Chapter 184

Amber’s POV

Confusion and anger swirled within me when Alice and I arrived at the hospital. The servant had pulled me aside to briefly fill me in on the leaked audio. I was grateful for her in trying to protect Alice, but that was only a small comfort for the fury otherwise overwhelming me.

The servant had then tried to convince me to stay at the house, as Julian had ordered, but I had been doubly determined to get myself tested now, certain that I had been poisoned and greatly concerned that Tony had been the one to do it, as per what Alice witnessed.

Arriving at the hospital, we found most of Julian’s family in the second-floor waiting room once more. I scanned the room but fortunately Tony wasn’t among them. Unfortunately, neither was Julian.

I really needed to talk to him.

“Oh, here comes the harlot,” said one of Julian’s nephews, Oliver.

I stopped in my tracks, startled by his sudden outburst, when he had before been a quiet type. This news must have emboldened him and his brother Oscar, who was already standing, ready to defend his brother, like I had been the one to pick this fight.

“I’ll ask you not to use that kind of language in front of my daughter,” I said.

I didn’t care what they thought about me. As a Healer, and as Julian’s secret lover from before that, I’d had all kinds of vile words chucked my way. Most of them, by now, I’d learned to let bounce off me. The walls I kept up around my heart with thick, with only those I cared about most able to break through them.

But Alice was still an impressionable young girl, and to hear that kind of language being used to describe her mother would only hurt her. It was disgraceful what Oliver said, and disrespectful to me, to Julian, and also to Alice.

Oliver stood too, joining his brother.

“She’ll learn eventually,” he said.

“You led our uncle to this,” Oscar said. “Without your influence, he never would have turned his back on his back.”

“He hasn’t turned his back on the pack,” I insisted.

“He has,” Oliver added with his anger rising like his voice. “In the past, he had always put the good of the pack above all else. We are supposed to believe that he would have changed without your coercion. What did you threaten him with? Did you try to keep Alice away from him?”

“I would never,” I said.

“But that’s not true, is it?” Oscar pressed. “You kept her a secret from him in the past.”

The words hit me like a slap in the face. As much as I wanted to dispute them, I couldn’t. I had done that. Even if my reasoning had been good at the time, I had ultimately kept Alice away from her father, and Julian away from his only daughter.

And I had never intended for the two to meet, or to know about each other.

That felt like a lifetime ago now, after all that Julian and I had been through together.

The words Julian and I had said together last night had been meant just for each other. I hadn’t any doubt at the time that Julian had meant them, but now I began to wonder.

It was true that Julian had, in the past, always placed the pack above all else. That was mainly why he had kept me a secret back then.

Last night, he had spoken of a change in those feelings. He had promised that Alice and I were now first in his heart, and that he would always prioritize us.

Had he only said those things because we had been in private? Now that the whole pack knew what he had said, was he going to rescind what he had said?

Oscar stepped toward me. “You are the worst thing that ever happened to Uncle Julian.”

“Mommy…” Alice said, her voice trembling with emotion – both fear and pain.

Immediately, I tugged her back, putting distance between Oscar, Oliver, and us.

At the same time, Aunt Kathy stood. “That’s enough, you two.”

I was immediately relieved to see her there, back and with a cool head.

“It will solve nothing to upset the child,” Aunt Kathy said. “She is innocent in all this, and you lot would do well to remember that, even if you can’t seem to remember anything else, like all the good that Amber has done for us.”

As she came closer, she glared disapprovingly at the twins, who lowered their heads.

“Get back to your seats, boys, and behave,” she said, scolding them like they were children, when they actually appeared to be in their early twenties.

Still, as Aunt Kathy was something like a matriarch, especially in Gloria’s absence, the twins listed to her and both Oscar and Olivier returned to their seats. They grumbled something to each other, but it was gruff and incoherent.

As Aunt Kathy looked back at Alice and me, her stormy expression immediately cleared into a brighter one. “Now, that’s out of the way. How are we?”

“Been better,” I admitted.

Aunt Kathy nodded critically. “You will need to be on your guard. I’m afraid the twins aren’t the only ones upset, and then there’s the rest of the pack.”

I nodded with understanding. I would have to think about how to move forward with this sudden hostility, hopefully after discussing it with Julian.

In the meantime though, I needed to get tested for wolfsbane.

“Can you watch Alice, Aunt Kathy?”

When Aunt Kathy agreed, I gave Alice a quick hug, making sure she was okay. When she assured me she was, I hurried to the back hallways to find the supervisor and get my answers.

Julian’s POV

From the news station, I returned home, hoping to speak with Amber so we could coordinate together what to do next. I had a few ideas, but, as she was part of this, I wanted to include her. Plus, as part of my promise to her, I wouldn’t just make decisions for the both of us without her consent.

She was an important part of my life and our family, and in this family, I wanted to make decisions as a unit. I wanted Amber to be my mate in more than just name. She was my partner in everything.

Yet, when I arrived home, I learned that Amber, despite my warning her not to, left to go to the hospital.

“I’m sorry, Alpha,” the servant said. “She seemed quite agitated by everything. I told her what you said, but she wouldn’t listen at that point.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Thank you for your attempt.”

As I was about to turn to go to the hospital to chase after her, a voice called out to me from the living room.

“Alpha! Before you leave, you are going to want to see this.”

I followed the voice to one of my enforcers in the living room. They had been searching there for the recording device.

“Find something?” I asked.

“Yes,” the enforcer said. He motioned the enforcer beside him who turned the picture Alice had admired the other night around. On the backside, a small recording device was attached, hidden at the corner of the frame. “We’ve disabled it.”

“Track it if you can,” I said, but even as I said it, I remembered Alice’s words.

Uncle Tony hadn’t liked that picture.

How could she have known that? Did Tony pay special attention to that picture?

I didn’t want to accuse the man who saved my life of anything, but I had to ask those kinds of questions.

There had only been so many people inside my house, and Tony had been one of them.

If he didn’t like that picture… had he messed with it while Alice spotted him?

I needed to speak to her and get the full story of what she knew.