Leah's POV
OK, great. As I expected, Darren abandoned me for another woman. And now he risked his life for this woman again without even considering my safety.
"Does this woman have a name?" I folded my arms and asked.
"Leah, please..." Darren whispered to me. "This doesn't concern you. It's my own business. I shouldn't have got you involved."
"Darren, you've heard me. What is this woman's name?" I said.
"Her name is Josephine Solis," Diego replied.
I opened my mouth and closed it again.
I was completely shocked.
Josephine?! The Josephine who had abused me in the past five years?! The love of Lucas' life and the apple of his eye?!
Josephine?!
Didn't Lucas banish her?!
Why would she come back and haunt me like a ghost in my life?
And why Darren was trying to save her instead of me?!
I felt so confused and shocked at the same time that I couldn't even say a word.
At that time, I saw her.
Josephine Solis. Sitting in a wheelchair, rolling herself out of the darkness of the corridor.
She looked so withered.
I couldn't even recognize her.
As her pale, haggard face emerged slowly from the darkness, all the painful memories of the past came back to haunt me.
My world was spinning.
"Leah Lewyn, why are you here?!" Josephine stared at me and asked in a shallow, scratchy voice.
I opened my mouth, trying to reply to her question, but I didn't know what to say.
As Josephine approached me in her wheelchair, her eyes bore into me. Her face was etched with deep lines, and her once lustrous hair had lost its shine. She was a mere shadow of the woman she used to be. Once, she had been a beautiful woman with a radiance that could light up any room. Men had fallen at her feet, and women had envied her. But now, her beauty had faded, replaced by bitterness and resentment. She had lived a life full of regrets and wrong decisions.
I could understand the resentment in her eyes.
I was a constant reminder of everything she had lost.
Josephine despised her, blaming me for all the things that had gone wrong in her life.
"Stop looking at me like that! You filthy little bitch! You have no right to look at me in such a condescending way!" Josephine's eyes narrowed, and her thin lips twisted into a sneer.
I could feel the hatred boiling up inside her, consuming her like a raging fire.
I turned to Darren and stared at him with inquiry.
Darren lowered his head to avoid eye contact. Then, he sighed and approached Josephine.
"Are you hurt?" He bent over and asked Josephine with concerns.
The soft tenderness in his tone gave me goose bumps.
It reminded me of the tone which Lucas used to talk to Josephine in the past.
It was my nightmare all over again.
"Oh, Darren," Josephine took a sinister glance at me and said to Darren in a soft voice. "You really shouldn't have risked your life to save me. You should stay with Leah. You work for her now, after all."
My heart sank.
She was doing it again, right in front of my face. Just like she used to play innocent to steal Lucas away, she pulled that dirty trick to alienate Darren from me.
But what Darren said afterward truly upset me -
"Leah, I would like you to meet my mate, Josephine Solis."
What?!
Josephine was...
Darren's mate?!
I became petrified.
Josephine stared at me with an evil, sinister smile and stretched out her arms toward Darren.
Darren held her hands right away.
"You two..." I couldn't finish my sentences, because I didn't know what I was about to say.
I couldn't say anything insulting, because Josephine was Darren's mate. I didn't want to hurt Darren's feelings.
But I couldn't really say congratulations, either, because Josephine was such a manipulative bitch.
"I'm sorry, Leah. I should have told you earlier about this." Darren stared at me and said. "I don't expect you to understand and I certainly didn't want to get you involved in my personal life."
His personal life.
The sight of Darren holding Josephine in his arms mad me sick.
I clenched my fists. My body was trembling. I knew I should have run out of the door to spare me the dreadful silence in the room, but somehow I just couldn't do it.
"Josephine is one of us now," Diego said. "She proves to be a great fighter."
"She's a liability who is manipulating all of you!" I hissed.
Then, I looked at Diego and asked, "Is she the assassin of Alpha Dire?"
"Yes, she killed that old tyrant for us, but she got injured in her legs in the fight," Diego said.
"How could you guys be so stupid?! Alpha Dire isn't the one who was behind all of this! It was his son Mick Toussaint who asked the soldiers to bully you!" I couldn't control my anger and raised my volume.
"Then he should pay for raising a demon," Frank Skakel, Diego's father said. He had been silent all this time, but when he finally decided to speak, his voice was low but assertive, which was a stark contrast to his weak appearance.
I couldn't argue with this old man. It would be wrong. So I turned to Diego and said, "Now that mad boy Mick Toussaint becomes the new Alpha. Do you think your life will be less miserable than it did in the past? If it hadn't been for Alpha Dire who somehow managed to suppress his son, your life would have been ten times worse in the past! I couldn't believe that you guys would be this reckless."
"In case you haven't noticed, we are scheming a revolution now, Miss. And for a revolution, chaos is all we need. You saw what happened in that cemetery the other day. People have been tolerant for too many years. That's why they're too scared to do anything. With Alpha Dire, there was still order and balance in their lives, so that's why they refuse to do anything radical to overthrow the tyrant. That's why Alpha Dire has to be removed. The storm is impending and everyone in this Kingdom will see what we rogues will do to build up a new norm!" Diego stretched out his arms into the sky as if he was asking the Moon Goddess to bless him.
I felt chill getting down my spin.
I thought these people were just trying to kill Mick Toussaint.
But I hadn't thought they were having a bigger plan -
They wanted to overthrow my Father's reign as the Lycan King!