Whore of the Werewolf Billionaire

"It was Rowena. It was her who betrayed us." Hearing those words from Tyler himself as I look up, hearing his voice as he confirmed to me that she really is the one makes the chain of thorns around my heart wrap even tighter.

My torned heart and grieving mind begged to reject and not believe any of these, any of these that happened tonight.

But truth always stabs harder and leaves a deeper wound than lies.

'Truth always hurts...' That same unknown voice whispered to me again. 'So now you

must choose wisely...'

My throat bobbed at the last words. Is that Eliane all along?

"Elaine!" Rowena shouted my name.

"Get the fuck away from my wife, Rowena!" I look up at Rowena's astonished but hurt face, who tried to pick me from the ground as my tears continue to stream down from my eyes. She backed away. And before I knew it, Jose made her kneel, making her knees bleed. I can see the pain in her eyes as the chain that bound her hands from behind tightens even more with Jose and other White Wolves capturing her. Incapacitating her.

"I'm so sorry..." It was the only thing she said the only words she could say.

I cried even more, this time quietly. I let Lady Sadness take hold of my heart. I cannot stop these feelings of anguish and dismay from boiling inside me.

'Just cry,' the voice commanded. 'Pain always lightens when you let it sink deeper.' "Ahhh!" I shrieked, willing that anger to escape from my chest and be turned into a cry of

heartache.

Rowena broke my heart, betrayed my trust, and ruined our friendship. She did those all at once. The first person I met in Stella's Soul did all of that in one day.

That's the reason I only have less than five friends. Joey, my late dog, was among them. "Elaine..." Melissa's soft voice calmed me. An angel amid the song of storm. "Melissa..." Then I hugged her, feeling the bump in her belly. I don't care what Jason will think of this, I just badly need someone to hug and seek comfort right now.

I almost died earlier, I almost reached Death's threshold because of Rowena's betrayal. Because of a friend's betrayal.

traitor?

Why is that a friend's betrayal hurt more than finding out a random stranger as the

'The ones who give you the most memories are the ones who will give you the most painful of all scars...' I don't know if that was Eliane but I don't care. Her words comfort me, her voice is mine-identical to mine.

I do not know if she is my higher self or if I already descended in the sea of lunacy that I start to imagine things.noveldrama

"Let's escort you to bed, dear," Grandmama Jane's voice woke me up from my stupor, her hands wrapping around my arm as she hoisted me from the dead-cold floor of The Arena.

***

'I was the first sacrifice by the start of the 21st century...'

; I can still recall the day she said that, her eyes oozing with sorrow that even up to this moment, I can still vividly remember.

  I remember gasping while clinging to the chair at Café del Luna while saying, 'That's...so brave of you, Miss Rowena.'

'I know,' she glanced at me in a heartbeat that time. Her story was etched deeper in my memories every time I reminisced about her calm, old voice that radiates the nature of her soul. 'My father constantly beats me and my mother, that's why I ran away. When I heard from the Offering Team that there is a secret village of elites that requires women to reproduce and marry off to them, I thought it's an illegal kind of stuff. You know, trafficking and all sorts of hideous actions. But it wasn't. And when I volunteered to be the sacrificed woman, I found out at the stone table that these elites are werewolves-whose skin can be that of a man and a wolf.'

Every word I try to remember, every inch of that story I try hardly not to remember...it was painful. Listening to Rowena's story and remembering her story this time is different. Something like deep sorrow tugged in the bones of my heart.

Rowena had been a good friend, an obedient servant. And yet-

'The ones we believe that will never betray us are the ones who already did behind our backs...' That voice, those Eliane-ish words murmured again.

But I did not flinch. I don't know why. It's a voice I don't want to hear yet I also need to hear in this time of uncertainty and hurt.

'It's better to be in the boiling pits of hell than to be in one's home which is actually worse than Satan's lair...' I remember saying that to her after hearing her story. And the gentle smile that spread across Rowena's face upon comforting her...

; 'But my husband was killed by a Hearteater when I was six months pregnant.'

I do not understand why she had betrayed us to the very creatures that killed her

werewolf husband and unborn baby.

I can still remember the single tear that escaped her eyes but she managed to wipe it

away in a single motion of her finger.

; Her tears, her voice, her sad smile... "Why, Rowena? Why?!"

; My body crashed on the golden bed. It used to be as soft as clouds. But now...now it's heavy. My body felt numb.

  The grandfather's clock across the room rang at three in the morning-the Witching Hour as Tyler call it.

'I-we-also lost our son at that time. There, in the Misty Forest, the forest behind the wall, the one that stretches wide before the borders of Stella's Soul. And to where the stone table is also located, to where I was laid at the night of the leap year...' Rowena's voice still played in my mind like a tape I recorded from my old camera. 'He was protecting me and my child," her voice continued to haunt my mind. 'And me losing his heir in my womb is like treating my husband's death a waste of life. For I...I've been a failure.'

You are not a failure, Rowena. You still served the wolves with all your strength. 'I have one job-one life to protect. But still...'

I closed my eyes and the memory of me reaching out for her hand, the texture of her rough, calloused palm still lingered in my skin. 'Hush now, Rowena. It's not your fault.'

Yet, I do not know why I do not feel rage towards her. "I am more angry with myself." There must be a reason why she did that. Why she broke the Trinity Alphas' trust and betrayed each of the residents in Stella's Soul, both werewolves and non-werewolves.

Tyler was not on my side now, and that makes me free to cry loudly and let out my pain and

sadness without the peering cerulean eyes of the Stormbringer.

And even when I went to sleep, even when I plunged into my dreams, Rowena Cruz's sorrowful face still beamed at me under the roof of Café Del Luna.

***

"Elaine?"

  I heard a masculine voice calling me, the smell of forest and rain and mist beckoning me to open my eyes.

"Elaine, babe? Breakfast is ready." I slowly opened my eyes and a pair of kind but sad eyes willed me to sit.

  In my lap, a tray of smoking hot food is ready for me to eat. "Did you cook this?" I

asked.

Tyler gave me a weak, half-smile. The sadness in his eyes is unfaltering yet unyielding to show. "I don't have the strength to burn everything I cook so I let my English butler take care of the kitchen."

I smile and turn to the bed-side table for my ponytail, tying my hair in a neat bun. Tyler lifted his hand on my tear-dried face, brushing his thumb on the corner of my lips. "Rowena was my nanny when I was six..."

That untamed dismay crawled back from the pit again, drowning my heart and mind in a wave of sorrows. Tyler brushed away the tears that streamed down from my forest-green eyes and onto the golden lavish bed.

"You only knew her for days. I have known her for decades," Tyler turned away from me but I could still hear the sob and see the silent tears that wet his palms. "But still..." he finally cried, which made me do as well. "It both hurt deeply. She was a friend, a servant. She stood as my mother every time my parents went outside the wall and patrolled Moonburn, leaving me in my crib with Pegasus and an army of teddy bears."

I briefly laughed but both of our eyes still shone with tears and unreleased weep. Quietude played between us and we silenced it deeper when his lips touched mine in a soft and comforting morning (mourning) kiss. "But there are things we must let go, Elaine."

"I don't think I'm ready to lose a friend."

"If you are not ready, how much more me that Jason and I knew as our mother for years

in times our biological mom wasn't there to hear our cries and witness our fights?"

  Tyler was right. There are things-people-we must let go, we must release. We must unchain.

  "Rowena has served us well, served Stella's Soul well. She will always be remembered..." Tyler breathed.