Betrayed

☾Chapter Twenty-Seven☽

Titus's P.O.V

Vladimira puts a hand over her mouth once I say that. "I think I'm going to be sick," She mutters before shooting up and sprinting to the bathroom.

By the time I get there, she's already bent over the toilet, spewing her lunch into the toilet mercilessly.

I walk behind her and pull her hair out of the way. "Are you ok, My Queen?" I question with true worry.

A sob breaks through the disgusting dry heaving she's doing. "No!" She pouts while pulling the toilet seat down and leaning against the cabinets on the floor. "My father's a complete as*hole, my mother died during childbirth so I don't know how to raise a d*mn child, and then... there's you," She cries.

"Me?" I wonder, my finger pointing to myself as I join her on the bathroom floor. "What the hell did I do?"

She throws her head back against the sink cabinets. "You got me pregnant! That small, little one-night stand broke the small, little string holding my relationship with my father together."

We sit in silence after that just staring at each other's face, the kiss we shared long forgotten.

But, it didn't feel right to kiss Vladimira like she was my mate, to be honest, it felt like I was betraying Ellery.

Doesn't it feel like she's betraying Adam?

"Tell me about Adam," I whisper.

Vladimira smiles. "He was a shy guy, and I was kind of surprised that he came out of his shell for me. Anyway, my father didn't know about our relationship, so we snuck around behind his back. A lot.

"Gosh, between going on adventures late at night to having risky sex when my dad was home, we fell deeply love, something that I could never do again probably." She begins to cry again.

My hands find hers soothingly, shushing her cries. "Why don't I tell you what happened with Ellery?"

She didn't have time to agree before I was starting my story.

"Ellery was a trained assassin for her old pack—I'm pretty sure your father made them extinct—but they were a small pack, about twenty of them in total.

"She had many kills on her belt, and the only time she really stopped her crazy behavior is when we discovered we were mates." I suck in a breath after I close my eyes, trying to calm myself down to continue.

I open my eyes slowly. "It was too late then, Dmitri had already heard about her, and he was planning to execute her. No matter how much I pleaded with him, he still did it," I explain.

Anger burns in my veins for a fleeting second before I compose myself and look into Vladimira's eyes. "The execution was so sudden, and, in the end, Dmitri commanded me to make up a fake story to cover up Ellery's execution, hence why it says she died from moon fever in her file," I finish.

She's a rough topic for me to talk about. I try my best to stay off it, even in my thoughts I don't think about her a lot because I know I will break down like I did after her death.

Even my pack, the Cherokees, know to not talk about Ellery around me. Yet, people would never guess I lost a mate because I conceal it so well.

"Is that why you're enemies?" Vladimira's smooth voice meets my ears.

I nod. "We used to be the closest of friends, and then he threw away our friendship for the sake of his kingdom," I hiss through clenched teeth.

Vladimira laughs. "You're not the only one."