When we got home, I realised that Samantha had actually gone home, not just to do the laundry and have a change of clothes but to clean up my room, so that it would smell fresh and look welcoming when I got home. There were flowers everywhere, most of them, Sundrops, lilies and roses.
'Samantha, thanks so much for this', I smiled at her.
'Alpha Sylvester made this possible. We got these flowers from his garden', Samantha whispered to me.
'Really?' I whispered, shocked. Was this not the same garden he didn't want anyone entering? My close shove with death must have made him feel very guilty especially since it was his love that brought it on and he just wanted to relieve his conscience.
'Yes', Samantha was saying. 'Alpha Christopher asked that we go to the florist and get the best flowers to decorate your room and the entire palace for the special occasion of your homecoming but Alpha Sylvester forestalled and asked us to take them from his garden and make sure we make the whole place look more beautiful than it had ever been'.
'I must say, I'm surprised because Sylvester normally doesn't allow people into his garden!' I said, shaking my head incredulously at what I had heard.
'Are you telling me?' Samantha asked. 'I know about the reserved area. Are you forgetting I was formally living here in this pack?' she asked. 'And what a garden it is. I've never seen such a garden before. All the wonderful flowers are there!' she gushed. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was talking about the man and not the garden.
'Please take good care of her, Samantha', Christopher said, touching me slightly on the shoulder and when I looked at him, he smiled at me and I smiled back at him.
Sylvester had gone into his room as soon as we got into the mansion, asking Samantha to help me dress for the party. I was to come down when I had rested enough. The party was going to go ahead, the Alphas were celebrating my recovery from a death threatening ordeal.The maids left as soon as Alpha Christopher took his leave.
'You are so lucky to have such a male as your mate', she said, no longer whispering. 'In fact, see how the two most handsome and powerful men in this pack and indeed all around the packs, are falling over each other to win your heart. Your fortune has indeed changed!'
'You don't know the half of it!' I said, remembering the first and only time I had been in the garden. I hadn't seen it's glory as Samantha was describing it, because I was not concentrating on it then but had been shocked at what I had overheard and was anxious to get away before being made a scape goat.
'That is because you have decided not to confide in me!' Samantha said, looking at me oddly.
'Samantha', I said, sitting on the bed and being propped up, with my head on the pillow. 'I am sorry. I never meant to keep anything from you. But you see, the situation at that time required me to say as less as I could possibly say about my past'.
'You allowed all to threat you like a maid when you were actually a princess. I don't think I could endure that. But I had thought we were really close', she said, and I could hear the hurt in her voice. 'I confided everything in you. You could not reciprocate?'
'I have said that I am sorry. I didn't want the word to go round but I also didn't want you to find out this way', I said 'but since you have found out, I shall tell you the rest!'
'Maybe we should leave it till after the party?' Samantha asked, looking at the clock on the wall.
'I'd rather tell it now than later. The party can hold or go on without me. You are more important'.
Samantha smiled and we hugged. I then went ahead to tell her about the Crescent Pack, where I was born and from where Alpha Sylvester got me. I told her how my pack was destroyed and my parents murdered. 'The rest you know. You were a witness to how he has maltreated me. That night of his engagement to Cathania, he nearly raped me and made me watch as he mated with her, them kicked me away, literally, after rejecting me as his mate!'
Samantha was shocked after hearing all this. 'You had to endure all this alone, when you could have unburdened yourself by sharing your pains with me', she said.
'Thank you, my dear Samantha but apart from not wanting the word to go out,about my pack, I wanted to spare you all this. You were sharing too much of my burdens and I knew you had yours too'.
'But Alpha Sylvester is changed now. I can see the way he treats you. And from the way he looks at you, he is really smitten with you'.
'I doubt it, Samantha', I said.
'Why?' she asked. 'You came back to the pack, you must have felt something for him as well. That night you left without telling anyone, he kept calling out for you and sent out his men to search for you but no one knew where you had gone'.
'I came back for my vengeance. He has to pay for what he did to me', I said.
'Could you not forgive him? He is really a changed person'.
'Changed you say?', I laughed, bitterly. 'Your Alpha Sylvester came for me because he had been told that he needed me by his side if he wanted to retain his position and to avert the misfortune befalling the pack!'
'That can't be true', Samantha said frowning in disbelief. 'The way he looks at you, shows her s feelings for you are deep and sincere'.
'He is a great actor. I overheard him talking to the Cathania he told me he had severed all ties with and sent away, in his precious garden and he was asking her to be patient because he was sure he had made me fall in love with him and that after what I'd help them with, then, he would separate from me and make her his one and only Luna', I told her smiling bitterly. 'To think I had started forcing myself to trust him before hearing that!'
'Oh, so sad and heartless of them!' she said. 'But you love him, don't you?'
'I don't!' I said.
'You don't?' she asked. 'What female did not have a crush on Alpha Sylvester?'
'I never did, maybe because I saw my parents and how they died, anytime I looked at him', I said, matter - of - factly. 'I might have liked him a little when I came back but it all died when I discovered his reason for wanting me back'.
'What about Alpha Christopher?' she asked and I blushed.
'What about him?' I asked, avoiding her eyes.
'I already have my answer', she said. She was being really perceptive. 'You do love him, don't you?'
'Samantha, it's a long story. I love him but they are both mated to me and I cannot have them both, do not want to, but...'
'But what?'
'I still have to avenge the death of my parents. His good behaviour right now cannot make up for the lost he cost me'.
'How will you still have the intention to carried out your vengeance on him when you are in love with his twin?' she asked.
'That's the complication I am facing. I tried to fight the attraction but I could not', I said. 'I've been told of mate bonds and all that but I did not feel that with Sylvester'.
'How could you when you already hated him? Samantha asked. 'Your hated and quest for vengeance, of course suppressed the feelings you would have had for him', I said, 'And I must say, he did not help matters with the may he treated you when you served as a maid here. But you will have to reconsider if you really love Alpha Christopher. But do you know what happened to your pack afterwards?'
'I don't. But I assume that since all was wiped out by the ruthless Alpha Sylvester, it is no longer existent'.
'You never can tell. Why don't you try and find out, now that you have the resources as the future Luna?' she asked.
I nodded thoughtfully , wondering why I had never thought of it. 'You have a point there', I said. 'It is worth a try'.
