Chapter 13

Judy’s POV

My mother was smiling for the first time since my father was taken away by pack Gammas.

“Oh, Judy. Good, you’re home. Look who came to visit with us,” my mother said, a smile beaming on her face as she looked at Ethan. “He told me that he’d be able to help us if you are cooperative with him.”

She had a questioning look in her eyes when she looked back at me. I had told her that Ethan refused to help, but now he was making it seem like I was being uncooperative towards his demands and that was the reason he refused to help. I could tell he didn’t tell her what those demands were, and I wasn’t going to tell her either.

It would only break her heart further and I didn’t have it in me right now. I was exhausted after the day I had, and I just wanted to go to bed. The last thing I wanted right now was to deal with Ethan.

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at Ethan who had a smug smile on his face.

“What’s he doing here, Mom?” I asked her.

She frowned at me.

“Is that any way to speak?” She asked, her brows pinching together. “I raised you better than that, Judy. Ethan has been a friend of this family for a long time. He’s your mate; he’s also offering to help us during our time of need. You should show him more respect.”

I pressed my lips together in a thin line.

“Do I need to remind you that we broke up?” I asked, still staring at Ethan, but I was also speaking to my mother.

I needed them both to be clear that Ethan and I were no longer together and if my mother was hoping for any reconciliation, then she was out of luck because that wasn’t happening.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t still be friends,” she replied. “He is in the running to be our new Alpha. Regardless, he deserves our respect.”

Ethan stood to his feet, and I instinctively took a step back, wanting to gain as much distance between us as possible. My wolf had been quiet since we saw him at Gavin’s villa with Irene and I worried something might be seriously wrong with her. She hasn’t blocked me since the day Ethan rejected us.

“I apologize for intruding,” Ethan said, keeping that plastered smile on his lips as he looked at me. I knew it was only a show for my mother because I could hear the bitterness directed towards me in his tone. “I was hoping for a moment of your time.”

“In your dreams, Ethan,” I said and then I turned my back to him and stormed out of the living room. I wasn’t going to give him the time of day.

I wrapped my arms around my body as I made my way up the stairs. Just as I reached the door and opened it, I felt a hand on my lower back, shoving me the rest of the way into my room, and then the door shut.

I whipped around to face Ethan who was staring at me with his arms folded across his chest.

“What the hell are you doing in here, Ethan?” I sneered.

“I should be the one asking you the questions,” he retorted bitterly. “What do you think you are doing flaunting around Gavin Landry like that?”

I raised my brows.

“Excuse me?” I asked him, taken aback. “What business of that is yours? Aren’t you engaged to his daughter?”

“Do you really think that whoring yourself out to Gavin is going to help get your father out of prison?” Ethan scoffed. “You are being delusional if you think for a second, he’d ever be interested in you.”

“You do remember the hickeys I had on my neck not too long ago, right?” I asked him, folding my own arms across my chest.

His eyes darkened at the mention of those hickeys, and he took a step towards me. I took a step back, not wanting to be anywhere near him.

“I asked around, apparently Gavin was seen having a lot to drink that evening. He was hardly in his rightful mind,” he murmured. “You must have taken advantage of the opportunity.”

“Are you out of your mind??” I asked him, narrowing my eyes. “I did no such thing!”

“I’m not sure who you are trying to fool, Judy, because I’m not buying. I know the kind of person you are, and you’d do anything to help your family, even if it means sleeping with someone for a bit of money. Why not just take me up on my offer and end this whole thing?”

“Because I won’t be your mistress, Ethan,” I hissed. “That’s insulting to everyone involved, including Irene. Don’t you care about her at all? How could you ask such a thing of me knowing that it would hurt her?”

He rolled his eyes.

“Don’t act like you care about her,” he replied.

“Someone has to,” I growled.

He let out a humorless laugh just before he grabbed me and pulled me close to him, completely catching me off guard. He wrapped one of his arms around my hips and another arm around my back, pressing me flush against his hard chest. My heart nearly beat out of my throat from the sudden motion.

“Just shut up,” he murmured, and then his lips were crashing into mine.

Anger filled me as his lips moved against mine, his tongue swiping across my bottom lip and seeking entrance. I kept my mouth clamped shut, refusing to give in to him. At one point, I would have been weak in the knees from his kiss and gave in right away, but now, I just felt disgusted and used. I didn’t have the same tingly sensation I once felt from his touch.

Now his touch burned.

I felt nauseated and filled with fury.

I struggled against him which only made him hold me tighter. It was no secret that he was much stronger than me despite all the training I had in my defense classes. It didn’t help that he hurt my body and made me weaker as a person, not to mention my wolf was blocking me so I couldn’t channel any of her strength.

He bit my lower lip, causing me to gasp in pain. That was enough time for him to shove his tongue into my mouth. I pushed at his chest as he started to push me towards my bed. Panic was striking me so fast that I was losing my train of thought. In a rush, I bit down on his tongue as hard as I could, making me stop kissing me and howl in pain.

I pushed at him again, but he refused to let go of me. Instead, his lips found the nape of my neck, right above his mark which refused to fade after his rejection. He bit just above the mark, and I felt him sucking on it hard.

“Ethan, get off me!” I demanded.

I felt his smile against the nape of my neck as he released my flesh from his teeth.

“Gladly,” he muttered just as he let me go and I fell to the ground with a thud.

My neck throbbed from his hard kissing, biting, and sucking. I reached my shaky fingers up to touch the spot and I winced when I felt the hickey forming on my skin. I let out a distressed whimper which he quickly shushed. When I looked up at him, I saw that he had pulled out his phone and, on the screen, I noticed Irene’s name flashing across.

She was calling him; of course, she was, I thought to myself.

He answered the call and turned his back to me.

“Hey, babe,” he said sweetly. His tone completely changed from bitter to loving in a matter of seconds. I pulled myself up to my feet using my bed and I wrapped my arms around my body like I was desperately trying to hold myself together. “Yeah, I just stepped out for a few. I’ll be home soon though. Want me to pick you up anything to eat?”

He paused for another moment; I sat on my bed, my legs refusing to work any longer. Tears burned in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall while he was standing in my bedroom. I wasn’t going to let him see me weaken.

“Sure, I’ll surprise you,” he replied kindly. “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

A jab of pain hit my chest, and I winced like he had just slapped me.

He hung up the phone and then turned to me.

“Look, I came here to tell you that you need about $500,000 if you want to visit your father in prison,” he told me, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “If I remember correctly, that’s about the same amount of money your loan payment at school is.”

I couldn’t speak; I stared numbly at the ground. He stepped towards me and lowered himself, so he was at eye level, forcing me to look into his eyes.

“If you want to see your father, give up school and use the loan to pay. You’ll be able to see him getting tortured to the brink of death behind bars,” Ethan sneered. “Or you can become my mistress, and I’ll pay off his debt entirely. You’ll still have to give up school, but it’ll save him from being tortured. The choice is yours, Judy.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, my entire body shuddering with pent-up fury. He smiled as he straightened his posture.

“No matter the choice, Judy, you’ll always be mine. It’s best if you remember that. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have a fiancé to tend to.”

Without another word, he turned and left my room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I spent the remainder of the night lying in bed; tears spilling out of my eyes. I had a bad feeling about what was about to happen, and it was making me feel sick to my stomach. At some point, my wolf unblocked me, probably sensing that I needed her comfort after what Ethan had just put me through.

How could he do this to me? How could he do this to my family?

My poor father was lying in prison because of him, and there was nothing I could do.

Hours after Ethan had left, I finally started to fall asleep. However, I was brutally awoken by the pain coursing through my veins; it felt as if my entire insides were on fire, starting from the mark on my neck. I screamed out in agony as I put my hand over the mark; every single bone in my body ached.

My wolf whimpered and cried along with me, also feeling the same pain.

“Mate…” I heard my wolf crying. “Another… woman!”

It was then that I realized what she was trying to say.

Ethan was having sex with another woman!