"Come on, Harper," my mother urged. "Tell them."

"I..."

My words died in my throat, and it felt as though my airways were closing up. I looked back and forth between my mother and my mates, unable to find the voice I needed to relay my words. They looked equally as horrified, and through our bond, I could feel a swirl of their emotions raging through me like a tumultuous storm.

There was a mixture of horror and worry, confusion and disbelief. I could no longer tell which emotions belonged to whom― or if they even originated from me.

I merely shook my head, my mouth gaping and closing like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe. When my mother’s laughter broke the silence I had caused, I felt as if someone had gutted me.

"She’s still reeling from the experience," my mother said, swooping in to save me the trouble of explaining myself despite being the one to put me in such a situation in the first place.

Nevertheless, she turned the conversation back to Damon and Blaise, and for that, I was a little bit thankful. I could finally breathe again as she spoke her next words, but even so, the tension still remained thick in the air.

"I am surprised, and honestly a little appalled, that you didn’t recognize your fiancée immediately, Alpha Damon," my mother said, playfully pouting. "You would think that a werewolf like yourself, a species which quite literally prides themselves in their loyalty to their partners, would at least be able to figure it out immediately. What happened to the sense of smell you lot tend to be so boastful about?"

Blaise’s face turned green with disgust while Damon’s turned beetroot red. There was only one werewolf who had the honor of being Damon Valentine’s fiancée, but unfortunately, not his wife.

My mother had kept true to her word― she hadn’t harmed a wolf in Fangborne for this coat. Dahlia Elrod’s marriage to Damon didn’t successfully proceed. She wasn’t the luna of Fangborne and was still a member of Thunderstrike.

"So all this time, Dahlia Elrod was missing because she was captured and killed by you," Damon stated, plain as day. His voice was trembling with anger, and with the way he gripped the table, I wondered if he was about to snap off a piece of the thick mahogany just like that.

"Weren’t you listening?" my mother scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I’ve already said that Harper was the one who killed her. I didn’t do any of the killing― at least, not this time. My hands may be tainted with red but they are not from the Thunderstrike Princess’s blood."

Great. How wonderful it was to be thrown under the bus like that by my own mother.

Slowly, Damon’s head turned to look at me. I couldn’t read the expression he wore, and everything he felt was a jumbled mess of emotions. His eyebrows were scrunched and his lips were slightly parted, watching me as though I was a stranger who had stumbled into his home unannounced. Wariness lingered in his eyes, and I felt a jab of pain prickle in my heart.

"Damon―"

"Dahlia Elrod was Thunderstrike’s to deal with," he slowly said, his voice low. He didn’t finish the rest of his statement, but his intentions were clear.

’How could you?’

"Damon." This time, it was Blaise who spoke. He still seemed a little uncomfortable, but with the way he looked at me — filled with the same warmth as ever before — I knew that the discomfort he felt was just from surprise. "Let’s listen to what Harper has to say. For all we know, it might not be her intention. You should know what Harper’s like."

"Yes, Alpha Damon," my mother chimed in from the side, her voice taunting. "As her mate, you should know what Harper is like. Or are you now looking at her in a different light simply because she is my daughter?"

Or, to be exact, a hunter’s daughter.

Damon’s nostrils flared in anger, and he shot my mother a nasty glare before turning his gaze back to me. He said nothing, silently waiting for me to explain myself. When I turned to Blaise, the latter offered me a small nod and a sweet smile. I could feel his emotions through our bond much clearer than before― his and Damon’s feelings were distinguished now.

I swallowed, then truthfully said, "Gus brought her to the tower as a prisoner. She was malnourished, and I... I brought her some food."

Carefully, I turned and looked at my mother, the details of the entire situation left out in case she decided to cut me off halfway through and spin the tale to create a bigger rift between us.

"I didn’t mean to kill her," I continued, my eyes still on my mother. "But she attacked."

"If she’s in the tower as a prisoner, she would’ve been chained," Damon said. His brows furrowed. "Or are you telling me that there isn’t a single silver chain here in this entire building, despite the abundance of the metal in the decor around us?"

As he said those last words, his gaze was on my mother as well. Facing the three of us, my mother merely smiled but said nothing.

"She was in silver chains, which was why I thought she needed better nutrition to help her heal," I frantically added. "But―"

"But?"

"But she managed to break out of the chains," I finished.

Blaise sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, gasping.

"That’s impossible," Damon immediately retorted.

"It’s true," my mother finally said. She calmly nodded, a mere spectator in this show she directed. "Dahlia Elrod snapped the chains in the middle of the night and broke down a heavy silver door, just to attack my daughter. That proves that her hatred for her runs deep― deeper than I have ever seen any werewolf have for a human. And for some reason, I suspect it’s because of you, Alpha Damon."

Damon’s lower eyelid twitched.

My mother continued, the corner of her lips turned up in a dark smile. "If you had never agreed to take another woman as a bride despite having already found your mate, perhaps it would’ve never come to this. After all, humans are possessive creatures, and we all know that werewolves are even more so. Dahlia Elrod would’ve never allowed my daughter to live after finding out your relationship with her."

A dark shadow was cast over my mother’s eyes as she tilted her head down, her smile disappearing.

"You’re playing a dangerous game, Alpha. It’s not nice to play with women’s hearts like that."