Alpha's Rejected becomes the Lycan's Obsession
Chapter 126: I don’t need you anymore

Chapter 126: I don’t need you anymore

The crisp morning air seeped in through the door and opened windows, whispering promises of safety now that the night’s terrors had passed. Yet, inside the dimly house, the tension was suffocating.

"There is nothing for us to talk about. It is morning now, no longer unsafe outside. You should return to your land," She said flatly, her voice low and sharp as steel, her eyes holding fire and contempt. The moment her uncle stepped out of the cabin, she had turned to deliver those cutting words, as if she had been holding them in, waiting for the first opportunity to hurl them at Williams.

Her tone was firm, unyielding. A decision had already been made in her mind. She didn’t want him here. She didn’t want him anywhere around her and his presence was putting her on edge.

After delivering her piece, she spun on her heel toward the door, her movements brisk, mechanical even.

But Williams was faster. Before she could step into the light of the breaking day, he crossed the distance between them in two swift strides and reached for her. His hand closed around her wrist. It wasn’t a forceful grab, but it was firm enough to stop her from taking another step.

He pulled her back slightly, his fingers curling gently around her arm as he drew her halfway into the room again.

"First you welcome me with a dagger, now you act like you can’t wait to get rid of me. What is going on, Dera? Did I do something to you that I am unaware of?" Williams asked, his voice tight, tinged with confusion and an edge of hurt.

His eyes searched hers, hoping for some flicker of understanding, some sign of what had changed. But instead, what he saw in her gaze chilled him more than any dagger ever could.

It was fear. Raw, unfiltered fear.

It shimmered behind her irises like moonlight trembling on the surface of disturbed water. It wasn’t just in her eyes, but it was radiating off her, pulsing from her in waves he could feel in his bones. A visceral, uncontrollable fear that didn’t belong in her. Not Dera. Not the girl who once leapt across rooftops with him, jumped off cliffs into deep waters, laughing at danger.

And it wasn’t fear of him. No, it was something else entirely. Something she couldn’t name, or wouldn’t.

Her gaze dropped to where his hand still held hers, and when she looked back up, the panic had sharpened behind her eyes.

"Let go off my hand, Williams," she said, her brows knitting together, her voice steady but laced with something deeper. He couldn’t stand if it was anger, or even frustration. He had never struggled to understand anyone in the past, especially not Dera. So we couldn’t fathom what was going on at that point.

He released her instantly, as if her skin had suddenly burned him.

"What happened to you? What did Casper do to you?" Williams asked, his voice rising slightly, the spark of anger flickering to life behind his words. The realization that her fear may have been born from whatever hell she went through under Casper’s hold ignited something dark in him.

Dera’s eyes narrowed. "Oh, so you knew it was Casper?" she asked, her brows lifting in a sardonic arch, her voice sharp with accusation.

"I didn’t know anything. You just disappeared and everybody made it seem like you intentionally ran away from home. I have been searching for you all these years, not until Charlotte told me what happened," Williams explained quickly, frustration creeping into his tone. He needed her to understand. She had to know he hadn’t given up on her, because her words were suggesting that was what she was thinking.

"So it was Charlotte?" Dera asked, her voice colder now, like a blade pulled straight from the snow. The bitterness that settled on her face was unmistakable. It was disappointment and betrayal. Her jaw clenched as she nodded her head slowly. "I should have known she would be the one to sell out my location to you after swearing to me she wouldn’t."

"Charlotte did not sell you out. She didn’t even give me a hint of where you might be. I figured that out myself," Williams corrected firmly, pushing back against the narrative that had taken root in her mind. He wouldn’t let her believe a lie, not when it was driving a wedge between her and the truth.

Dera was silent for a long, tense moment. Her frown deepened, lines appearing on her forehead as she studied him, like she was seeing him for the first time.

"Took you long enough," she finally muttered, turning her face away from him.

And just like that, his suspicion was confirmed. She had thought he’d abandoned her. That all these years, she’d been suffering alone because he chose not to come.

"I had to use blood magic, Dera. You know what that shit does to me," Williams said, his voice low, almost pleading. The admission alone made his chest tighten.

Her response was dry, stripped of all emotion.

"Yeah, I know what it does to you. But you used it in the end, didn’t you? If you ended up using it, why didn’t you use it sooner? Why now?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly at the edges, though she tried to keep it steady. Her eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with the last embers of something once tender now burned away by time and pain.

Before Williams could get a word in, she pushed on, her voice hardening into something resolute, final.

"I don’t need you anymore, Williams. I don’t need your help, neither do I want you around. So please do us all a favor and leave," she said.

He took a step back, her words slamming into his chest like a battering ram. But he didn’t let them crush him. Not yet.

"That’s not true, Dera. You do need my help. But yeah... I need your help much more than you need mine. The entire werewolf community, maybe the entire world right now, needs your help," Williams said, his voice dropping, heavy with the weight of what he was about to say.

Dera’s brows furrowed, confusion flashing across her face.

"What are you talking about?" she asked cautiously.

"Casper is up and about again. He regained consciousness a few weeks ago and is already creating an army, an undefeatable army," Williams revealed, his words deliberate, each one like a stone thrown into the still waters of her calm.

Dera stared at him as if he’d just grown two heads.

"You are lying, Williams. It doesn’t suit you," she said, her tone dismissive, almost mocking. Her arms folded across her chest like armor.

"You think I’ll come all the way here to lie to you?" Williams shot back, incredulous.

"Charlotte told me that he will never regain consciousness," Dera replied firmly, her voice laced with certainty, as if speaking it aloud would make it remain true.

"Charlotte lied to you," Williams said simply.

The air between them seemed to tighten. Dera’s breath hitched, and her heart stuttered in her chest. She didn’t respond at first. Her mind raced, clinging to everything Charlotte had ever told her, trying to find a lie that matched the truth now standing in front of her.

"Why do you think I would invest my time in finding Charlotte if the situation wasn’t serious?" Williams pressed, and that was when he saw it. Panic, raw and rising, taking root in her chest. It was in the way her fingers began to tremble slightly, the way her shoulders stiffened like they were bracing for a storm.

"No... it’s you who is lying," Dera said, shaking her head violently, trying to dispel his words like water from her skin.

"You’re panicking, and you’ve not even heard the worst of it." Williams sighed, hating every second of this.

"I know Charlotte made you perform a spell known as the Sirioni spell, and that was what put Casper in a coma. But what she did not tell you is that the items used for that spell were not complete. One thing was missing. And because of that one thing, the spell couldn’t hold for long. That’s not all, Dera..."

His voice dropped lower, solemn now.

"Now that he’s awake, because of that spell, he has become unkillable," he said, the final word hanging in the air like a death sentence.

Dera’s world shattered.

She screamed.

"Noooo... you are lying to me. Stop it, Williams. Stop it!" she cried, the sound jagged with denial. Her voice cracked as her hands flew to both sides of her head, fingers clutching at her scalp like she was trying to keep herself from unraveling entirely. Her knees buckled slightly, her body reacting before her mind could make sense of the nightmare that had just clawed its way into her reality.

Williams reached for her, but stopped himself. There was nothing he could say to soften the blow.