to be replaced but how could the woman pay me if she's dirt poor?” 

She did not have to rob it on my face. 

“If you don't want anything to happen to those beloved shoes, you should keep them in your room until the termites eat all of them, Sabrina.”

Sabrina suddenly sniffed. “You’re embarrassing your fiance, Beta Maddox. You should be defending me. Not the other way around.”

Oh. Right. The two had already promised to marry each other. An agreement between the two heads of the family. Which I believed that the two had no problems about. 

‘You two promised to each other,’ Trisha commented. She was at edge earlier, but when  Beta Maddox came in, she was pacified. 

‘When we were only young back then, Trisha. It was nothing but a childish promise where we said that we would never accept someone else even if it was our mate.’ 

“I don't tolerate the bullying of my people, especially my servants.”

Tears swelled in her eyes. 

Her minions tried to console her. That was her cue to overreact. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, earning her minions sympathy while they glared at me. 

“You like that omega! You haven't forgotten about your past, right? How could you like that bitch? I am your fiance! It should be me whom you should shower  your affection.”

“Sabrina! If you have nothing to say, you better go now. We will talk about this in private.”

"I hate you, Beta Maddox!" she exclaimed and stormed out, with her minions, leaving me and Beta Maddox while thinking I had to take a bath later despite the cold weather. 

Beta Maddox clapped his hands when he spot a few omega’s glancing at us. "End of the show. The rest, you go back to your work."

The crowd dispersed until it was only the two of us. 

Beta Maddox. 

He looked so much different back when we were still children. But he looked serious unlike the time when we were a child. 

With the only two of us, he asked, “Why do you always allow everyone to step on you? What are you? A child who could not defend yourself?”

I grabbed the mop.  “Why do you care?” I asked. “Why do you care when you already rejected me?” I added, which made him taken aback. Always.