Aria’s POV
Patrick’s brows lifted, surprise flickering before he burst into loud, hearty laughter.
“Good! Knowing your mistakes and correcting them, that’s what a good child does. Let’s all forget what just happened. Co inside, everyone.”
He pushed the door open, playing the gracious host.
Margaret clearly didn’t want this. Her hands pressed against his waist, her body stiff with resistance. Patrick leaned down, whispered sothing low and soothing, and patted her hands like one would calm an agitated mate. Eventually, she let go.
As we entered, Margaret watched pass her and snorted coldly.
I ignored her, but Rowland didn’t.
He smiled, but there was sothing sharp beneath it. It looked predatory and dangerous.
“Mrs. Darvin,” he said lightly, “if you don’t know how to be a proper hostess, maybe you should go check on Sophia instead.”
The effect of his words was imdiate.
Margaret’s body trembled with rage.
From what Rowland told earlier, Sophia had been badly hurt by Richard. Making mockery of her condition was obviously bound to anger Magaret.
Rowland wrapped an arm around my shoulders and walked inside.
Only when we reached the living room did I elbow him lightly. “You have a sharp tongue,” I muttered. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll lose control and scratch your face?”
It was half a joke.
Rowland laughed, but his eyes darkened for a split second before returning to their usual mischievous gleam.
He cupped my face, forcing to look at him, and winked exaggeratedly. “What should I do then? If she ruins my face and you stop liking , I might as well die.”
Rowland was such an incorrigible playboy, dangerous in his own way.
Yet when our eyes t, sothing knocked hard against the tightly sealed door in my chest.
My throat tightened.
“Then go die,” I snapped, turning away too quickly.
But Rowland only laughed softly and indulgently. “You are heartless, Aria.”
Kathy stood nearby, watching us with a deep frown, worry written plainly across her face.
Margaret appeared behind her like a shadow. “Kathy,” she demanded, “Did you, Aunt Vivian, and Uncle Jeremiah really co here just to support her?”
Kathy didn’t turn around imdiately. When she did, her eyes were distant.
Patrick had already rushed off to prepare refreshnts, leaving the two won facing each other like rivals at the edge of a territorial boundary.
“No,” Kathy said calmly. “We ca for you. But not anymore.”
Margaret stiffened. “What?”
Kathy studied her carefully, her gaze sharp. “When the wedding dress you sent arrived at the Osborne family, we started looking for your address. We wanted to see how you were doing.”
Her voice was steady, carrying the authority of soone who had long since outgrown this fight.
“During that ti, we learned what happened in the Darvin family. All of it.” She paused. “You brought this on yourself.”
“You don’t understand anything!” Margaret snapped.
Kathy opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“I’ll give you one piece of advice,” she said coldly. “If you continue favoring your adopted daughter and blindly trusting Patrick, when the reckoning cos, no one will be able to save you.”
Even I felt it, the shift in the air, the subtle warning that every wolf recognized.
Margaret panicked. Her lips trembled, then she glared at Kathy with hatred.
“You’re cursing ? Kathy, you’re blind! In less than forty eight hours, you’ve been completely deceived by Aria! You don’t know what kind of person she really is!”
Her voice rose in a hysterical manner.
“Just like twenty years ago, you were jealous! Jealous that I was favored by our pack, that I lived better than you! That’s why you’ve always tried to tear down!”
Silence crashed down around us.
Even my wolf went still.
Margaret seed to realize what she’d said too late. She staggered back, trembling.
Kathy frowned, her calm finally cracking.
“So that’s how you’ve always seen ,” she said quietly.
Margaret knew she was wrong. I could sll it. I could sll her sha and fear, but pride kept her standing and glaring defiantly.
“If you hadn’t opposed him marrying , if you hadn’t conspired with my mother,...”her voice broke, turning shrill, “why would Aunt Vivian and Uncle Jeremiah have forced out of the Osborne family?!”
Kathy froze.
She stared at Margaret as if seeing her clearly for the first ti, the resentnt festering for over twenty years, the hatred that had never faded.
“Fine,” Kathy said suddenly.
A heavy sigh left her lips as she looked Margaret straight in the eye.
“I will never interfere in your affairs again.”
Kathy walked in with us without looking back at Margaret.
Margaret looked pale. She let Patrick take her hand.
The living room was arranged in three rows of sofas.The longest one was occupied by us. I’d been pulled to sit between Vivian and Jeremiah, like a pup carefully protected by two elder wolves.
Rowland, who’d clearly wanted the seat beside , was squeezed to the very edge, his long legs awkwardly folded.
He stared at the distance between us, with Jeremiah solidly separating him, lips pouting like an aggrieved pup.
Just as he leaned forward to sweet-talk Jeremiah, a cane was thrust in front of his face.
“Kid,” Jeremiah said coolly, “hold this.”
Rowland froze.
He took the cane, then caught Jeremiah’s raised eyebrow out of the corner of his eye. It was an unmistakable warning.
Rowland looked like he might cough up blood.
I turned my attention to Kathy, who was seated on a couch to my left.
Her face was pale. Her scent was mixed with bitterness and exhaustion.
“Ms. Osborne,” I said softly, passing her a wet wipe.
She looked at , slightly startled, then accepted it with a nod. “Thank you.”
She pressed it to her temples, massaging gently.
I could tell the words from earlier still throbbed in her mind like an old wound torn open.
I watched her lips curve into a cold, self-mocking smile. Half her heart seed as though it was already frozen solid.
Patrick led Margaret to sit across from us.
The mont they settled, Aunt Vivian’s expression darkened, her aura pressing down like a storm cloud.
“Patrick,” she said coldly, “I heard you’ve been caught up in rumors lately. So even claim that Margaret’s good friend Clarence didn’t die at all, that you kept her abroad as your mistress.”
The room dropped several degrees.
Patrick’s body stiffened.
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