The Alpha King's Reluctant Bride (Ava and Grayson) novel Chapter 196

196 /209

-Grayson’s POV-

“Liam? What is… What is going on? Why are we here?” Elaine must have sensed the shift in him too because her tone was filled with pure confusion.

But I didn’t say anything. I just kept staring at him, wondering when all of this had started. His features looked exactly the same. The same as I had known since I was a child. Even with whatever act, whatever words he was about to say that I knew would ruin whatever it was we might have built from the early stages of our lives… he still looked the same.

“Liam?” Elsine called out again, and because I was watching her sluggish movements now, her hand reached to her turnrny band. Liam caught the moment, making the smile turn into a look of pure irritation. “You are not pregnant, Flaine, so why don’t you stop cradling a child that is not there?”

“What?” Her words were a slur, but the shock was evident.

He let out a sigh, like the very act of speaking to her was tiring. “Do you know just how much of a chore you are, Elaine ? You were a spoiled, bratty child that got everything she wanted, and sizteen years later, nothing’s changed” He looked at me. “And you, you always have to have everything. Born into royalty, the whole world was just handed to you, wasn’t it?”

I let out a tired sigh, but I didn’t say anything, wishing he would get to the main point of how this all started, because really, I was exhausted. I needed to sleep.

“Liam, I don’t know what is happening right now,” Elaine’s words came out with more force. “And what kind of joke you two think you are playing, but it’s not funny. It is not funny at all. It is getting really hot in here a-”

“Oh, will you just shut up? For the past six months, all you have done is talk and talk and talk. I don’t know how I didn’t go mad from all of it.”

“So that’s when it started? Six months ago?” I asked finally,

Liam’s glare turned on me, and a smile filtered through. “Oh, finally you’re interested? But the answer is no. It started far longer than that. It started because the world had to revolve around the Blackwoods. There wasn’t ever going to be room for the rest of us. You all sat in your mansions, while we, the commoners who would never measure up, stood at the sidelines when we had all the potential to be better than you. I was better than you, even your father knew it.”

“This is about jealousy? I was born with a silver spoon, and you were not? You’ve always hated me from the start.”

“Oh no,” He shook his head, “I watched my parents slave away to serve your family, and I despised you all for it. But then I met you, and you were different. You weren’t like her,” he looked at Elaine, who was just staring at him like she was in confusion and disbelief. “Not spoiled, entitled. You would come from your mansion to hang out with us, the regular people, and with my parents never having time for me, you became more than a friend. You became my brother, because I’ve always wanted a brother. And in those years, things were good. But after that fire, you changed. As the years progressed, you became worse than the entirety of them, and I became nothing but a shadow to you, someone you tossed around and ordered like I was just another of your servants.”

I didn’t say anything, but I did want to hear the rest of it, and still, I wasn’t surprised because I, more than anyone, knew just how much a person could change.

Maybe I was trying to justify whatever he had said and would say because I wanted to feel even more shitty than I already

did.

“You were just using me?” Elaine’s voice broke from the corner, and Liam barely glanced at her. “It wasn’t really hard. Someone shows you even an ounce of attention or affection, and you grasp at it because you are so starved for them both.”

46%

That actually hit me. I was the reason she ended up like that. Not just because of that fire, but how I had treated her in the years that passed.

“I knew I had to do something, but didn’t know what it was. And I know what you are thinking now, that I am responsible for killing the Alphas and all the chaos that came with it. I’m not, but it wasn’t until the person behind it came to me that I realized that you would never see my potential. You would never treat me as anything more, so I had to take my fate into my own hands, and I started helping him hit at your cracks.”

I heard a sniffle and realized Elaine was crying, and as unfortunate as it was, for the first time in sixteen years, I knew exactly what she was going through right now.