Chapter 107

“Why would I run away?” Inez glanced at the woman with a raised brow. “I have done nothing wrong.” She then turned to look at Killian and questioned, “And what’s the matter with you, Alpha? It’s the middle of the night. I was peacefully sleeping when I was dragged out of my bed. I hope that you have a very good reason for your actions.”
“I am not a morning person,” she added with a growl.
“And neither am I.” Killian hated that he was putting her through such an ordeal. He knew that Inez was already reluctant to trust his pack members and pack and now that feeling was only going to get even stronger.
The very idea of Inez keeping herself away from the pack and him made him recoil. But Morrineth and Fenric had escalated this matter to the point where they were just inches away from accusing him of turning against his packmates for the sake of a woman.
He turned to look at Ally, who was sobbing like a delicate, bullied woman and turned to look at Inez, who stood in front of him looking rather bored. He said to her, “Ally here believes—”
“It is not a belief! It’s a fact!” Ally interrupted. She dropped her hands off her face and pointed at Inez before saying to him, “It’s her. I know it’s her; she doesn’t like me and keeps embarrassing me at the smallest opportunities. She must be the one who set that snake off in my lodge; she is simply evil. Kill! Can’t you see it? She wants to kill me.”
“Alright, first of all,” Inez raised her hand, putting a stop to the charade. She said, “It doesn’t take too much to embarrass you because you are embarrassing enough already. Secondly, I was not in the pack this evening. I was at Esper; I have enough witnesses, including Alpha Sokolov and the rest of the enforcers, as well as many alibis who saw me there.”
She paused and added, “And given how all the lycans in the pack pay attention to what I am doing, they would be able to tell you that I returned with Alpha Sokolov and the rest. After that, I went straight to the pack and never came near your lodge. The surveillance footage should clear my name.”
Inez slowed down as she went on, “And what surprises me is that you are quite assertive of the fact that I was the one who set the mamba at you when you have quarrelled with many of the pack members of your pack. So why me alone? Is it your little scheme where you brought a mamba to your lodge, set it free and then accused me, all for the sake of kicking me out? Given how desperate you have been, I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“What!?” Ally was like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She turned to look at Inez and stated, “What nonsense are you saying?”
“Are you the only one allowed to make a damn story?” Inez questioned back.
“Its not a story—”
“Then what is it?” Inez pressed on. “Like I told you, I never came near your lodge, and I was not even in the pack to begin with. If the mamba was set in the morning, then sure, you could have accused me, but why would you do it now?”
“You are trying to muddle the matter,” Morrineth accused with a frown on her face.
“I am not,” Inez was used to this, and she was now so calm when accused of something that she had not done that she didn’t even feel a ripple in her heart. It was dead. Even if it was beating, it was dead. “I am defending myself. She accused me of something that I didn’t do, and in return, I defended myself. Why call me here if you just wanted to announce to the world that I was guilty?”
Morrineth’s face turned red with embarrassment. She turned to look at Killian with a hint of annoyance on her face and questioned, “Are you not going to say anything?”
“What do you want me to say?” Killian glanced at the woman coldly and stated, “She is right; why did you even bother to call her here to confront her if you were just going to push the crime on her head? She is right. I was with her when she went to Esper, she never had the time to do it.”
He paused and, with anger rumbling in his tone, he added, “And if you all cannot believe me, too, then you can question Finn and the rest.”
“Kill, we never said–”
“We never meant that we didn’t trust you—”
“It is she who—”
“And who was the one who brought her here?” Killian questioned sharply. “I was the one who brought her here. If you want to blame someone, then go ahead and blame me! Stop with these ridiculous tantrums,” he then wheeled to face Ally, who was so shocked by his sudden loss of control that she stopped sobbing and started hiccupping. “Tell me, why are you insisting that she was the one who set the mamba off on you? It’s as if you already know something, but you are not letting us know.”
“You are questioning me, Kill? For her? How could you—”
“Ally, tell me the truth.”
The words were filled with so much authority that even Inez felt her spine straighten slightly. However, she didn’t feel sympathetic when she saw Ally’s face turning pale with fear. This was the comeuppance of that woman; who else could she blame if not herself?
Ally bit her lower lip. She crumbled on the floor, but not a word of confession came out of her lips. One had to admit that she was dumb but brave. She was willing to go against the order of her alpha but at the same time, the lack of her response showed that she had lied.