Rosalie:

I almost laughed because the accusation was ridiculous.

Did I trust Charlotte? No. Of course not. The woman had tried to drug me. But that wasn’t why I was questioning this story. Far from it.

I wasn’t some jealous teenager holding a grudge from two years ago. I was simply looking at facts, looking at circumstances, and at a sequence of events that made less and less sense the more I thought about them. If Charlotte’s name had been replaced by anyone else, I would still have asked the same questions. Because the situation itself was suspicious, not just the person involved.

I opened my mouth to say exactly that. But Alastor spoke again before I could. "Charlotte isn’t the same person she was back then. She has changed."

I froze. The certainty in his voice immediately caught my attention.

"She regretted what she did. And she apologized."

Darien nodded slightly beside him. But Kaiser remained silent with no reaction at all.

I stared at them. Something felt strange. Very strange. Not because they were defending Charlotte. That much had already become obvious. No, it was the conviction behind their words. The certainty. The trust. The faith. As though they genuinely believed every word they were saying.

Then Alastor added something else. Something that completely blindsided me. Something I never saw coming and it made my entire body go still.

"She even tried helping you."

I frowned. "What?"

Alastor’s gaze remained fixed on mine. "The night of your birthday. After you left the packhouse, Charlotte sent her own men after you. She wanted them to bring you back safely."

My stomach tightened instantly and a strange feeling crawled up my spine. The room suddenly felt colder. I stared at him, unable to process what I had just heard. Because out of everything I expected to hear tonight, this wasn’t one of them.

It took my brain far too many precious seconds to process what I had just heard. And for a long moment, I simply stared at Alastor. Then, before I could stop myself, I took a step forward and grabbed his arms.

"Say that again." My voice came out sharper than intended, and my fingers tightened around him. "Were you saying the men following me that night were Charlotte’s?"

The question left my mouth, but I immediately shook my head before he could answer. "No. That’s not right." Fragments of that night flashed through my mind. "I saw Luxe," I continued. "And I recognized several of the warriors with him."

Alastor looked momentarily stunned as though he hadn’t expected me to touch him first. But the surprise only lasted a second before he collected himself.

"There were two groups searching for you that night."

I felt my heartbeat stumble. "What?" But even before he answered, I understood what he’s talking about.

"Luxe and the others were my men." His voice remained calm. "They were looking for you."

My grip loosened slightly, then tightened again as I pressed. "And the second group?"

"The second group belonged to Charlotte." Alastor answered. "She brought those men for her own safety, but when she noticed you walking out in the storm, she sent those men after you to make sure you were safe."

I stared at him. I felt unable to speak, unable to think or to breathe properly. I wanted to laugh at his words, but the sound died before it could leave my throat.

Safe.

The word echoed inside my head.

Safe.

All this time... I had believed it was them. I had spent weeks believing the three men standing before me had tried to kill me. I spent these days believing they had hunted me down, and they were the ones who wanted me gone.

And now...

Now I was being told that the people responsible belonged to someone else entirely. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

I released Alastor’s arms and my hands fell limply to my sides. Then I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath to fill my lungs. Then another. I needed to calm down. Needed to think. Needed to stop the chaos threatening to consume my thoughts.

But before I could fully gather myself, Alastor spoke again.

"Charlotte has changed. She thought about your safety. Even knowing your place in our lives."

I opened my eyes.

His expression was serious, almost thoughtful. And that finally cracked something inside me. It wasn’t painful or violent, just enough for a humorless laugh to escape my lips. The sound seemed to surprise all three of them.

I looked directly into Alastor’s eyes and studied him carefully. I tried to understand what exactly I was seeing.

Was he truly convinced Charlotte was a kind person? Had he genuinely convinced himself of that? Or was this simply easier? Easier than accepting another possibility?

I honestly didn’t know. What I did know was that listening to him defend Charlotte felt absurd. Almost laughable.

So I held his gaze and smiled. Not because I found anything funny. But because I didn’t trust myself not to scream otherwise.

"Your mate is indeed a thoughtful woman." My voice was dangerously calm. "So thoughtful that she even tried to kill me."

The words landed between us like a weapon. The room fell silent instantly. It was the kind of silence that felt suffocating.

Darien’s expression froze. Kaiser’s eyes narrowed. Even Alastor went completely still.

Several long seconds passed. Then Darien finally spoke. "What do you mean?"

I turned toward him. And suddenly I was back there - back on that cliff, back in the storm, back in the worst night of my life. I could almost feel the rain against my skin again, the ground beneath my feet, and the terror clawing at my chest.

I swallowed before meeting their gazes one by one. "One of the men chasing me caught up to me near the cliff."

My voice remained steady and cold, almost detached. Because if I allowed myself to truly remember how terrified I had been, I wasn’t sure I could continue speaking.

"And he wasn’t trying to protect me."

The memory surfaced with brutal clarity - the hand, the shove, the sudden loss of balance, and the world disappearing beneath my feet.

I looked directly at Alastor. "He pushed me." The words came out barely above a whisper. Yet somehow they sounded deafening inside the room. "He pushed me off that cliff. Charlotte’s man."