Chapter 71
Clementine:
I watched the color drain from my stepsister’s face. My shoulders started to rise again, my back erect and a confident smile on my lips.
“We should go and speak in private,” my father suggested.
Now that the eyes had turned to my sister, suddenly my father was realizing that the conversation was too private to be mentioned in public. But he had been fine watching me get dragged and embarrassed in front of his guests before.
“Why would we move to the private?” Haiden asked, hands on his waist before they slowly slipped into his pants pockets.
The way he was looking at my father, I bet even my father felt the heat of his gaze. There was no way Haiden was looking at him just for this reason. He was combining the anger in him and showing it through his body language.
“Leysa made a little mistake. So what? She thought it was her pendant.” Of course my stepmother had to chime in. She couldn’t stay quiet for too long, especially when her own daughter was mentioned.
“But where was your tongue when it was about Clementine? And it wasn’t just a mistake. Your daughter accused Clementine of stealing. She’s a crusader. Did you all bring us here just to insult us?” Yorick finally opened his mouth and everybody turned to look at him. I guess they weren’t expecting my dorm mates to be so supportive of me. I understand why. We had this perception that once teenagers or a werewolf are taken to the academy, they pretty much live a lonely, mindless life. They have no friends. They have nothing else going on.
It was once I was in the dorm room that I realized a whole new world, a whole new relationship starts there. It isn’t only about fighting the monsters in the north.
“Well, it was a mistake on behalf of my daughter, but she did not mean ill. Did you not hear her say it was okay?” my stepmother said, looking directly into Yorick’s eyes, almost like she was challenging him to say something in return.
“She repeated herself a few too many times trying to convince us it was okay.” Yorick hissed back.
That was when I felt like we were doing too much. We needed to make it seem like we were happy here and that we weren’t onto them, so we could move on to the next phase of our plan.
“It’s all right. Thank you so much for standing up for me.” I finally started to speak, and I guess that irked my stepmother. I had never been able to speak up for myself. Even though I wasn’t the silent type and would always argue back, I was never given a chance.
Before I could even say something, my father’s warriors would drag me back to the attic and lock me in. But today, they would have to listen to me.
“As for you, Leysa, these diamonds, gold— it’s temporary. I mean, it’s okay for you since you have nothing else to do. So it’s fine. You can stare at them, get ready, and look pretty. But it’s high time you think about your life. You can’t just look pretty. Learn to be a better version of yourself. You can’t just take and take from Father. Make him proud like I did,” I said, tilting my head and looking at my father with a smirk on my lips.
The way he was looking at me, I could almost feel the humiliation in him. That was all it took to humiliate him, to remind him that he used to say I was never the one who would make him proud.
“Well, our crusader has a much bigger heart, it seems.” A clap from the council members made us pull back and look in their direction.
Three council members from a single family stepped up. I knew these people. They were siblings, all now around the age of fifty, but they always had pure white hair and completely grey eyes. They wore white cloaks all the time. The three stood like angels of death.
“Well, I live and learn,” I said to them, giving a dramatic little bow.
“And look at you. We remember you.” One of the council ladies stepped forward.
I guessed she was the oldest of the two. Then there was another sister who stood to the left of their brother. In the middle stood the brother. The siblings were the council, and their family had been in the same position for so long that nobody else could even think of replacing them.
“Yeah, she was once arrested for trying to run away,” the man said from between his two sisters. He was much taller than the two, and very slender too.
“Yes, this is the one who was always mentioned in every pack and every council meeting as the girl who dresses like a boy,” the council member said, and I was surprised they had been talking about me behind my back so many times.
Kudos to my father for always gossiping about me and giving others chances to speak ill of me.
“But I must say, some alphas don’t have an eye for a diamond.” Then the eldest sister stepped forward and walked straight toward me as she gently caressed my cheeks.
“Oh my, you’re so pretty,” she uttered, and that was when I noticed everybody nodding and whispering. So that is why they had been looking at me. Did they really find me attractive?
I was suddenly so proud of myself. My body was feeling so much heat. I began to look around with all smiles.
“Anyway, we should all celebrate before the food turns cold,” my father intervened. Obviously, he had to step in to stop all the appraisal for me. And just like that, everybody started to move away to try the food.
“Thankfully, your father realized that we need to be fed,” Ian commented once we were standing in one group, we crusaders sticking together.
I rolled my eyes at him. He had a plate full of food, and I wondered how he was carrying it in one hand.
I did try some sandwiches, but then I couldn’t help noticing one of the old maids standing next to a younger one. She was probably in her early twenties, and the other looked just like her, but older. So she had to be the mother.
“What are you looking at?” Haiden elbowed me and jolted me awake from staring too hard at the mother and daughter duo.
“They have been talking about my father,” I said, pointing at them.