"Alia, hey, wait up,"
Alia turned around and saw Ryan jogging towards her from a distance.
She didn’t stop.
She kept walking a little slower so he could catch up easily.
"What is it?" She asked when he reached her.
Ryan took deep breaths before handing out an invitation to her.
Alia held the invitation and read the headline, her brows raising.
"It’s our mother’s birthday. We would be glad if you could co," Ryan said.
The girl stopped and turned to look at the man. He was looking at her hopefully as if she were one precious friend to them.
Her heart moved at his gaze. She knew that the forr Luna of the Ashborn pack was bedridden. It was rumored that after their pack was attacked and the forr alpha was killed in an ambush, Luna couldn’t bear the pain.
A paralytic attack rendered her unable to walk or move on the bed.
That was also one reason why the triplets turned out to be troublemakers. It was their coping chanism.
After all, they never hurt anyone intentionally.
"You will co, right? We are only calling close family and friends," Ryan said.
Alia smiled at him.
"I will try to co." She didn’t make a definite promise.
After all, she must ask her husband if she should go.
"We’ll be waiting for you," Ryan said, and Alia was about to reply when Hannah’s voice stopped her.
"Alia," Hannah walked to the girl, holding her hand to appear affectionate.
Alia stood there. She took a deep breath to control her emotions before smiling at her sister.
She still needed to pretend to know the higher motive behind their sudden betrayal. Was it just jealousy, or was there a bigger conspiracy underlying?
"Why are you not saying anything? Are you still mad about what happened at the Joint Council? Father has forgiven you for burning the laboratory," Hannah said.
Hannah always had a way with words. She deliberately twisted the facts before another alpha to put her in a difficult position.
The girl just couldn’t see Alia getting any attention from anyone.
Alia smiled at this. She turned to look at Ryan, who, surprisingly, didn’t have a judgntal expression.
Did he trust her? Her gaze t with the man briefly, who nodded in understanding.
"Forgiveness is for those who have committed any cri. I didn’t burn the laboratory, nor was there any evidence," Alia scrunched her brows, tears welling in her eyes as she pretended to be hurt.
It took two to play this ga. If her sister could pretend to be pitiful, so could she.
Hannah stood rooted at her place.
"Right. I am sorry. I forgot," She said awkwardly when she saw Alpha Killian walking towards them.
Alia also felt his presence, and rembering what she had to endure because of him, she tasted bitterness in her mouth.
It was epic that she was suffering even after staying away from him. He was truly a bane for her.
"What are you guys doing here?" Alpha Killian asked, his gaze lingering on Alia a little longer.
"Sister Hannah, I’ll leave if you have nothing to say. I have a lecture next and it will start in 10 minutes," Alia wanted to leave already, but Hannah held her hand.
"I need your help," Hannah said, puckering her lips.
"All the data I had collected about the assignnt I was preparing to submit burned in the laboratory. Now I don’t know where to start and how to do it again. It took the entire week. Please help with it. You are a prodigy. It won’t be hard for you," Hannah said.
Ryan raised his brows at the girl’s shaless words.
Just because Alia was a prodigy, should she help her sister? What kind of reasoning was it? And how could she forget everything if she was the one who did it?
Also, as long as he heard, wasn’t this assignnt conducted to check a healer’s ability and rank them?
She had been working on it for a week? What a joke! The classes started a week ago, and the assignnt was introduced two days ago. So, unless she had internal links, there was no way she was preparing for it that long.
Ryan was about to interrupt when Killian beat him to it.
"Alia, I saw Hannah working hard on experints day and night. She is telling you the truth," the alpha said.
Alia smiled.
She knew that even if no one spoke, this lap dog of Hannah would speak up.
Did he see her working day and night on the experints?
She suppressed the urge to scoff.
"Okay. I will help you. I told you I love you the most, didn’t I?" Alia said, smiling at Hannah, who smirked inwardly as her tricks worked.
"It’s great that you decided to help your sister, Alia. It’s for–" Killian started, but the girl looked at him in disdain, making him pause.
"Alpha Killian, with all due respect, don’t you have anything better to do than roam around us healers?" Alia asked before turning around and leaving a stupefied Killian and a flabbergasted Hannah.
Ryan pressed his lips into a thin line to control his laughter as his cheeks ached.
"What is that?" Hannah asked as she looked at the invitation in Ryan’s hand that he was giving out to his friends.
Seeing another alpha standing before him, it would be rude not to invite him. Alia already wounded his ego pretty badly.
With this thought, Ryan invited them to the birthday party before leaving to catch up with Alia again.
"Alpha Killian, don’t take my sister’s words to heart. You know she has been peachy after that ditch incident because she blas us for leaving there. She had been too shocked," Hannah tried to reason.
Killian, however, only looked at her before leaving.
Though Alia’s words were cold, they were indeed true. Why did he find himself getting entangled between the sisters repetitively?
While it was amazing in the beginning to gain the respect from both as he had an option to choose while enjoying their hospitality, it was starting to beco a thorn in his heart, not to ntion how Alia’s indifference was hurting him these days.
"Not everyone deserves your kindness. This world is a wicked place. Just because they are family doesn’t an you have to help them. She was clearly lying, and Killian was supporting her. How can you be so naive? It makes want to be protective of you," Ryan said to Alia as they entered the class together.
Alia looked at the man briefly before choosing the seat in the farthest corner near the window.
She thought he would take his usual seat between his friends in the middle row, but to her surprise, he sat next to her, and Alia sighed.
"What?" She asked him why he kept looking at her.
"Didn’t you hear just now?" He asked.
He wanted her to know that her sister was deceiving her because, from what he saw, Alia was a good person.
"I heard it. Don’t worry. I just want to help her," Alia dismissed his concern.
Though she was pretending to be naive, she was smirking inside.
Who better than her could know how cunning her sister was and what kind of foxy plan she devised? This world was a wicked place? Surely. She already experienced it once and lost her life for it.
She indeed agreed to help Hannah because she would help her uniquely this ti.
Since the girl wanted to use her mind to lift herself, she would do it properly. And it was just her luck that this ti Hannah, in desperation, asked for help, not only before her lapdog Killian but before Alpha Ryan too.
And the man looked like soone who could be used later to prove her innocence.
She concentrated on the lecture while different plans ford in her head about what kind of assignnt she would submit in Hannah’s na.
It would be top-quality, for sure. She wasn’t soone who would ss with her talent, but could Hannah handle that kind of top-quality experint?
Alia chuckled suddenly.
Ryan looked at the girl, finding her weird with each passing second.
Why did it feel like he was looking at so kind of psycho more than a kind girl? What kind of dark chuckle was that?
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