Promised To The Alpha Twins
Chapter 115

I didn’t know which pain was more unbearable: whether it was the feeling of all the bones in my back and chest shattered, the knowledge that the twins were in the same situation, and their protests, anger, and turmoil echoed in my head with the desperation of a beast cornered by fire, or Mel’s betrayal, the one who had put us in this situation, with only a gray and uncertain future ahead.

Despite the extreme physical pain, my head was consumed by one thing: Why, Mel? Why?

My eyes conveyed a blurry vision of what was happening around me. The fog, thick and high until a moment ago, began to give way to the powerful arrival of sunlight, which filtered forcefully through the dense branches of the forest in which it seemed our fate would be sealed.

Through what little I could see, I saw her, Mel. My entire attention was focused on each of her steps, the expression on her face, the way she was approaching Tony with deliberate steps. Tony must have been just as incapacitated as us, a human with all his bones broken, guarded by immense beasts that covered him with the breath of their half-opened jaws.

I couldn’t fathom what could have driven Mel to betray the man with whom she seemed to share such a close relationship, forged with years of trust and who knows how many dangers faced together. Although it wasn’t a romantic relationship, despite there not seeming to be a bond between them like the one I had with the twins, it was evident that the two of them were inseparable. So…

Why, Mel?

Why?

The woman approached Tony and leaned down at his side. The pain continued to gnaw at me, but despite that, my attention remained focused on the impending scene. I needed answers, to know why Mel had acted this way and not only handed me and the twins over to David Zoe’s men but even more importantly: why she was betraying Tony in this manner, what could justify her actions.

“Shhh,” Mel hissed as she gently cradled Tony’s head, like a mother soothing her child. She placed it on her lap and looked at him with some tenderness, but above all, with coldness. “Shhh, calm down. Soon, it will all be over, and the pain you feel now will be a thing of the past.”

In Tony’s fervent, even feverish eyes, I saw that he was plagued by the same questions I was asking myself, but in his case, they must have been tormenting him even more than the splinters of his beloved bones piercing through his skin and muscles, from which large streams of b***d were already soaking the ground he lay on. His face was contorted by a mix of anger, disappointment, and rage, but above all, by sadness. The mere thought that someone so close could betray you like this was painful enough to want to die on the spot.

With great effort, a question escaped Tony’s lips.

“Why?”

“Are you so trapped within yourself that you never saw it coming?” Mel maintained that cold, revengeful attitude. I couldn’t believe it. Revenge? Against someone so close? How? Why?

Something changed in Tony’s expression. His sadness gave way to something else, and he gave in to anger.

“You can’t be serious,” he yelled with so much energy that I thought those would be his last words because a large spurt of b***d burst from his shattered lungs. But I think it was anger that kept him alive, because he kept breathing, albeit with difficulty and loudly, waiting to clarify what was pending before saying goodbye to this world.

“For me, it was always serious,” Mel’s harshness prevailed, and she spoke with the same anger displayed by Tony. “Did you really believe there was the slightest chance of forgiving rejection?”

Despite the swelling that had already knotted my eyes, I opened them wide upon hearing that. I didn’t need to know more; I could already deduce the entire story behind this act of revenge. But I was left with the bitterness of whether rejection justified it.

There was still so much I needed to learn and understand about this new world in which I was just a newborn. I couldn’t answer that question, given the circumstances of that moment. Perhaps I would die without ever understanding it, although a familiar sensation flashed through my memory at that moment.

Aly!

Where was Aly?

With great effort and enduring a shiver that ran through each of my broken bones, I turned my gaze and tried to find her, but there was no trace of her, and now that the fog was just a few shreds of air, I couldn’t even catch her scent. Our friend had managed to escape or hide. At least that was good news amidst the tragedy.

“I couldn’t have rejected you,” Tony continued with determined effort, b***d escaping from his mouth with every word that emerged from his lips. “I couldn’t have because we were never mates. We never were.”

Tony’s last words pierced Mel’s chest with much more pain than the claws that had torn through his own chest. I could see it in the two big tears that welled up in the woman’s eyes.

“You simply refused to acknowledge it, Tony. You refused to do it because you always feared your feelings and locked them away in that armor of muscles and cold gaze you always wore like a mask. But it doesn’t matter anymore, Tony, because I learned to do it too. It’s what I take from you, the only thing you maybe truly gave me.”

Mel’s words carried so much pain that for a moment, I felt sorry for her, and I think I saw a glimpse of the torment she must have carried for all those years, the years that had passed since she felt the rejection, a burden she must have carried like a crucible all that time. A burden so heavy and painful that it led her to make the decision that now had us at the mercy of our enemies.

Was it possible to master the concealment of feelings to such an extent that something as strong as a bond could be restrained at will? I didn’t know for sure; it was a question added to the ones I might never answer. But for now, I was witnessing its fatal consequences for both of them.

“Now is the time, Tony. I release you so you can sort out the mess of your feelings in hell.”

I closed my eyes, but not my ears, and I knew that with that snap of bones, Tony’s life had come to an end. Was the same fate about to befall us? I knew I would be handed over to David Zoe as a hunting trophy, but what about the twins?

Doubt gnawed at my heart, and then Gea howled strongly in my mind.