The Lycan King's Rebel Countess

Chapter 2 - Betrayed!

Daniëlla felt nauseous as the stress of it all started to slam its claws into her. She stuck to the darkness of the shadows on her way to Seth’s place and almost got caught by the royal guards twice. If they found her wandering the streets alone, they would have returned her to that woman.

Her heart was pounding by the time she reached the small room Seth was renting. She was on the verge of losing the entire contents of her stomach. Her stomach was aching from all the tension as well as the fact that she hadn’t eaten at all that day. Her hand clung so tightly to the bag that it felt as if her fingertips were slowly digging into the soft flesh of her palm.

Her ears throbbed loudly, filled with the sound of her racing heart, she knocked on Seth’s door and waited for him to open. Muffled voices suddenly echoed through the darkness of the quiet passage and Daniëlla frowned.

“Seth! Seth, it’s me. Open up. Please.” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. It wavered as adrenaline burned through her body and turned the hot summer night air freezing cold. The door flung open and the sight in front of her shattered her now frozen heart.

“Seth? Sierra?!” Daniëlla’s eyes darted from her half-naked boyfriend to her stepsister lying on his bed. Her legs wide open gave Daniëlla a horrific image she would never forget as Sierra’s stark-naked body glistened in the silver moonlight. She was sure that Sierra did it on purpose!

“Daniëlla! It’s not what you think!” Seth looked shocked and grabbed at a shirt that Daniëlla instantly recognized! Sierra was bragging about it just that morning! “Just let me explain!” Seth growled, ripping the shirt, but Daniëlla needed no explanation.

She whipped around so fast that her bag flung through the air behind her and hit Seth right in the nuts. His sudden intake of breath made her look back only one time as she rushed through the dark passage and down the wooden stairs. Daniëlla was fighting the incredible urge to hurl as she ran. He had betrayed her. The one person she thought she could trust had betrayed her.

Her frozen heart now completely shattered, she snuck back into the house and made her way back to her room. She had nowhere else to go. She had nobody else to turn to. She was all alone in this world. The one person who was meant to love her, had betrayed her in the worst possible way.

“That scumbag!” She grabbed a pillow and screamed into it to muffle the sound of her voice. When she pulled the pillow away from her face, she noted the dark streaks on the soft pink satin. She hadn’t even realized that she had been crying. She glared at her reflection glaring back at her from her full-length mirror.

She was done with love. She was done hoping for a better future. Hearing the bag scratch the wooden floor as she kicked it underneath her bed, Daniëlla made the one choice she thought she would never make. She didn’t care what time it was, or what she must have looked like as she walked down the long empty cold dark passage to her stepmother’s room. Daniëlla burst through the wooden double doors that separated the main bedroom from the rest of the house.

“I will do what you asked. I will marry Prince Jared.” Daniëlla’s voice echoed through the dark room. As a light came on, she whipped around and walked out before she got some lecture she wasn’t in the mood for.

“Of course, you will!” Daniëlla heard her voice echo as she walked down the passage, but she just ignored it. She thought she could never hate anyone more than she hated her stepmother, but two people had proven her wrong. She hated Seth and Sierra more.

“Seth wanted to see you.” Sierra’s voice echoed from the other side of the passage, giving Daniëlla more of a fright than she would ever admit, and the two young women glared at each other from opposite sides. “But I sent him away.” Sierra smiled. “I didn’t think it was very proper for a young man to see a young lady so late at night.” Her words made Daniëlla wonder for only a moment if Sierra heard herself. Only for a moment. It was clear Sierra wasn’t clever enough to realize what she had said.

“You can have him! I don’t want him anymore!” A sinister smile started to form in the corners of Daniëlla’s mouth. “I’ve accepted the marriage proposal from the prince. I will be leaving to meet with him on Saturday.” Sierra’s sheer look of shock made Daniëlla smile as she realized her stepsister didn’t know about the arrangement. Sierra was not a noble born. She was a commoner and would never be able to marry a nobleman! It was the one thing she couldn’t take from Daniëlla. Her bloodline.

Daniëlla closed her door behind her as all the emotions of the day started to rush through her now very tired body. She leaned against the door, hearing Sierra curse violently as her footsteps echoed down the passage. Daniëlla pushed away from the door feeling as if everything had been a horrible nightmare. She looked at the bed, imagining the bag underneath, before walking over to the window to look out at the city.

It hadn’t been just a nightmare. She had caught the man she loved with someone else, and now she was going to marry someone she didn’t love. Her phone was ringing off the hook, and she knew who it was, but she wasn’t going to give him the chance to explain. There was no way he could ever explain it away. She had questions that she knew she would never get the answers to. She had to ghost Seth completely. If she was going to go through with the arranged marriage, she had to cut all ties with him.

She grabbed her phone and stuffed it under the same pink satin pillow that earlier dried her tears before returning her attention to the night sky outside of her window. All she could hope for now was that the prince was kind. He didn’t have to love her. At least, not in the beginning. He just had to be kind.

Over the next couple of days, Daniëlla tried to avoid Sierra and her stepmother as much as possible while trying to convince herself that the prince would be kind and, soon, she would be leading a much better life. Sierra tried baiting her into a couple of arguments, but Daniëlla played deaf and thought about how she had been betrayed. It was enough to harden her heart completely.