Sugar

Twenty Nine

~ ~ ~

Just as Dominic asked me to, I remained silent for almost all of the intense discussion. Almost. As Nina claimed, many of the witnesses against us dropped their counterclaim and were guided out of the room. As more and more of the pack members were escorted out, Scott became more and more angry.

Then he snapped. "What the hell are we doing here, people?" Scott hissed, slamming his fists on the table.

Dominic clutched my hand in his lap, smirking lightly. "We are here to find a suitable punish-"

"Punishment for what? Don't you realize that girl betrayed you as well? I might have tried to get with her, but I made my advances obvious. A girl like that cannot walk into one of my parties and not be asking for it," Scott stated. "Your chosen is a human, Alpha. They have been known to whore around and then play the victim. The girl is a foreigner to all of us, how are we to know that she isn't just parading around and flashing herself to all of the men in the pack? Maybe I was the first one she was caught with. Why should I get in trouble for that?"

Dominic was now shaking. Furious. And I was just plain fed up. Dominic's advisor stood to put his word in, but I jumped up from my seat. "No. Sit back down. I am not going to sit aside and let you guys fight this for me," I snapped. The advisor, who had yet to introduce himself to me and so had to remain nameless, nodded meekly and plopped down in his seat.

"Caroline..." Dom warned me.

"No, Dominic. I'm doing this." I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the number of eyes on me. "I was invited to the party shortly after Dominic advised me to start meeting members of the pack. Was it my wisest idea? Obviously not. I will admit my fault there because unlike a certain pompous, rich asshole on the other side of this table, I am not afraid of accepting responsibility. If you want to start blaming the victim, let me quickly dispel all of the arguments. I wasn't in revealing clothing. I stayed away from the room of drugs. I only drank water. I moved outside because there was questionable activity going on inside. And besides, Dominic had already presented me as his mate to you in that ceremony. It didn't occur to me that people thought I was a random human teenager strolling into that party."

I heard someone giggle behind me and felt myself waver in the little confidence I had in this environment. "Regardless of all that, when Scott came onto me, he said something that made me curiously. I may have spent many years living in a pack, but I wasn't taught much. Scott said there was a way to reverse a mark. I didn't know that was possible. So I became curious. I asked about it." I felt Dominic touch the palm of my hand, silently asking for me to shut up. "Scott. I apologize if I lead you on for a fraction of a second. But what matters here is that when you made a physical advance on me, I said no and told you to stop, and pushed you away. And you didn't.

"I am a human being. Not that much different from any of you. We have the same rights as each other and we all have the right to say no when we do not want something sexual. I made it very clear that I didn't like what you were doing and you told me, 'no one can touch me. I couldn't care less who your little boyfriend is'. I have made my mistakes in this situation, but I will not stand to see your involvement be ignored. Not for my sake, but for the girls that you could harm in the future and the girls you have most likely assaulted in the past. I know guys like you too well to think I am an isolated event. And so should everyone else here. This isn't about me. This is about the girls in the pack getting hurt and the young males being taught that it is okay to treat women that way."

With that, I lowered myself back to my seat and covered my blistering cheeks sheepishly. Dominic stared at me with wide eyes for a long moment before leaning in and kissing the skin by my ear affectionately. "My girl," he hummed.