Chapter 18
Valerie’s POV
Cleaning the pack house was more tiring than I had expected. The house was so big that it would require a whole crew to finish cleaning in a few hours, but I had to do it alone.
Mike had transferred all the workers who had been responsible for cleaning before.
The only thing that changed was that someone would bring me food twice a day. So, unlike before when I was starving even though I worked in the kitchen, I ate at least two meals a day.
However, comparing the small food portion to the amount of work I was doing, there was no difference from starving. But I didn’t have the luxury of complaining.
On the third day after walking in on Mike and Innocent doing the deed without shame, Innocent came to me while I was cleaning the living room.
She picked up the bucket of the already dirty water I had used to mop the floor and dumped it on my head.
I had just stood up when I heard movement behind me, so all that water drenched my whole body.
It was a cold morning and the chilling water almost made me scream, but my conditioning over the years forces me to stay silent.
I turned around to see who was so bored that they had come to torture me so early in the morning and was met with a heavy slap on my face.
Innocent was wearing huge rings and I had reason to believe that she had worn them just to use them as weapons against me.
She was wearing the rings with their crowns on the inside of the palm. So, when she slapped me, those rings tore at my skin and I could now feel blood trickling from the cuts the rings had just made on my face.
“How dare you steal my necklace?” Innocent shouted at the top of her lungs.
No one would associate this girl shouting like a shrew with the graceful one she always presented to everyone.
“What necklace?” I asked in confusion while using my cold and wet hands to wipe off the blood from my face.
But it was futile because Innocent had used quite a bit of strength and the cuts were too deep.
If I didn’t have Lizzie to help me heal later, it would leave life-long scars that would alter my looks forever.
“Don’t pretend to be damp. Apart from you, no one else entered my room yesterday. You must have stolen the necklace while cleaning yesterday.” Innocent insisted and because people had started walking into the room, alerted by her earlier shout, she now looked aggrieved as if she had been wronged.
Nothing like the shrew who had just slapped me without a word and ruined my face.
But I couldn’t care about my face at that moment because the crime of stealing would get me into a lot of trouble.
And by the way Innocent was reacting it must be an expensive necklace.
“I cleaned your room yesterday, but I didn’t see any necklace. How could I steal something I haven’t even seen?” I defended myself. I couldn’t carry the branding of a thief.
All these years, even though I had been tortured many times, sometimes for nothing at all but the reason that someone felt I was breathing too loudly, I had never been accused of stealing.
Because I was very careful. Even if I found something valuable someone had dropped, I wouldn’t even dare to pick it up to return to them, because it might be a trap.
So, there is no way I would have taken Innocent’s necklace.
“Stop squabbling. You took that necklace. It was my seventeenth birthday gift from Mike. Why did you have to take it? If you wanted a necklace so badly, I could have lent you one. After all, I already have so much jewelry.” Innocent started playing the generous card she had played in the pack for years to gain everyone’s support as the future Luna.
Just as I was about to defend myself again, Mike walked over and looked at my bleeding face. I thought that he would feel a bit of sympathy since even if he refused to acknowledge our bond, he was still my fated mate, but boy, was I wrong.
All I saw was disgust as if the simple act of looking at my face made him nauseous. It was a look I was used to, but now that I knew he was my mate, it still hurts.
In fact, for some reason, that look hurt me more than I cared to admit. It hurt like a bitch and all I could do was lower my head so that he doesn’t see the pain and hurt in my eyes.
“What’s happening here?” He asked.
He didn’t even care that my face was hurt and bleeding. He walked over to Innocent who was shading crocodile tears and wiped her tears as if she was the most precious thing in the world.
“Who made you sad baby? Tell me, I will get justice for you.” Mike asked Innocent while looking at her as if she was the only thing in the world he could see.
“The necklace you gave me for my seventeenth birthday is gone. I don’t know why Valerie would take it. If she had asked, I could have given her another one, but that was a gift from you.” Innocent seemed to emphasize the fact that the necklace was from Mike with ulterior motives.
As expected,Mike explodes the next second. He didn’t even ask me if it was true. He didn’t listen to my side of the story. He took Innocent’s one sided statement as the truth and directly convicted me.
Murmurs about me being a thief could be heard from the people standing around us forming a small crowd in the living room.
Some were snickering and calling me the pack’s disgrace. Others were mocking me for overestimating my value and thinking that I was qualified to take something that belonged to a goddess like Innocent.