Bullied Mate Of The Lycan Kings
Chapter 135

Cade's

POV

(Two years ago)

Will you be hanging with the gang tonight or are you still pussy whipped for your new girlfriend? Typical Tate, talking a lot of smack.

I ignored the message and was about to fling my phone on the dresser to go back to bed with said girlfriend, but my phone burped another text that made my heart sink. That made me remember who I was and why I was here in the first place. Meet with me immediately.

I felt like an absolute bastard as I stared down at Lily's sleeping face, her entire body relaxed and filled with trust just because I was in the room, not knowing that the person she was sleeping beside was a horrible person that didn't even deserve to lick the sand underneath her shoes.

That horrible person was me and the message from my mother demanding that I returned home was evidence enough that I was going to be under her thumb forever. I would have loved to pretend that I didn't see her message and continue sleeping beside Lily but, I knew that I could not ignore her or disobey or there would be hell to pay later.

I knew what my mother wanted me to do, knew all about the role she had played in the m******e of our own people and how she had remained silent and allowed another man take the blame.

I didn't know much about the so called powers that Lily supposedly possessed but I knew that my mother wanted to to harness those powers for herself and that she wanted to take control and monopolize the government of Shadow Cove and sit at the head instead of continuing to be considered the least powerful and influential of the four families, always behind the other three, tighter, close knit families, even though our family was now considerably the richest and most influential in the human world. My mother had asked me to manipulate Lily into killing herself because it was too risky to attempt to murder her and could trigger her dormant wolf. Her plan was that she and her cohorts would extract her powerful wolf upon her death for themselves to use in the incoming rebellion they planned on creating in Shadow cove.

My mother had planned everything down to the littlest details but what none of us, including her, could have anticipated was that I would fall in love with Lily and that my wolf would be in agreement with our potential pairing.

Other than the little things I had been able to pick from my mother's cold orders, I didn't know why they wanted Lily so badly but even I could tell that she was special, after all she was the daughter of the famous Edgar, right before he became an infamous criminal. Placing a kiss on her forehead, I stared at her for a moment longer, accepting that I had failed my mother's mission and feeling no guilt whatsoever because I knew that I was making the right choice. I would do everything in my power to protect Lily.

She didn't know she was living on borrowed time, with a deadline set by my mother. I would give Lily anything she wanted. Peace, love, security from the bullies in cahoots with my mother. If Lily said she wanted something, even if it was just in passing, then it was as good as hers. I'd give her anything she wanted because she deserved it after losing nearly everything she loved. If I could bargain to get her life back from my mother, I would.

Quietly leaving the room and her house, I made up my mind to forfeit my mother's mission and inform my mother, after which I would return back to Lily and be rid of this guilt once and for all.

Remember, Caden, you must not go near Lily. Use others to accomplish this mission and stay out of harms way. Her wolf is very wise and anybody she detects as a threat means instant death for her victim.

Her wolf is a savage beast that knows no friend or foe, only l**t for power. We must subdue her and train her into a weapon we can yield.

She is only attracted to wolves in the same caliber as her. You are nowhere near her league, so it would be easy for you to go under her radar as long as you never have physical contact with her.

The tasks were simple. Frustrate Lily until she tries to take her own life and never have contact with her.

I failed miserably.

Not only did I save her life when she tipped over the edge, I declared her as mine, keeping her under my protection. No one can touch her because she's attached to a Corrigan and my wolf was unnecessarily drawn to her. Mate, he had told me after I saved her life, but Lily hadn't felt the mating bond. Not the way I did. What if I just deluded myself into believing she was my mate. What if I was just drawn to a powerful wolf I could never have.

She didn't know all these. She had accepted me into her heart, into her home, the very person that was sent to make sure she dies.

I will never be worthy of her love and kindness. She wasn't what everyone said she was. She wasn't a freak, wasn't a savage, a loser or a monster. Lily didn't even look like she knew of the powers she possessed.

They were wrong about her. They are wrong about her. They don't know the kind of person she is. She's not dispensable, she's a human being like all of us. I'm sure my mother will see reason with me if I talk to her to abort this vile mission. Lily is more than a vessel for a powerful wolf.

I swiped my keycard through the slot and entered the penthouse suite in the skyscraper apartment building that was owned by my mother. I paused behind a pillar when the man speaking to her in the living room turned a bit and I saw his face.

It was Victor Vanderbilt, now interim Alpha of the pack that his brother had once been head of and all the hairs on the back of my neck immediately rose in discomfort. It had everything to do with what I knew about the man, a secret that I would have never imagined if I had not been at wrong place at the wrong time.

Victor had arranged to get his own family killed. He had taken a bad situation and made it even worse and had let down the wards surrounding Shadow Cove when Edgar was at his weakest. He liased with werewolf hunters to carry out the m******e. Because of him, his own brother, niece, sister in law and thousands of people were killed and worse, he had let an innocent man take the fall for him, all because he wanted power and my mother had been in on the evil plan.

He reached out to touch my mother's hand resting on her lap and when she smiled, I narrowed my eyes wondering when they had gotten so close and horrified that something of the sort was even happening in the first place.

My mother, Cynthia Corrigan gave him a dazzling smile that reminded me of just how sly my mother could be as long as she got what she wanted. My mother was hyper aware of her beauty and feminity and never hesitated to use it to get what she wanted. Unlike the other three families who had bore sons as heirs to their legacy, my late grandparents had given birth to my mother, a Lycan princess and an only child which automatically made her the heir to the Corrigan fortune. She had become the CEO of Gold crest, the most popular and successful software company in the state and had never married. My father had been a nobody, someone who was blindly in love with her and was ready to do her bidding, she always said whenever I misbehaved and she needed to remind me to be obedient.

Be more like your father, she always said. He never stood in my way. He never disobeyed me.

Yes, my father had allowed his blind love to ruin his life. He had never married my mother, choosing to be content with just being her lover and father to her heir, me. He happily took the alpha title but he was just a figurehead. My mother ran the whole thing. It was foolish of me to have even grown expecting warmth from such a woman who had not even blinked as they lowered my father's casket into the grave when I was six and had proceeded, business as usual right after the ceremony.

Kyle, my cousin appeared in the room holding a glass containing drinks and when my mother gave him a genuine smile, a part of me ached because she never seemed to have that smile for me. I was not yet 'perfect' enough, had too many flaws like my father she said.

After Kyle sat beside my mother, he started giving her a report like he did every week.

While Gold Crest was most famous for its gold mines and software company, our family also secretly mined Rhodium, an element that was even more lethal to werewolves than silver was. We also produced wolfsbane and feral blooms; a plant that made werewolves go feral if given just the right dose, it also made ferals even more volatile. Even worse, it made the ferals became obedient to the one who administers the dose to them.

The horrifying part of it all was that my mother allowed these dangerous weapons to be exported to werewolf hunters outside the borders and Kyle was in charge of it's operations.

Weapons for favours, she calls it. I see a business opportunity, I take it. It's only a matter of time before the hunters catch up with our species. Why not give them a headstart and gain their favour while we're at it.

Unlike me, Kyle was eager to please and would even sell his soul to please mother and since his parents died in the m******e he doesn't care that my mother orchestrated and he started to live with us, he had made it very clear that we were in a competition, always trying his hardest to make me look bad even though I couldn't give two f***s about him.

"Thank you Kyle. Pour me another drink?" My mother asked and I raised my brows worriedly because even though my mother was excellent at everything else, she was a chronic alocholic and it was sad to see that she was falling even deeper into the throes of addiction.

Victor reached for my mother's hand again and I frowned, hating that he was in our home, that he was beside my mother. I didn't even trust him one bit, especially after knowing what he did and I wondered how my mother could even trust someone that was capable of mudering his own brother.

Stepping out from behind the pillar, I entered the living room and my mother, about to say something stopped speaking, her face turning cold.

"Finally you're here. Well then, let me get down to it. You are to pull out of the mission I assigned to you immediately. We're terminating that assignment."

Relief enveloped and I was glad that my mother had finally come to her senses and not interested in commiting such a vile act but she looked angrier after speaking that it made me wonder why she didn't look happy to have called off the mission. Kyle's smirk was also not helping matters.

"What happened mother?"

"Well, you happened, son. The mission has been compromised by you. I sent you there to woo the girl and make her do whatever you want and instead,you fall in love with her?"

"Typical Cade." Kyle whispered and my face fell, my eyes widening in shock. How had she known? How did she even find out?

"Wondering how I found out? Did you think I would not keep tabs on you after sending you on such a mission? You might be foolish but I am not, Caden. I am not."

From the look on her face, I knew immediately that when she meant I was pulling out, it didn't mean she was aborting the mission, it meant that she was going to see it through without me.

I needed to think and fast.

"She's my mate." I blurted out, causing the entire room to go quiet and even my mother looked shocked, like she could not believe what was happening.

"She's mine, mother. Hurting her will hurt me too. I want you to know that." I answered with a truimphant look, glad that I had one upped her for the very first time. "Cade..."

"No, mother, please listen."

"NO! You will listen." She screamed and rose to her feet, picking up the bottle of wine and throwing it directly at me. I knew better than to dodge it because it meant I would have hell to pay later if I did so I just stood and let the bottle collide with my head, shattering as the contents poured all over my body, even though we both knew that it wouldn't hurt me.

Like all the other Lycan heirs I had supernatural abilities and mine was indestructibility and superhuman strength. I couldn't be harmed, at least, not as easily as regular werewolves can. What would kill a typical werewolf would only sting me. The only thing tested and trusted to truly hurt me was rhodium, and that's why it was the focus of my mother's illegal exports. If Rhodium could hurt me, a small amount could ruin an entire pack.

I felt the pain as the bottle shattered on my skull, it was not enough to really hurt me. My heart however was not spared because I had really hoped that she would have reacted differently.

Kyle was all smiles as he watched the wine dribble down my hair to my shoulders but I couldn't care less about him, my worry solely on how to quickly get out of here and get back to Lily. On how to protect her from my mother's wrath.

"I won't allow it, Cade. You will not be mated to another werewolf especially not that cursed child. I will not allow you to betray me for something as measly as love. Your loyalty is to me and the Corrigan family. I can't allow it to happen. Not when I'm so close. You will not ruin this for me, do you hear me?" She roared and nodded at Kyle who rose immediately and walked up to me. I thought he was about to leave, to go to Lily's and I blocked his path.

"This is between me and my mother. Go and sit the f**k down."

He merely smirked, putting on brass knuckles coated in rhodium.

"No hard feelings between us, bro."

And then he punched me hard in the face, knocking me out.

The next time I woke up, I was no longer in the living room and my head spun. I tried to move from the bed I was on but it felt like I as trying to lift a house.

What had happened?

Where was I?

I tried to remember what had led me to being here but I could only come up blank no matter how hard I tried.

From where I laid on the bed, all but paralyzed, I could hear my mother talking to another man.

"I have broken whatever ties him to the girl but you must not hurt her yet. Not until she successfully mates with another if you don't want to harm your son in the process. As for your son, I have also effectively wiped his memories of everything concerning Lily." Lily?

I hanged on to the name. Why did I feel like I knew who that was? Why couldn't I figure out the answer?

"How confident are you in your spell, Ammon?"

Ammon? I remembered him. He was the dark witch that did dirty jobs for my mother.

Why had he erased my memory?

Why?

"My lady, my spells are unbreakable and can only be undone if I die. And we both know how impossible that is. I cannot be harmed by mere dogs. No offence to you and your kind, my lady."

They continued speaking as my mother offered to escort him out of the house but all I could feel was extreme agony in my heart and a void that felt like something had been there before but I couldn't put a finger on what it was. Dorian was in severe pain and howled within me but I was so confused.

I tried to hang on to the thin golden thread that seemed to have snapped, tried to hold on for dear life, but all I felt was myself falling deeper and deeper into the void.

Looking to the table by my bed, I saw my phone and with great effort reached out for it.

Opening it, I saw a lot of unanswered calls and messages from a number that was registered with the name 'Lily!

Cade? Are you okay? Did something happen?

Caden Corrigan, this isn't funny. You can stop playing now.

I can't believe you'd do this to me!

I never want to see you again.

I saw a breakup letter that I didn't even remember typing but had been sent by me.

More confused, I tried to make a call but it wasn't going through. When I texted her, I realized that I was blocked.

What in the hell was going on?

I was about to try ransacking my brain again but my mother walked in, a victorious smile on her face.

"You may have disappointed me some but thanks to the witch, I have been able to salvage the situation and put an end to your relationship with that girl."

She said that last phrase like she was speaking about something abominable. "Make no mistake, Caden, if I find out by some ridiculous way that you still remember and you went behind my back to get in contact with that girl, I will kill her myself, and I'll make you watch, so that you think twice before disobeying my orders again."

What girl? But even as I struggled to remember, I wondered if it was a good thing that I didn't remember afterall.

My mother's threats are always always thinly veiled promises.

Grabbing my phone from my hand, she frowned at me, her azure eyes turning even darker as she glared at the screen before she turned around and headed towards the door.

"Get dressed and meet me in my office. You will be going with your cousin for the next wolfsbane deal with the hunters. At least, he's less of a disappointment than you are."

The door slammed and I forced myself up, still feeling dizzy as I headed into my closet but even after dressing up, I still could not even understand what was going on. The name... Layla, laleh... or was it lilac?

I grabbed my hair, tugging at the roots to remember.

Remember remember remember!

Lily...

I gasped, scrambling to my desk to wrote the name down, along with the seven different variations currently floating in my head. I held my head as a migraine pierced through my skull, almost sending me to my knees. Lily, Lily, Lily... i held on to that name like a lifeline, already forgetting the face that was attached to it.