Three Alphas, Fated To One, Played By One, But Mated To One-Chapter 16: Detachment

I took a deep breath and pushed the door open and at the same time, I locked that memory away.

I couldn’t let Karl notice a difference in the way I acted. I still needed him before Lizzie awoke.

As the door creaked open, I looked inside, the bed was already neatly made, the room was nearly spotless.

It was the cleanest room I have seen in the last two days.

Karl wasn’t inside.

His scent still lingered in the air. Cedarwood and something else I couldn’t put my finger on.

Unlike Mike’s sharp and dominant suffocating scent, his was milder. But that didn’t fool me anymore.

He wasn’t any less dominating, he was just more cunning and insidious.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Looking around at the neat room. There was nothing to clean.

If this was before, I would be overjoyed thinking that Karl had cleaned up so that I could rest because he genuinely cared about me.

Now, I knew better.

Instead of being touched, I felt disgust. This was nothing but another plot to dig a hole that was deeper for me. If I fell in, I could never get myself out.

That was who Karl was. He liked planning, strategizing, and winning.

I stood in the middle of the room that appeared foreign to me even though I had been there many times.

Three years.

Karl had been in my life through my hardships for most of them.

When other pack members bullied me he told them to stop.

When I was punished unfairly, he would bring me medicine afterwards.

When I collapsed from exhaustion and hunger, he would carry me without showing any disgust that others showed just by touching my clothes.

He would bring me small gifts like chocolates and sweets to cheer me up.

I had thought...I had thought he cared about me as a person and didn’t care about my status as a slave in the pack.

But now I realize that I was too naive. There was always a catch.

"Clean it." I whispered to myself.

Yes, that was all this room would become from now on. Not a sanctuary I could hide in when I was hurt, but another chore.

Another place in this pack that represented torture.

I moved to the desk placed next to the window first. There were documents neatly arranged on it.

I picked them up and placed them on the bed before mechanically wiping down the desk.

My movements were mechanical with my mind running on overdrive.

Why? I kept asking myself.

Why pretend for so long? He could have done something after a few months because at the time I was naive and trusted him quite fast.

Why all the years of fake concern? Was it because it was fun? Just because he could? It made no sense to me.

But maybe my views were different. I could never place my victory on someone’s broken trust.

Maybe he did it because he had nothing more entertaining to do. Because even if he eventually humiliated me, no one would care about the humiliation of a traitor’s daughter.

I finished wiping the desk and replaced the documents before moving to the wardrobe.

I opened the door and found all the clothes inside clean and neatly arranged and folded.

There weren’t dirty clothes that needed washing. Just as expected of Karl.

I closed the door of the wardrobe a little too hard than I should, causing it to shake.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down before moving to clean another spot.

Mike’s POV

After getting no reaction from Valerie in the kitchen, I debated with myself for a long time whether to confront her about the mate bond or not.

Eventually, I decided that it might cause trouble. What if Valerie was truly unaware of the mate bond and took the opportunity to cling onto me once she found out we were fated? 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

I couldn’t take that risk. I wanted to make her want me and beg me to make love to her the same way Innocent does.

I had no desire to let everyone in the pack know about my ill-fated mate bond.

However, I couldn’t keep showing up in the kitchen because that would raise suspicions and rumours I had no patience to deal with.

I was already beating myself up for telling Karl about our mate bond. I didn’t want a third person to know.

So, I decided to keep Valerie within reach. Somewhere I could see her, smell her, and find her whenever I wanted without being noticed.

I was also wary of people raising questions if I had her work in my office.

I knew that Innocent hated Valerie. I actually didn’t know the real reason for that since they had been best friends when they were little, but I decided to let her be the one coming up with the suggestion to move Valerie.

"That slave in the kitchen seems too idle. She is now talking back to elders and even dared to treat me like a nuisance. I wonder if she is not busy enough, so she has time to do such things." That one statement was all it took for Innocent to take the bait.

"You are right Alpha Mike, why did she have to be so disrespectful to you? She has always been lazy. Why don’t we transfer her to work in the pack house as a cleaner? With how large the house is, she won’t have a moment of rest to be disrespecting you or anyone else." Innocent immediately suggested.

That suggestion was like music to my ears, but I didn’t want to make it obvious. I pretended to think for a minute before nodding my head.

"Go and inform the beta. He is responsible for the arrangements of staff. Ask him to transfer Valerie as a cleaner to the pack house on my order." I told Innocent, feeling vindicated for how Valerie treated me.