Scarlett’s POV
I rushed downstairs, my heart hammering against my ribs as the loud, violent crashing sounds grew closer. I sprinted into the main living room, and the sight before me made my blood run cold.
The place was a total disaster zone. Furniture was overturned everywhere. Lamps lay shattered on the floor. The air felt thick and heavy with the suffocating, toxic scent of furious alpha auras.
Leo was locked in a brutal grapple with Liam, his face twisted in pure rage as he threw a heavy punch that caught Liam right in the jaw. Liam fought back defensively, using his forearms to block the next blow and shoving Leo off him with a desperate roar. Leonard stood just a few feet away, arms crossed, his dark brown eyes icy and unmoving as he watched the brawl. Pack guards surrounded them, looking completely panicked. Their hands hovered over their weapons, but none of them dared to move. The pressure from the clashing alpha energies kept everyone frozen in place.
I couldn’t take it anymore. A hot, furious power exploded from deep inside my chest.
"Enough!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. My voice echoed through the massive room with such raw authority that everything instantly went dead silent.
Leo and Liam both froze mid-strike.
I rushed across the room and threw myself right between them. I shoved my hands against Leo’s solid chest and pushed him back, then did the same to Liam, forcing them apart.
"What’s the meaning of this?!" I demanded, my chest heaving as I glared at all three of them.
Liam wiped a fresh smear of blood from his split lip. His green eyes flashed with pure frustration. "I just came downstairs to check on the morning training and watch the warriors, Scar," he breathed out, pointing an angry, shaking finger at his twins. "The moment I stepped into the living room, Leo and Leonard attacked me out of nowhere!"
I whipped around to face the other two, my jaw clenched tight. "Really? You two are ganging up on him now? In the middle of the packhouse?"
"Liam has to apologize," Leonard said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, but his eyes burned with dark fire.
"I am not apologizing for what I did not do!" Liam shouted back, his fists clenching.
I looked between them, my head spinning. "Both of you, just calm down! Stop this right now!"
They completely refused. Their bodies stayed rigid, their expressions locked in stone as they stared right past me to glare at Liam.
Leo took a slow step toward me. His sea-blue eyes scanned my wrinkled clothes, and he realized instantly that I had just come down from Liam’s private wing. A dark, bitter sneer crossed his face, his alpha aura flaring aggressively.
"Calm down, Scarlett?" Leo hissed. "We told you last night that Liam set us up. We came back from a fight where we almost lost our lives out there. And yet, you still went and slept in his room. What’s the real story here? Or were you two the ones who planned it all along? Did you want us dead out there so you could have him to yourself?"
Slap!
The sharp crack echoed through the massive living room like a gunshot.
My hand stung, but I didn’t care. I had struck Leo across the face so hard his head snapped violently to the side. He sounded so foolish, so blinded by jealousy and rage, that I couldn’t hold back the fire in my blood.
"Scar!" Leonard growled, stepping forward to defend his twin. His face hardened with rage. "You are giving us real reasons to think you and Liam are actually in this together."
I stared at the two of them, my heart breaking into a million pieces. These were the same men who had held me so gently just days ago. Now they looked at me with suspicion and hatred. The trust was completely gone.
A furious, quiet calm washed over me, replacing my sadness with pure, unyielding strength.
"You know what?" I spat, looking right into Leo and Leonard’s eyes and letting them see the absolute deadliness in my gaze. "I am temporarily severing my bond with you two."
The moment the words left my mouth, a sharp gasp went through the pack guards standing against the walls.
To the twins, it felt like a total strike straight to the soul. I wasn’t completely cutting the fated mate bond forever — that was impossible. But I was building a thick, solid wall of ice between us. I was shutting them out, cutting them off from feeling my emotions, my warmth, and my mind link completely.
Leo’s head snapped up, his sea-blue eyes widening in pure shock. The red mark from my slap burned brightly on his skin, but the horror on his face had nothing to do with the physical pain. Next to him, Leonard froze, his hard stance breaking as his jaw dropped.
Before they could even speak, I closed my eyes and reached deep inside myself. With a sharp mental slice, I blocked the flow of my feelings to the twins. I locked my heart away from them.
Snap.
A sudden jolt went through my body, and I gasped as the air left my lungs.
Across from me, Leo and Leonard both buckled at the same time. Leo dropped to one knee, holding his chest with a painful groan, while Leonard stumbled backward into a chair, his face turning completely white. Because they could no longer feel my love, my thoughts, or my presence through the bond, I suddenly felt completely dead to them. It was an awful, empty feeling.
"Scarlett... no," Leo choked out, lifting a shaking hand toward me. His deep alpha voice was completely broken. "Please... don’t do this. Let us back in."
"No," I said, my voice cold and hard. Without their messy emotions flooding my head, I actually felt sharper and completely calm. "You want to treat me like an enemy? You want to accuse me of lying and planning your deaths? Fine. Then you don’t get the right to feel my soul."
Leonard looked up at me, his breathing fast and panicked as he gripped the shirt over his heart. The calm, stone-faced alpha was completely gone, replaced by a desperate mate bleeding from the sudden silence in his chest. "Scar, please... it hurts. We are your mates. You can’t just shut us out like this."
"Watch me," I snapped, standing tall. "You two are completely blinded by your anger. You are ready to destroy this family and break Liam over a lie. Until you use your brains, look at the actual facts, and find the real traitor who told the Shadow Pack our secrets, you are completely dead to me."
I turned my back on them, refusing to look at their pained faces for another second. I stepped right up to Liam, who was staring at me with wide eyes and total disbelief. He had never seen me stand up to them like this.
I gently took Liam by the arm. My touch remained warm and fully open to him, our connection completely untouched.
"Come on, Liam," I said softly, my voice completely different from the harshness I had just thrown at his brothers. "Let’s go find the truth ourselves."
Liam nodded without a word, his green eyes shining with love and appreciation. Together, we walked right past the frozen guards and out of the ruined living room, leaving Leo and Leonard drowning in the cold, painful silence of a closed bond.