Bullied Mate Of The Lycan Kings
Chapter 30

Lily's pov

A nightmare. I was stuck in a nightmare.

I could hear the front door open downstairs and my mother calling out my name but I could not move from where I was laying on the floor, rocking myself forward and backward as I tried to stop crying and failed. My home has been infiltrated. My safe space. My abode. There's nowhere safe for me anymore.

How could this have happened? When did this happen? Why was someone out to make my life miserable?

I stared up at the nude pictures of me that were strung up on the wall and saw one where I had been smiling.

So foolish. I was so foolish and naive to have believed back then that someone like me deserved to be loved..

But why? What had I done to earn such cruelty? All my life, I had tried to fit in and then when my father died, I had been hated so much that stepping outside on some days felt like a death sentence.

The only place that I had felt safe was my house. It was my sanctuary against all of the horrors that I usually faced outside of these walls and now someone had taken this away from me too.

Someone had decided that even my home would not be a safe space for me to be in. Someone had decided to make sure that whatever hell I was experiencing would find me at home. Nowhere was safe for me any longer. Not even my own bedroom.

"Lily?" I heard my mother call out again, her footsteps gaining on the room and if I didn't feel so physically drained, I might have tried to lock the door so that she would not see what had happened to her daughter. "Sweetheart?" My mother said as she entered the room and her eyes widened in panic when she saw me on the ground and she rushed to where I was, kneeling in front of me, her eyes wide with panic as she touched my forehead, barely registering the state of disarray that my bedroom was in, thanks to those intruders.

"What's wrong, sweetheart? Are you sick? Are you hurting anywhere?" She asked and even though I was looking at her, I didn't even see her. My eyes were stuck on the ceiling above her head.

"I'm going to get you some water and advil, okay?" She said, jumping to her feet and when she turned around, her eyes finally taking in the disaster that was by bedroom, her mouth fell open in a gasp.

"Oh my God!" She cried and I watched, numb as she started tearing down the pictures from the wall and picking up the ones from the bed, tearing them to shreds.

I could only watch as she kept tearing paper after paper and then she rushed to me and pulled me in for a hug, her body shaking furiously with tears as she kissed my head.

"Oh my sweetheart, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, my love. You won't go back to that God awful place, okay? I will make sure I find those who did this and they will pay severely for it, but you are going to continue to be homeschooled, okay? I'm sure it's those academy people and even if it is not, it has to be from your former school. They will all pay for this severely, I promise, okay?"

The mention of the academy and that I won't be going back was what finally snapped me out of my shock and I moved to stand up, shaking my head almost immediately.

"Mum, I can't not go back to the academy."

Yes, this was one of the worst days of my life. Yes, people had come into my home and called me a w***e, plastered it on my walls like they owned the place, like they had the right to, but now more than ever, I knew that not going back to the academy was not an option.

I was going to do everything possible to escape this life and Shadow cove academy was the safest one way ticket out of this hellhole. How could my mother not see that? Exactly like I had predicted, my answer brought a frown to my mother's face and she rose to her feet, her eyes filled with anger as she spoke.

"What do you mean that you can't? How naive can you get? Do you think they really want you there? You think that you got that scholarship out of the kindness of their heart? Look around you, Lily. Is that not enough for you to realize that I'm right? Or is this because of some boy? And don't you lie to me, because it could not have been some girl that made you wake up in the morning to make cookies. Have you learned nothing? You did not learn your lesson with Cade? Are you really that stupid, Lily?" Her outraged response snapped something in me and I screamed, done with everything.

"Naive?" I scoffed "Stupid? Whose fault is it that we are being treated like the dirt beneath people's shoes? Whose fault is it that people don't even see me as human? It's yours, mother. Yours and no one else's. You talk to me about boys and yet you married a traitor and murderer and did not even know what he was planning and could not stop him, so who are you to advise me about lessons learnt? You and father are the reasons why my life is the hell that it is." I screamed and gasped when my mother closed the distance between us and slapped me hard, my face turning to the side from the force of the hit.

The silence in the room as we stared at each other with wide eyes was palpable and I saw the anger in her eyes change to regret as she started to shake her head immediately. She took one step forward, but I took two back immediately, my hand still holding my cheek.My mother had never slapped me before. Well, there was a first time for everything now, it seemed.

"Oh my God, Lily, I'm so sorry."

Snapped. I just snapped.

"Sorry?" I whispered, dragging in a strained breath. "You're sorry?"

"Lily-"

"I guess I'm the resident punching bag for everyone to use as they seem fit." I glared at her, my tone cold and dead. "Right now, there's no difference between you and them."

"Lily, Don't say that," she whispered, her voice breaking like she was hurt.

She had the audacity to stand there and play thr victim.

"Please leave mum. I'm tired. Please."

"But..."

"Just go." I pointed towards the door, heart breaking when I saw the shattered look on her face as she nodded and walked out and I could not help the tears that trickled down my face as I slammed the door shut and locked it, turning around to stare at my destroyed room.

Somebody seemed to have come here swinging with a baseball bat. All my pictures were knocked off my dresser. My lamp, lay shattered on the floor, its broken pieces scattered like shards of hope. The once cozy atmosphere of ny sanctuary had been replaced by a chaotic mess that mirrored the turmoil inside me.

I stumbled forward, navigating through the debris, and collapsed onto the edge of my bed. The weight of the recent events crashed down on me, threatening to suffocate my every breath. How did it come to this? I never imagined that love could wield such a destructive force, leaving behind a trail of shattered dreams and broken promises.

My mind replayed the entire day, the brief commercial break of happiness I had with Re-

I stopped. Ren...

Of course!

All this must have happened during my 'getaway' with Ren. He wasn't helping me. Wasn't on my side. He was helping his besties distract me while they ran amuck in my home.

I wiped away the tears with trembling hands, my gaze hardening, clarity crystallizing my blood and hardening my heart.

With a newfound determination, I rose from the wreckage and began the process of healing. I started by picking up the broken pieces, not only those scattered across the room but also the fragments of my own shattered heart.

My phone vibrated in my hand and when I checked, I remembered that I had been in a conversation with Ren and he had left a couple of messages in response, wondering if I was okay, but instead of feeling relieved by his messages, all I could think about was how Cade had slithered into my life like the snake that he was and hurt me.

Ren was probably the same and for all I knew he could have been responsible for helping sure I was kept away from home while his friends thrashed my room.

My mother was right. I was naive to trust anyone after Cade.

Sending him a message to leave me alone, I blocked his number immediately and flung my phone on the bed.

Never again, Lily. Once bitten, twice shy.