Marked by Another at Our Wedding Chapter 06

Marked by Another at Our Wedding Chapter 06

The wedding procession soon arrived at Xander’s pack.

During a brief break for makeup, I grabbed my phone. As soon as I turned it on, a flood of messages poured in.

All of them were from Thorne:

“Ophelia, can you please answer the phone?”

“Ophelia, I was wrong, please come back! Don’t marry someone else!”

“I’m begging you, come back! I can’t lose you…”

There were countless missed calls and messages. And to my surprise, Liora had also sent me a message.

But her message was filled with nothing but provocation:

“Ophelia, today is the day Thorne and I are getting married. He was afraid you’d cause trouble, so he deliberately kept you away.”

“If you have any self-respect, you should sever the mate bond with him and stop clinging to him.”

“The one who isn’t loved is the real outsider, Ophelia. Do you honestly believe Thorne stays with you out of love? Please. He stays out of pity.”

Her voice dropped to a venomous whisper. “Open your eyes—he fell out of love with you long ago. You’re worn out, dull, predictable. But with me? He feels alive. Excited. Like he can finally breathe.”

A cruel smirk twisted her lips. “Face it—you’re just a bitter, dried-up

—

relic of his past. He told me himself—your touch makes his skin crawl.”

I looked at those taunting words and only felt she was way too childish.

It seemed like Liora and Thorne’s so-called love wasn’t as solid as they made it seem. Otherwise, as the victorious party, she should be holding herself above me, not sending these provoking messages that would only disclose her insecurity.

This wasn’t the first time Liora had provoked me. The last time she did it so directly was when I brought lunch to Thorne for the last time.

In his early days running the pack, Thorne drank his stress away, which ended up ruining his stomach, so I tried to make healthy meals for him.

After Liora became his maid, she would cook for him under the pretense of saving time due to pack duties.

She never hid her actions from me. With sickening sweetness, she’d say, “You and the Alpha have been so kind to me. It’s only right I look after him – after all, a good maid tends to her master’s every need.”

At first, it set my teeth on edge. There was something…off about the way she inserted herself between us.

But Thorne just shrugged it off. “Relax, she’s just trying to show gratitude,” he said, barely looking up from his paperwork. “What am I supposed to do, throw her food in her face? Yours is better anyway.”

He reached for my hand with that infuriating, easy smile. “Come on, don’t make this into something it’s not.”

—

But his words didn’t comfort me. I still felt uneasy.

Thorne noticed my feelings, so he immediately called Liora into the office.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and said to Liora, “Liora, you don’t need to bring me meals anymore—just focus on your own work. Ophelia’s got my meals covered.”

Liora’s eyes instantly welled up with tears. She looked like a child who had done something wrong, trembling, on the verge of crying.

She bowed deeply to me and apologized, “I’m sorry, Ophelia. I only did it to thank Alpha. If I’ve made you uncomfortable, I apologize. Ophelia, I’m really sorry. You can punish me or whatever, but please don’t be mad at Alpha because of me.”

Her attitude made me frown instinctively. I felt incredibly uncomfortable.

I expressed my concerns to Thorne, but he still argued that I was overreacting.

“Look, I’ve told Liora to stop bringing me lunch. Let’s not worry about it anymore. Cheer up, Ophelia.”

His words silenced any further arguments I had.

Things returned to normal after that. Liora didn’t do anything else out of line, and I gradually let my guard down, thinking maybe I had overthought things.

I actually started feeling guilty for misjudging her. In some twisted way, I convinced myself I’d been unfair. So I went out of my way to tell

—

Thorne, “Make sure Liora’s doing alright with the pack. Go easy on her with work assignments.”

Everything might have continued like that – me playing the understanding mate, her playing the grateful maid – if I hadn’t fallen ill that winter. For two solid weeks, fever kept me bedridden, too weak to prepare Thorne’s lunches.

That’s when the mask finally slipped.