Reece
Emily was my childhood bestie. We'd done everything together, from causing mischief to playing in muddy water that had our parents grilling us and almost forbidding us from being close to each other. We had cried together, laughed together, endured bullies and bullied right back.
Pack members knew us, they said our friendship was marked in stone and sealed by fate. As youngsters, we never really understood them, only that we enjoyed each other's company and the fact that my father was the Beta of her father who was an Alpha, made things easier for us.
Emily saw me as the brother she wished for but could not get, her own brother was more or less a nightmare to her. She was treated like an outcast by her family, rather than the true daughter of an Alpha and the little sister of a future Alpha.
But I had no issue filling the gap; I was older than her anyway, so there was no trouble there.
I was lucky to have had a father who cared for my well-being, and my elder sister, who was now the wife of a Beta of another pack, did her best for me, especially in trying to fill up the role of our late mother. My family was nicer than Emily's had been and it made me proud of how she'd turned out regardless and I had sworn to never let anything or anyone hurt her.
Even now, staring in the face of the pillager of our pack, who was shockingly our mate, I was ready to make sure no harm came to her, especially not from this devil from Hades who had ruined the good life we had. I wondered why the Moon Goddess gave us this hateful person as a mate.
Ilan - my wolf - was also under the binding mate bond, and I wanted him to snap out of it.
"Ilan, get over it. Stop acting all affectionate toward this varlet," I communicated telepathically to him. I wanted to give this ruffian a piece of my mind, not drool stupidly at him but I would be helpless, unless my wolf was able to pull out of the mate bond.
It worked and Ilan growled and it resonated through me. "Let us go, you evil being!"
"Allow you to go where, my dear mate?" He sneered when referring to me as his mate.
I sneered right back. "Back where we belong," My hands soon balled into fists.
I caught Emily's pleading look; she was still under the mate bond's pull. I ignored her, Emily always wanted peace. She was too quiet and too cheerful to want confrontations. In fact, she hated conflicts. But this was our lives at stake here and I was not going to let go so easily.
He cocked his right brow, an annoying smirk formed on his lips, "You mean you want to return to the ruined and now-desolate pack land?"
"Who made it so?" I gritted my teeth, "Who came into our pack in the early hours of the morning to kill and plunder? To maim and destroy? To keep some alive as slaves, who did all that?"
He merely regarded me with indifference and it vexed me more. I wanted him to react, I wanted him to get incensed, so I could challenge him to a duel.
"Mind how you talk to an Alpha," He spoke in a tone that would normally cause chills to spread along the spine of anyone and make one go reasonably quiet but I was far from being reasonable. He was not reasonable when he trespassed our pack and left it in ruins!
"Or what? What will you do?" I challenged spitefully, "If you were so powerful, you'd not have done what you did the gutless way. You would have challenged the Alpha of my pack to a fight. You'd have declared war on us and seen us defeat you to shame!" I spat at him.
He grabbed my jaw and pressed harder. I pretended it didn't hurt, I refused to let him see my weakness. I would not let him see how much he has broken me.
"Please, let him go," Emily beseeched.
"Don't implore him, let him do his worst! This is what he does, rather than fight like the Alpha he is, he prefers the cowardly way," I said to Emily while staring defiantly at the vile man before me.
Yes, he was getting irate, just as I'd wanted. But the anger soon dissipated, and he let go of my jaw. Amusement filled his eyes instead, and I wondered what was funny.
"You think killing my people and taking the rest of us as slaves is funny? You think it is?" I growled, wishing I could tear this bastard into a million pieces and feed him to snakes!
He rested a hand on my shoulder, looking rather entertained, "I like your fierceness, mate,"
Then he rose, put his hands in his pants' front pockets and turned to walk out of the cell, much to my dismay. This wasn't how things were supposed to pan out. I wanted to fight him and send him to hell, even if I had to go down there with him!
Why was he laughing? Did he see me as a wimp or just some buffoon who provided amusement?
The nerve!
"Get back here! How dare you walk out on me like that, you clod?" I yelled, rushing towards the gate that a guard who just arrived had already locked.
Still undeterred, I shook the bars of the gate hard, my eyes filled with fury.
"Come back here! Are you deaf?"
"You, go and sit down and stop yelling. This isn't a market square!" the glowering guard warned me but I didn't care.
"Tell your coward of a leader to get back here. I'm not yet done with him. How dare he walk out on me?"
Now the guard looked amused, "Because he's Alpha, the most powerful one in existence. An entity you are destined to bow to, till you expire. If it doesn't settle well with you, that's none of our business. If you miss your dead relatives too much, there's always another option. Bite your tongue and go to hell,"
The guard flaunted the huge golden key in his hand at me, a mocking grin surfaced on his face. Then without another word, he left arrogantly.
"Damn it!" I spat through clenched teeth.
Even a mere Omicron wolf looks down on me? How pleasant!
