Mate I never wanted

Family maters is a difficult subject

Vivian

Sleep came fast to me and I dreamed only of silver foxes running in the forest... it was a strange thing to dream about if I'm honest, but I did not pay it that close attention.

I woke up to the sliver-haired boy still wrapped around me.

The time on my phone screen told me that I had to leave in twenty minutes if I wanted to be on time for breakfast and, as mother was already furious with me, there was no need to anger anymore. There is also the little fact that I wanted to corner Margaret before breakfast and demand to know why the hell she did all this.

"Lucien..."

I tried to wake the boy, but he was clearly deeply in sleep, which was understandable. Heat takes a lot out of our bodies, and we need time to recover.

"Lucien, I need to go for a few hours, you can sleep here, and then I will help you find someone to take you home..."

I whispered to him in the calmest tone possible. My hands softly massaged his back as I reached for my pillow. Carefully not to fully wake him, I unwrapped his hands from me while placing a pillow between us. To my complete luck, he buried his face into the pillow and pulled it in close as a replacement for me. He released a little whine, but snuggled it in closer.

Relieved that this went far better than I expected, I made my way to get ready, rushing as fast as I could. I ordered a car to take me to the manor. It would be way faster than going by foot.

To my luck, there was one available right next to campus... will I jinx it if I say that this is a good start to today?

The ride to the Cliffwind manor took only a few minutes, and so I was ten minutes early for breakfast. Great. It will give me enough time to find Margaret and demand to know why the hell she did sabotage me like that.

I let myself in to the still quiet house. The staff were trained to move without the family hearing it, so even in the complete rush of breakfast, they barely made any sounds. I walked into the main living room and, again, to my luck, I saw Margaret sitting there alone texting on her phone.

"Sister!"

She jumped happily as she saw me enter the room.

"I'm so happy to see you."

To my surprise, she made and attempted to hug me, but I stepped back out of reach. I guess my reaction surprised her because her badger ears shot up.

"Is everything okay, sister? Did I do something to displease you?"

I stared at her with no exptression on my face. Now that I knew that she had a dark side to her preppy happiness. It made me look for signs that she was lying, and I could see the sides of her eyes twitch a bit when I did not react to her fake cry of distress as she expected me to.

"Margaret, did you touch my wine the night before?"

An innocent, confused look fell onto her face... hmm... she is a better actress than I gave her credit for.

"What do you mean? Why are you asking me these strange questions?"

"Did you spike my vine?"

"Sister, why would I do such a thing?"

Her perfectly innocent face shivered for a moment when I mentioned spiked wine, but she managed to keep it in place.

"Margaret, darling, is everything okay? I could hear you shout all the way at the second floor... Vivian? You are already here?"

"Mamma, Vivian is accusing me of bogus stuff..."

Mother's face changed from concerned one into shock with traces of anger.

"Vivian, what is the meaning of this?"

"Margaret spiked my wine last night, so she could steal my phone."

"WHAT? HOW COULD YOU THROW CLAIMS LIKE THAT TO HER?"

"They are not clams. My wine was spiked yesterday..."

A part of me hoped that mother would at least listen to me, but she cut me off before I could finish a sentence.

"Do not blame Margaret for getting drunk."

"I'm not blaming her for getting drunk, I am blaming her for spiking my drink."

"Do you have any proof of your words?"

Her words hurt me more than I expected them to... she did not even consider hearing me out or that I was telling the truth.

"I have footage of her messing with my wine during dinner last night."

Mother turned to Margaret, hoping that the younger girl would give an explanation to the claims.

"I... I wanted to try the wine. It looked like you enjoyed it so much... you looked so beautiful doing it... I just wanted to be as beautiful as you..."

The other girl murmured with fake tears drilling down her cheeks. Mother immediately pulled her into her arms and looked at me with disgust.

"Look what your careless claims done. You hurt Margaret."

"They are not careless... Then explain this, Margaret, why the hell have you snuck into my room last night, used my phone and deleted the security footage?"

The girl brushed away fake tears and buried her face in mother's neck.

"I wanted to download your last year's subject data, to prepare for school... you are so smart, and I wanted to be as smart as you... to make mamma and papa as proud as you did..."

"That doesn't explain why you had to do it in the middle of the night and delete the security footage."

"I was scared to ask you, when I saw that you were drunk I knew that I could do it without you noticing it... I did not want to bother you..."

I was not buying any of this.

"Then why delete the footage?"

"I got scared that you would get mad at me after you woke up, so I panicked and deleted the footage."

Her cries got louder as mother pulled her in closer.

"See, everything has a logical explanation. There is no need to attack Margaret like that."

The anger and spite in mother's voice hurt more than I expected.

"Then explain how the hell I ended up on the genetic matching program?"

"Vivian, this is too much. Do not let your frustration out on Margaret like that. Why would she do something like that? It is not right to blame her for what you did while drunk. I know that James hurt you by choosing Margaret to spend his heat with, but it doesn't give you the right to treat her like this."

This felt like a slap across the face...

She did not want to listen to any of this… in her eyes, Margaret could not do anything wrong, and I was too blind to see this before. Her reaction told me what I needed to hear from her and the family... I was no longer welcome here.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and pushed all the hurt emotions down. There was no way in hell that I could cry in front of either of them.

"Sarah, thank you for all the years of care. I will see myself out. Over the next few days, I will repay you all the money you spent on me. Now, if you excuse me..."

With those words, I turned on my heel and left the house, ignoring Sarah shouting after me.

As I walked past the front windows, I saw Margaret standing at the living room window with a smirk on her face, that told me that I was right... that all of this was her plan and she won. She got what she wanted, and that was to push me out of the family.