Free Web NovelChapter 80: Chapter 80 Immense Shame
_Author’s POV_
Kaelen walked in and the energy he brought with him was not the energy of a man who had come to observe or to quietly make his presence known. It was the energy of a man who had made a decision on the drive over and had committed to it fully and was not interested in reconsidering.
He stopped in the middle of the room and looked at Rowena.
"We’re going home," he blurted out shamelessly that even Shade had to hide in shame.
The room went completely silent as they watched the intruding Alpha. A few of the men began wondering just why powerful alphas that weren’t on the list suddenly began trooping in.
Rowena turned to face him slowly.
"Kaelen," she said. Her voice was very quiet.
"You’re still my wife," he said, loudly enough that every person in the room heard it clearly. "This whole evening, this selection, all of it, it’s theater. It doesn’t mean anything. You’re coming home with me."
Nana Seraphine had gone very still near the window.
Celeste was already moving.
Rowena held up one hand slightly and Celeste stopped.
"Lower your voice," Rowena said. She took two steps toward him, closing enough of the distance between them that the next part could be said without the whole room needing to hear every word, though the whole room was going to hear it regardless because the silence was absolute. "Look around this room, Kaelen. Look at where you are and who is in it."
He looked. Briefly. His eyes moved across the ten young men, across Nana Seraphine, across Celeste, across the staff and the guests and the formal setting of an occasion that he had just walked into uninvited and unannounced.
His eyes stopped when they reached Alaric.
Something moved across his face. Surprise, recalibration, and then stubbornness of a man who had come too far to retreat gracefully.
"The Alpha King is standing in this room," Rowena said, still quietly and in a controlled tone. "You are an Alpha. You have a title and a pack and a reputation. Do you want to do this here? In front of him? In front of everyone?"
"I don’t care who’s here," Kaelen said.
"You should," she said. "You absolutely should." She looked at him steadily. "I am not your wife. I have not been your wife since the dissolution decree was registered and signed and filed in the Alpha King’s office. That is a legal fact. What you are doing right now is walking into my family’s home during a private event and making a scene that you cannot undo."
"Rowena—"
"I’m not finished," she said, and something in her voice changed, lost the careful management it had been carrying. "You left me. You left on our wedding night and you didn’t come back for three years and when you did come back you brought another woman into the house and announced her publicly and refused my request for a divorce. You made me go to the Alpha King’s office to get what you should have given me the moment I asked." She paused.
The room absorbed that.
Virella’s name hadn’t been said but everyone who needed to understand the weight of what had just been said understood it.
"We’re done, Kaelen," Rowena said. "Every tie. Every thread. Every remaining connection between you and me and this family. Done. I want you to hear that clearly."
“We’re not done until I say so.” Kaelen gritted out.
From across the room, Vicky’s voice rose.
"Have you lost your mind?" She was looking at Kaelen with an expression that had left diplomacy behind entirely. "She gave your family everything. Everything. And you show up here like this?"
"Who do you think you are?" Miriam’s voice joined hers. "She suffered in your house for years. She managed your pack while you were gone living your life somewhere else. She came to your family’s door when your grandmother needed medicine and you sent men after her."
"You’re embarrassing yourself," Vicky said. "You’re embarrassing your title and your pack and you’re standing in the Alpha King’s presence doing it."
Kaelen turned toward the guards who had begun moving in from the sides of the room.
"Don’t," one of them said.
Kaelen hit the first one before the word was finished.
The guard went back hard and the room erupted into chaos that comes when a physical confrontation breaks out in a formal space.
Guests moved back. Someone knocked over a floral arrangement. Two more guards came in and Kaelen took both of them because he was of course a trained Alpha who had real combat experience and was running on adrenaline and wounded pride simultaneously.
He was strong. That was the honest truth of it.
He moved through the guards quickly and the room had opened up around him and for a moment he was standing in the middle of the Ashthorne banquet hall with three guards on the floor and the look of a man who had convinced himself this meant something.
Alaric had straightened from where he’d been standing.
He was about to move when Kasper came through the side entrance.
Kasper didn’t announce himself. He didn’t say anything at all. He wasn’t head of Ashthorne security for nothing. He just crossed the space between himself and Kaelen with a directness that gave Kaelen approximately two seconds of warning before they made contact.
What followed was considerably less clean than Kaelen’s handling of the guards had been.
Kasper was not working on pride or adrenaline. He was working on training and focus and a very thorough personal motivation, and he fought well. It wasn’t easy but he knew Kaelen’s mind was all over the place, which gave him the leverage he needed. freewebnσvel.cøm
Kaelen went down.
Not immediately. He was an Alpha and he had real strength and the fight took long enough to be genuine. But he went down.
Kasper stepped back.
The room was breathing hard in shock. All the men never expected things to turn out this way on the selection day.
Alaric walked forward.
He stopped in front of Kaelen, who was on one knee on the floor of the Ashthorne banquet hall, and looked down at him with an expression that had none of the rage in it that had been driving the evening. It was colder than rage. More considered.
"Get up," Alaric said.
Kaelen got up slowly.
"You are an Alpha of this region," Alaric said. His voice was even and carried to every corner of the room without him raising it. "You are subject to the laws of this region and to the authority of this office. The dissolution decree issued for this marriage was filed, reviewed, and registered through proper legal channels and carries the full weight of imperial law." He looked at Kaelen without blinking. "Entering this residence uninvited and disrupting a private event hosted by the Marchioness of Ashthorne is a violation of that decree. Assaulting staff on these premises compounds it." Yeah, he did same, but Kaelen was extra.
Kaelen said nothing.
"You also," Alaric continued, and his voice dropped slightly, not quieter but more precise, "left your wife. That is a matter between you and your household and I will not speak to it publicly beyond saying that it tells me everything I need to know about your judgment tonight."
The silence in the room was complete.
"You will leave this residence now," Alaric said. "You will present yourself to the regional authority’s office within forty-eight hours to respond formally to the decree violation. And you will not approach the Marchioness, her family, or this property again without explicit legal authorization." He paused. "Do you understand me?"
Kaelen looked at Rowena once.
She looked back at him without expression.
He looked at the floor. freёwebnovel.com
"Yes," he said.
"Then go."
He obeyed, but of course he didn’t leave.
He had already sworn to get Rowena, so why should he leave?
The media was everywhere with thei cameras set as they recorded the entire event live.
Virella and the others watched how miserable Kaelen looked, how pathetic he looked while begging Rowena. He had brought immense shame to their household.
