To ruin an Omega

Chapter 200: I love your tears

HAZEL

The pain lingered in my chest like a brand.

It wasn’t sharp anymore. The white-hot agony that had forced me to my knees had faded to a dull, persistent ache. But it wasn’t the physical sensation that gutted me. It was everything else.

The air tasted different. Thinner somehow. Like I was breathing through a filter that hadn’t been there before. My skin felt wrong. Too tight in some places, too loose in others. I looked down at my hands and they looked the same. Same pale skin. Same carefully manicured nails. But they didn’t feel like mine anymore.

Everything was different.

I lifted my gaze and found my mother. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She wasn’t crying yet but she was close. Her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had gone white.

She looked like she was mourning.

Maybe she was.

My attention drifted to my grandmother. She sat with a rigid posture. Her face gave nothing away. But her eyes weren’t on me. They were locked on something across the room.

I followed her line of sight.

Fia.

That useless, pathetic little bitch sat in the witness corner like she belonged there. Like she had any right to be in this room at all. My grandmother stared at her with an intensity that made no sense. Why? Why was she fixated on that girl? What could possibly be so interesting about Fia that it warranted that kind of attention?

I wanted to ask. Wanted to demand an explanation right where I was.

But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even move. The lead elder’s voice cut through the room again and I had no choice but to listen.

“You, Hazel Hughes, in another pack territory, attacked your sister physically and even slit her throat.” His words were measured. Clinical. “Is that true or not?”

My throat tightened. The accusation hung in the air like smoke. Heavy and suffocating.

“I verbally abused her,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. “I roughed her up a little. But I did not slit her throat.”

I paused. Let the words settle.

“My insane sister over here did that herself.”

“Language, please.”

The reprimand was firm. The audacity the man has caused me to bite down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper.

The lead elder shifted in his seat. His eyes moved from me to Fia.

“Luna Fia, would you like to talk?”

Luna Fia.

The title made my stomach turn. She wasn’t a Luna. She was nothing. A reject. A failure. A fucking lowborn who deserved to have no place in this world.

Fia nodded. She stood slowly. Her movements were deliberate. Pathetically careful. Did she think she wss some sort of egg?

She lifted one hand to her neck. Her fingers pressed against the smooth, unmarked skin there. The audacity. She didn’t even have a scar. Not even a faint line. Nothing to show that I had ever touched her.

Omegas didn’t help that quicky. So her Alpha must have put in some good work to helping her get stitched up.

For the first time, I hated myself for letting Fia take my place at the altar.

The message Fia was sending was however clear as day. She wanted to be a victim.

When she spoke, her voice shook. “I’m sorry. It’s so hard to relive this. I thought I was going to die.”

I felt bile rise in my throat. The faux pick-me energy radiating off he worked so well that it nauseated me.

She sniffled. Like actually sniffled like some kind of wounded animal begging for scraps of sympathy and it seemed to be working.

“Hazel has already been proven to be dishonest,” Fia continued. Her voice was soft. Fragile. “Considering she lied about not plotting that I be the one to marry Cian Donlon.”

She paused and let her poison seep in.

“If it didn’t work out in the end, I would most likely be dead already.”

She gave a long sigh. This one was even more theatrical.

But everyone seemed to be buying it.

“I have only the goddess to thank.”

I wanted to scream. Wanted to tear that false innocence right off her face and show everyone what she really was. A liar. A manipulator. Someone who had orchestrated this entire nightmare just to watch me burn.

But I stayed silent and clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached.

“And it’s so funny,” Fia said, her voice taking on a slightly sharper edge, “how she can claim this when I was the one who was brutalized all over my body and with a slit throat while she got away unscathed if she is indeed the victim.”

“That Alpha of yours broke my hand!”

The words burst out of me before I could stop them. Anger flooded my system. Hot and reckless.

“That is enough, Beta Hazel.”

Beta Hazel?

Not Luna…

Beta.

The correction hit me like a physical blow. My chest constricted. The dull ache flared back to life for just a second. A reminder of what I had lost. What had been taken from me.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Please continue, Luna Fia.”

Luna Fia…

Luna… Fia.

Luna Fia.

The title echoed in my head. Over and over. A cruel taunt that wouldn’t stop.

My eyes went wide. The reality of my situation crashed over me like a wave. If Fia won this round, I would be demoted again. One more rank lower. From Beta to Gamma.

Gamma.

The word alone made me want to vomit.

And then there was Milo’s case. That one couldn’t be proven, right? I had made sure of it. My tracks were usually covered. But there was no way there was anything against me. There could not be evidence. His family wasn’t even here. Either, mother’s assassins had either found them or they had disappeared from the face of the earth. Any was good by me.

But if this bitch who had made all of this happen was playing the victim well enough to convince these elders, what was to say she didn’t have something on that too?

What if Milo had spoken to her before I had to take him out?

What if he had told her something that implicated me?

My gaze snapped to Fia. She was looking directly at me. And then she smiled.

That smile nearly sent me over the edge. It was small. Subtle. But I saw it. The satisfaction lurking behind that false mask of innocence.

She was enjoying this.

I felt something crack inside me. Something dangerous and desperate. My hands trembled. My vision blurred at the edges. I was losing. I was actually losing.

Then I looked back at my grandmother.

Her eyes were on me now. Not on Fia. On me. Her expression was calm. Controlled. And in that gaze, I saw a message.

Calm yourself.

The command was silent but clear. I sucked in a breath.

I forced my hands to still. Forced my face to smooth out. She was right. I couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not here. Not now.

The House of Strati was on my side. My grandmother wouldn’t let me fall. Aldric wouldn’t let me fall. I just had to hold on a little longer.

“That will be all,” Fia said softly. “I hope justice is served.”

The elders turned to me. One of them produced that stupid recording device. My stomach dropped again.

They played the tape.

I heard myself. My voice sharp and venomous. The sound of Fia’s body hitting the mirror. The crash of glass. My own laughter cutting through the chaos.

“You bitch,” I heard myself say. “Die.”

The word hung in the air. Damning. Undeniable. Even if I hadn’t been the one to slit her throat.

“The evidence is outstanding,” the lead elder said. His tone was grave. Final. “You did attempt to kill Fia.”

No. No, no, no.

“For that, you will be demoted a rank lower.”

Tears filled my eyes without warning. I didn’t mean for them to come. I didn’t want to show any weakness in front of these people. But I couldn’t stop them.

I looked at Fia. Then at Baruch who stood flanked behind her.

Do something, I wanted to scream at him. Slit that bitch’s throat. I wouldn’t even mind paying for it. As long as Fia didn’t breathe anymore.

But he didn’t look my way. He stared ahead with an expression I couldn’t read. Pain, maybe. Like seeing me like this hurt him.

That thought brought a small smile to my face despite everything. He couldn’t bear to see me suffer. That had to mean something.

I had faith in Aldric. In my grandmother. They would get me out of this. They had to.

The spiritual elder stood.

I braced myself as she did her stupid prayer again.

The pain hit me like lightning. Worse than before. So much worse. I fell to my knees and spit forced its way out of my mouth. My eyes widened as hot white agony blasted through every nerve in my body.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

My nails scraped against the floor. I squeezed my hands into fists so tight I felt something pop. The goddess was answering their prayer again. Damning me. Stripping away another piece of who I was.

From Luna to Beta to Gamma.

This wasn’t a life. This was a slow death.

When the pain finally slowed, that grating voice returned.

“Now to the matter of murder. The murder of the sentinel Milo Ashford. Do you still plead not guilty?”

My body shook. I couldn’t stop it. Every muscle trembled like I was coming apart at the seams.

Should I just confess? End this nightmare?

But that was death. Certain death. Any option was death on this round.

I looked up at my grandmother. Silently begging her to play the card. Whatever she had planned, now was the time. Please.

Milo’s family was still nowhere in sight. That should have been a relief. But it wasn’t. I was still afraid.

Afraid of Fia.

I glanced at her and she had that sick smile on her face again. Like she was savoring every second of my suffering.

Despite the shaking, despite the fear crawling up my spine, I forced the words out.

“Not guilty.”

“We did reach out to the Ashfords but we couldn’t find them,” the lead elder said. His voice carried a note of something I couldn’t quite place. “The evidence we have gathered also seems to prove that Milo Ashford did attempt to rape you.”

A small smile found my face before I could stop it. Relief flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy. I looked down at the ground in attempt to hide the expression. I tried to school my features into something more appropriate so I wouldn’t look more guilty.

This was it. This was the way out.

But then Fia’s voice cut through the room.

“I do not think so.”