Virgin Sacrifice to the Last Lycan - Chapter 147: Chapter 147

Helen’s POV
“I know that werewolves are always two parts to a whole.” I stared intensely at him while I laid out the framework for my question. “We have mates that are two parts of a pair. We have two sides to ourselves: a mortal and a woven one. We are all about dichotomies, but you are insisting that I am a dichotomy that can’t exist.”
Justin had stopped responding to me, and I wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t stormed off yet, but I was going to continue to press my luck. These things needed to be said. They’d been brewing in me for a very long time. And his insistence that I just surrender everyone to the mercy of the Huntsman while he continued to disbelieve me staunchly had finally pushed me far enough to ask something that I had wondered about but hadn’t found the words for yet.
“How do you think I could exist as two beings who are so different?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?” he snarled. Justin was clearly near the end of this conversation, so I’d have to make do with what I could get out of it.
“I mean, either I am such a horrible person that I have conspired to stab you in the back, literally, and I have engaged other pack members to help me cover up this wrongdoing by corroborating my story. Which would mean you’re lying when you tell me about what a wonderful mate I am.”
He blinked at me.
“Or if you mean what you say and I really am a wonderful mate, then you have to ask yourself why have you punished me this whole time? Why did I deserve to be chained up at the hand of my mate, left in the cold, barely fed? Those are the punishments worthy of a traitor. But I can’t be both.”
Now he stared at me in open-mouthed astonishment.
Time to force his hand. “If you honestly think I’m a traitor, then so be it.” I tried to make my voice as firm as possible. “At this point, I have realized something important. I can’t force you to change your mind. I can’t make you believe me. And the harder I try, the harder you fight the truth.”
“I’m not sure why you want to believe bad things about me,” I continued, “but if that’s truly what you think of me, then I need you to do something for me. Just one favor, and I won’t ask for anything else.”
His hands had clenched into fists at this point. The claws of his lycan dug into the palms of his flesh, and slowly blood dripped down from his clenched fists in the effort that he was holding himself back.
“If you believe I have conspired against you with all of these pack members, then I want you to take us all and put us in prison. Treat us as the criminals that you believe we are. But I don’t want to hear the words ‘I love you’ pass your lips. If I am really such a criminal, then I am not worth protecting. So stop trying to keep me home for my own good. Just put me in prison where I belong, and let me come to terms with the fact that you no longer believe I’m a good person.”
His snarl of rage echoed around, chilling the blood of everyone nearby. Inside me, Joy quivered, shrinking away from our mate. Somehow I managed to find the will to stand my ground. He had to understand that I was serious. I couldn’t continue to be tossed back and forth like a ping-pong ball. One minute he said I was his mate and his beloved, that he loved me, and that he was doing all of this to protect me.
Then moments later, he said no amount of proof was ever going to convince him that I hadn’t acted against him, that somehow when he refused to let me build trust with him that it was my job to prove to him that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Only to turn around and tell me that my proof was invalid because he didn’t believe it, because he didn’t have proof, or that my proof wasn’t proof. How much proof did he need?
Without giving me any sort of answer, Justin stormed off into the woods, howling in his lycan form. I could only hope that he ran across some of William or the Huntsman’s rogues to take his temper out on before he ripped apart some poor helpless animal in the woods, or worse some poor werewolf or human who didn’t deserve his temper.
Randy stared at me with wide eyes in an open mouth. “That was brazen of you,” he gasped out. “What are you going to do now?”
I just shook my head. “I know we’ve lost people, and while I don’t want to disrespect the dead, some of them will never occupy their homes again. For the time being, I’m going to take one of the newly vacant houses and live there.”
He let out an audible gasp. “You’re going to live separately from your mate? The Lycan King?” His voice cracked on that. “You can’t be serious.”
I shrugged. “He’s going to let me. I’m done trying to force him to believe something that he insists on not believing. I can’t fix this inflexibility. So either he needs to fix his stubbornness, or it proves he really does believe that I’m evil. In which case, the last thing I need to be is living with him. He’s only going to continue to take his temper out on me.”
“What if he drags you back?”
I looked at Randy with fresh tears dripping down. “Then he’d best lock me in a cell. Because if he drags me back against my will, all it proves is that he doesn’t believe me, and he doesn’t trust me, and I am really nothing better than his prisoner.”
“But if Justin actually cares for me, he’ll give me and him some space until we come to terms with what we are to one another, without all of the fights, without all of the mistrust. It’s only hurting both of us to be trapped together. Don’t get me wrong, Randy, I don’t want to hurt my mate. I don’t want to be separated from him forever.”
Randy nodded in understanding.
“Right now,” I continued, hoping Randy understood what I was trying to convey, “I think the best way not to hurt Justin is to not be around him. I think we’re only hurting each other worse by trying to stay next to each other when we clearly need to be apart.”
He nodded his head. “I guess there’s some sense to that.”
I gave him a stern look. “I want it clear that I am not telling you or my mate that he is not allowed to come near me. Whatever house I decide to take up residence in, he is welcome to visit me at any time. I am not rejecting him. I am not turning him away. What we’re doing is not working, so we need to try something else.”
“Understood.” He shook his head at me. “But, if you want my honest opinion, that will never hold water with him. He will insist that you come home when he returns and finds out that you’re trying to move.”
I cast my gaze on Russo, who was standing nearby, listening without shame. Rather than scolding him, I gave him an unpleasant task. “Since you’ve been eavesdropping on this, please go find Justin and warn him, so he doesn’t come back and get blindsided.”
Russo gave me a little bow and hurried off in the direction Justin had gone.
“As beta for this pack, you’ve got two choices,” I told Randy. “You can either help your luna find a place to stay until Justin and I can figure out how to get along with one another. Or you can walk away. I promise I won’t hold you hold it against you either way.”
He growled at me. “You’re putting me in an impossible position.”
“I’m not asking you to take sides. I’m asking you if you’re willing to help your luna, your friend.”
Randy let out a frustrated snarl. “Justin’s not going to see it that way. If I help you, he will see it as me choosing your side and not his, no matter what I try to tell him.”
I bit back tears. I didn’t want to find myself alone again, but it seemed like that’s where I was destined to end up. “It’s all right. I’ll find someplace. Someone will help me.”
As if an answer, the nearby guards turned almost in unison, looking anywhere but at me. Clearly, none of them were willing to get on the bad side of my lycan mate by assisting me.
“Fine,” I said, swallowing back tears. “I’ll do this on my own. I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, and if Justin asks, I’ll let him know that none of you are a party to my choosing to stay somewhere else.” I gave a little laugh. “As if he’ll believe me anyway. He never does.”
I started to walk away, but Randy grabbed my arm. “Wait, Helen. I’ll go with you. I’m not going to leave my luna to have to try and make her way on her own.”
“Thank you, Randy,” I said, gripping his hand.
He flushed a deep pink and turned, leading me off toward my new home for the time being. Maybe someday Justin and I could reconcile.