Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 458

Aurora’s P.O.V

That broke something in Jade. He shook his head violently, as though trying to throw the words out of his skull. “No. No, don’t say that. If it was real, you would have stopped. If it was real, you wouldn’t have ignored me every time I said we aren’t mates. You would have listened! But you didn’t. You only listened to what you wanted.”

“Jade, please…” she reached a trembling hand toward him, but I quickly caught it, holding her back, because the look in his eyes wasn’t just anger, it was devastation.

“Don’t touch me,” Jade whispered hoarsely, his fury giving way to something quieter, darker. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

My breath caught in my throat as the accusation hung in the air, sharp and jagged like broken glass. My eyes darted to Maggie, searching her face for denial, for some spark of outrage that would prove this was nothing more than a lie. But instead, she lowered her head, refusing to meet my gaze.

“Maggie,” I whispered at first, but my voice cracked, so I tried again, louder this time, “Maggie, look at me. Is this true? Did you… did you do anything to Jade?”

She stayed silent, her fingers twisting the hem of her sleeve, her shoulders stiff. That silence was worse than any confession. I felt my chest tighten, and slowly, another piece of the puzzle began to fall into place, clicking together with agonizing clarity. My eyes widened as the realization hit me.

“Oh my God,” I breathed, my voice trembling with fury and disbelief. “It was you. All this time, Jade wasn’t himself… he wasn’t free. You…you kept him under some kind of love spell, didn’t you?”

Her head snapped up at that, her lips parting, but before she could speak, I pushed on, words tumbling out like fire. “And if I’m right, it wasn’t even your magic. It was Ashton’s. He’s the one who cast the spell, and you obeyed him without question, didn’t you? That’s why you’ve always listened to him like some puppet. Am I wrong? Tell me I’m wrong, Maggie!”

Her eyes shimmered, tears threatening to spill, but she didn’t deny it. Her silence was louder than anything she could have said.

I shook my head, disbelief curdling into rage. “How could you?” I demanded, my voice breaking with anger. “How could you stoop so low? How could you force someone to love you? How could you trap Jade in a lie like that?”

Finally, she burst out, her voice raw and desperate. “Because I love him!” Her hands shook as she clutched at her chest, her face blotchy with emotion. “Don’t you get it, Aurora? I did it because I love Jade more than anything! I couldn’t stand watching him look at someone else, I couldn’t…he was supposed to be mine!”

I stared at her, stunned. “Love?” I spat the word like poison. “You call that love? Controlling him, stripping away his choice, his freedom…that’s not love, Maggie, that’s cruelty!”

“You don’t understand!” she shot back, her voice rising. “You’ve never been invisible the way I have, never had your heart crushed under someone else’s shadow! I had to do it, it was the only way he would ever see me…”

“No!” I cut her off, my voice trembling with fury as I stepped closer. “You had a choice, Maggie! You always had a choice! And you chose to steal his will away, to chain him to you like a prisoner! Do you have any idea how wrong that is?”

She shook her head, sobbing now, words spilling in broken pieces. “I just wanted him to love me back… I just wanted to be enough for once in my life. Ashton said it was the only way, he promised me Jade would never look away again…”

That was the final straw. My vision blurred with hot tears, and before I even realized what I was doing, my hand flew across her face, the sound of the slap echoing like a gunshot between us.

Maggie gasped, her cheek already flushing red where my palm had struck her. She stared at me, wide-eyed, as though she couldn’t quite believe I had actually done it.

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed, my whole body shaking. “Don’t you dare stand there and call what you did love. You’ve destroyed him. You’ve destroyed yourself. And if Ashton told you this was the only way, then you’re more of a fool than I ever imagined.”

Her lips trembled, her tears finally spilling freely. “Aurora…” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Please…”

Her sobs filled the silence that followed, but for me, there was no pity left, only the bitter weight of betrayal.