Chapter 191 Pierre and Ezekiel Scandal
_Pierre’s POV_
The next morning, even before the sun came up, actual paparazzi photographs from the club hit the internet. It was a picture of me kissing Ezekiel and honestly, I didn’t fully remember the night.
The camera of whoever owned it had captured it in a clear, close, and unmistakable way that I couldn’t even deny it if I wanted to.
There was no way to deny it, no way to claim it was an illusion, and no way to brush it off as a damn mistake. It was so bold and my face was visible, I couldn’t even claim it was edited.
The image spread across the internet faster than the photographs of Kaelen and Rowena had the day before. The subject matter was far more combustible, I was Pierre Ashford, the Alpha of my pack, and I had been photographed in a public passionate embrace with another man. A man!
By midmorning, the news had reached every major pack news channel. By the afternoon, it had spread into the wider werewolf community networks across the entire region.
The public responses split immediately and so harshly down the middle. A good portion of the younger crowd and modern wolves did not care at all, they all scrolled past it, finding it completely irrelevant to my ability to lead or anything that actually mattered.
But a very significant and extremely loud amount of the community cared deeply.
Particularly, the older and more traditional members of my own pack reacted with strong outrage, their response was anything but quiet. They viewed the traditional role of an Alpha as something rigid, tied strictly to old expectations and traditional mate bonds.
By the evening, formal murmurs began to come out from within the leadership circles of my pack, the council elders and senior pack members began questioning whether my position as Alpha was still compatible with what they saw in that photograph.
The word dethrone appeared in three separate pack forum threads before the sun even went down, and my phone wouldn’t stop ringing, for the first time in my life, I was actually scared.
How had I let this happen?
When I glanced at my phone again, I saw the caller ID and froze. Aria Ashford, my mother.
I took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and pressed it to my ear. "Hello, Mother."
The call was not kind.
Mother was never a person who shouted, she barely screamed, raised her voice, or lost her temper. But her deep disappointment came through the speaker in a way that was far worse than shouting.
It was too cold to handle, she sounded too disappointed as if I’d ruined her life goals, which maybe I did.
"Is it true, Pierre?" she asked, her voice was flat and completely devoid of warmth.
"Yes," I answered simply. I didn’t try to lie, and I didn’t try to make excuses. What is the use of lying now? "It is true."
Silence stretched over the line, she didn’t yell, she just went dead quiet. It was the kind of silence that meant she was organizing her thoughts into something harsh that she could use against me later.
"I will call you back when I am ready to speak," she said coldly, and the line went dead.
I set the phone back on the wooden table, rubbing my temples.
Ezekiel had actually found out about the photograph before I even woke up. He had seen it on his phone early in the morning according to him. He texted that he sat with the shock of it for a few minutes, and then dialed my number.
But by the time his name popped up on my screen, I already knew. Someone from my pack council had sent me the link at six in the morning with a demanding message attached to it.
When Ezekiel and I spoke on the phone, the conversation was far from easy.
"I saw the news," Ezekiel had said, his voice filled with genuine concern. "Are you okay, Pierre? I’m really sorry about this.” He apologized in a calm voice which Ezekiel was never this calm.
"I’m handling it," I replied, staring out the window of my room. "But my pack is spiraling."
"I am not going anywhere," Ezekiel said firmly through the line suddenly. "I want you to know that, I’m right here with you."
"I need time to deal with my pack before I can think about anything else," I told him honestly. The pressure on my chest was tightening by the hour. "They are already talking about challenging my rank. I have to contain this before it destroys everything I’ve built."
"I understand," Ezekiel said. "It doesn’t change anything for me, Pierre. What happened last night... it was real. The news doesn’t change how I feel."
"I know," I found myself saying instead of lashing out, but I was scared. "I know it doesn’t, but let’s end things. I’ll call you later."
"Pierre.....”
I ended the call before he could say anything and tossed the phone onto the bed.
There was no time to nurture his wounds. Deep down, I felt that Ezekiel was a bad influence for me. I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him, now everything was already a mess.
How do I explain to my pack council that the kiss meant nothing?
Again, who would believe it meant nothing?
I picked up the phone and watched the video again, seeing the way I kissed Ezekiel back like my life depended on it.
Even I wouldn’t believe it wasn’t a real thing, and the craziest part was that I felt a sudden heat spread through my body at the sight of the two of us kissing passionately.