Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Raven
Death duels were a near-obsolete tradition that was used in the Ivory Moon Pack for resolving disputes over the inheritance of the alpha heir position in situations where the previous alpha hadn’t officially named an heir before their death.
After the issuance of the dueling notices, which couldn’t be refused once the challenge was given, the eligible contenders fought to their deaths, leaving a survivor who would take over the alpha position of the pack.
While my parents hadn’t officially named me alpha heir before passing, Ivy still had no basis for her claim.
“You can’t challenge me,” I refuted fiercely. “You aren’t an eligible contender for the alpha heir position. Only a sibling of mine can be a contender.”
Ivy’s taunting smile was as sharp as knives.
“I became an eligible contender the moment you abandoned your pack.”
My heart thudded in my chest, my vision swimming as the realization hit me late. Of course. There was that tidy little subsection of the law that covered special situations where death duels could be invoked by blood relatives so long as the eligible contender proved disloyal to the pack.
Oh, Goddess. That was it. It explained why Ivy had gone through the trouble of spreading those rumors about me abandoning my pack. It hadn’t just been malicious but premeditated. I’d been so preoccupied with evading capture that I’d completely missed what was right in front of me.
“I never abandoned my pack,” I shook my head, refusing to accept my dawning reality.
Ivy regarded me with what seemed to be genuine curiosity.
“And who is going to believe that, cousin?”
No one. The only people who knew the intricacies of the events leading up to my departure were Ivy and Elder Dawson’s people, none of whom would testify in my favor. Not that it mattered anymore.
With the dueling notice already issued, my death was all but certain. The ancient laws didn’t allow for the refusal of the death duel challenge, and without a wolf, I didn’t stand a chance against Ivy. She wouldn’t even need to transform to rip me apart in mere seconds.
As though in sync with my thoughts, Ivy took a step towards me, dark eyes flashing with primal satisfaction.
“I almost feel bad for you,” Ivy tutted patronizingly. “We suspected you’d approach Elias eventually for help, but this was plain stupid even for you. Did you really expose yourself here, thinking you’d follow Elias to this party and beg him to take you back?”
With the debilitating shock I was going through, it took me a moment to understand what Ivy was saying. And when I did, I almost scoffed in disbelief. Ivy thought I’d snuck into this party for Elias’s sake?
Behind her, Elias stared ahead, completely ignoring me, his gaze seemingly bored as though this was all a strenuous endeavor he couldn’t be bothered with.
Even though I’d long accepted his treachery, his indifference stung.
How had I so thoroughly failed to see Elias for what he truly was in those years we’d been together?
Gutted, I met Ivy’s gaze, unable to keep the pain out of my voice.
“You’ve already taken everything from me. My inheritance, my fiancé, and pretty much my entire life. Why are you doing any of this?”
Ivy’s face morphed into such a bitter expression that I was momentarily taken aback.
“All of those things should have been mine to begin with,” Ivy’s tone hissed maliciously, and then her tone lightened with dark humor. “You really should have gotten mated to Alpha Winston when you had the chance, cousin. At least you’d have kept your life for a few more years.”
All around me, it felt like a pile of dominoes was falling.
Every plan I’d made seemed to have come apart.
I realized I was going to die. My hand drifted to my lower abdomen reflexively, and to the baby I’d only just decided to have.
But I’d failed already, and tears gathered in my eyes.
They were going to die with me, I realized.
“Aww, don’t cry, cousin,” Ivy’s thoroughly delighted expression contrasted with the soft, pitiful tones her words held. “Look, I’m not completely unreasonable. If you go on your knees now and beg me to spare your life, you won’t have to die during the duel.”
My thought process halted. It was rare, but there was a precedent for it. One or two death duels had ended with serious maiming for the defeated contender, but they had escaped with their lives.
If seeing me humiliated would let Ivy spare my child, then…My knees hit the ground, or at least they would have if Elias hadn’t caught me, coming between Ivy and me.
“Enough, Ivy,” He snapped in a harsh but low voice, and Ivy stared at him with disbelief and building fury.
“Are you seriously taking her side right now?” Ivy snarled, her eyes shifting between Elias and me. “Do you still have feelings for her?”
My blood pounded faintly in my ear, and my gaze flew to Elias unbidden. His gaze met mine for a moment too brief for me to register, and then his attention was back on Ivy.
“Of course not,” Elias rolled his eyes, his lips tightening in displeasure. “The press is taking pictures of us. You can’t just make a scene at my uncle’s business event, or have you forgotten the current state of things?”
Whatever the “current state of things” was, it was enough to make Ivy pale. But that wasn’t my concern.
Elias’s words thrust me back into reality. Now that I wasn’t lost in the horror of my impending death, I heard the flashes of the cameras in the distance, the soft whispers I shouldn’t have been able to catch with the distance between me and the speakers.
“Isn’t that Damien Blackwell’s nephew?”
“Is that his fiancée?”
“...seems like a confrontation to me…”
I almost slapped myself for my earlier almost-concession to beg Ivy. My cousin was ruthless. There was no way she’d spare my life, even for the sake of my child, after all she’d done to end it.
I ducked my head instinctively, letting the sheet of my hair shield my face from the cameras. I could figure a way out of this duel. A loophole. Anything. But first, I had to leave before I ended up in headlines that would make it significantly harder for me to run away, if it ever came to that.
I turned away from Elias and Ivy, heading towards the exit, but I didn’t get far. Ivy shoved me to the ground, yanking my hair hard and forcing my head back to look at her.
“Did I say you could leave?” She quizzed, her earlier reluctance to cause a scene completely gone. “You seem to have forgotten your place in your time away from the Ivory Moon Pack.”
Her grip on my hair tightened, and I sucked in a pained breath, unwilling to give Ivy the satisfaction of hearing my gasp of pain. Ivy’s expression darkened.
“Don’t worry, I’ll remind you—”
One minute, she was there, and the next, she was gone. Alpha Damien Blackwell stood next to me, cold fury radiating off him like a second skin, the resonance of his dominance threatening to swallow the entire hall whole.
Baring her neck, Ivy backed down, nearly as pale as Elias, who tried to intercede on her behalf.
“Uncle—” Elias began, but Alpha Damien’s furious gaze never left Ivy.
“Touch my fiancée again, and it will be the last thing you do,” Alpha Damien said in a deadly quiet tone that sent a chill up my spine.
Wait a minute. What fiancée? Alpha Damien turned to me, his expression uncharacteristically gentle as he helped me up to my feet, sparks igniting across my body at his touch.
“Are you alright?” Alpha Damien asked in a soft yet surprisingly intimate tone, and I found myself tongue-tied, unable to look away from his mesmerizing golden gaze.
“Your fiancée?” Ivy’s shrill voice penetrated the haze that had fallen over me. “How is that even possible?”
I broke eye contact with Alpha Damien, casting a surreptitious glance around us for his alleged fiancée, only to let out a soft gasp as Alpha Damien’s arm settled on my waist, tucking me possessively to his side.
His enthralling scent of cedar and citrus hit me so hard that for a couple of seconds, I forgot to be confused, to even think. Goddess, if his scent could be bottled, I’d get it and douse everything I owned in it. It was that good.
Elias shrugged off Ivy’s hold, his anxious gaze moving from Alpha Damien and me.
Oh. It seemed Alpha Damien helping me up had given Elias and pretty much anyone close enough to catch his earlier words the wrong idea that I was the fiancée in question.
I began to shift out of Alpha Damien’s hold, unwilling to be wrongfully attacked by whoever was dumb enough to have agreed to be his fiancée, but Alpha Damien’s hold on me only tightened, his next words coming out as a growl.
“Raven is under my protection as my fiancée and future Luna of the Shadow Thorn Pack. Anyone who dares cross her will face my wrath.”
I froze. What the hell? Ivy paled even further, but it was Elias who reacted first with an explosion of outrage.
“You can’t be engaged to her. Raven is mine,” Elias bit out, reaching out to touch me. “Raven, tell him—”
I flinched away from Elias’s touch reflexively, and Alpha Damien tugged me closer, his arms encircling my waist, a growl rumbling to life in his chest. I stood stiffly in Alpha Damien’s arms, unable to fully process or understand what was going on.
Elias stared at me, cradled in Alpha Damien’s arms, and the pained expression on his face was as though he’d been punched in the gut.
“How long has this been going on?” Elias demanded, his gaze hard as flints. “Was he the reason you never let me even kiss you? You bitch. Were you screwing my uncle this entire time?”
It happened fast, so fast that all I could do was watch with lips parted in shock. One second, Elias was yelling; the next, Alpha Damien was standing over his prone figure, his hands curled into fists so tight his knuckles were white.
Towering over Elias, chest heaving as though barely restraining his fury, Alpha Damien was the very picture of a man protecting something, or someone, he cared for.
“You never talk about Raven like that again. You never talk about her period,” Alpha Damien commanded before making a gesture at the waiting security, whom I was only just noticing. “Escort my nephew and his date out.”
Elias tore his gaze from me long enough to give his uncle a scathing glare loaded with palpable hatred.
“You stole my woman. I won’t forgive this, Alpha,” Elias snarled, shrugging off the hold of the security guards that reached for him.
Alpha Damien’s shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly, but Elias was already walking away. Ivy cast one last withering glare at me, promising retribution before hurrying after him. An unfamiliar massive wolf with a buzz cut dressed in monochromatic black appeared at Alpha Damien’s side.
“Sinclair, confiscate all the surveillance and media from the press and get our team to contain this situation.”
“Yes, Alpha,” The wolf, Sinclair, bowed before heading towards the agitated crowd.
Murmurs swelled like a wave crashing through the event.
“Damien Blackwell is claiming her?”
“Is she involved with Elias as well—?”
Alpha Damien didn’t seem to care about the whispers, his arm settling around my waist once more.
“Come,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, and there was no way I could stay behind anyway with the hungry, curious gazes on me. My body moved on autopilot as Alpha Damien escorted me into the private suite I’d personally booked for him several floors above the banquet hall.
The moment the door was shut behind us, whatever hold I had on my emotions shattered.
“Your fiancée?” I rounded on Alpha Damien. “What the hell was that about?”
Alpha Damien fixed the astute gaze on me that never failed to render me defenseless.
“How long were you planning on hiding your pregnancy from me, Raven?”