**3rd Person POV**
*Six Months*
It was an important day for a lot of people. Dagen and Emily had finally agreed on a punishment for Nydia. She was to go on exile and the only condition for her to return was to bring with her Irvette back alive. Basically, they had given her an impossible task. Search efforts for Irvette had yielded nothing so far. It was very likely that she was dead by now or whoever had her prisoner was in no mood to release her anytime soon.
Exiling Nydia from all werewolf land was also a form of suicide mission. It was a well-known fact that werewolves did not survive in vampire land. They were used instead for lab experiments as the vampires were fascinated by the fact that they had two distinct personalities and bodies.
As Nydia trudged along the dirt road, she resisted the urge to look back. She had put herself on this path and it had started a long time ago. It had happened on the night Dagen's parents were murdered. She had asked Dagen days after his parents had died, “If your uncle had been successful, would he be the Alpha now?”
If Dagen had not been so smitten by a young Nydia, he would have found the question weird and offensive seeing as the actions of his uncle had caused him to lose his parents.
“Yes. He is the next in line,” came Dagen's response. He looked at the girl with a raised eyebrow. He was smitten but he'd just had his heart broken by his parent's death.
“Why do you ask?” quizzed Dagen when Nydia said nothing else.
“Who is the next in line after Edvin? Our cousin, Shimeah?” asked Nydia.
“That would be you. Father passed a law before his death allowing women to inherit titles. I think that is why my uncle killed him,” Dagen had thought about all the reasons his uncle had done such a horrible thing. He had concluded that it was because his father had been too radical. He wanted women to inherit titles. He had always said that it was unfair that his wife had to watch her father's throne pass off to a very distant relative because they had all been girls. He also wanted to reform the noble status saying that people should not be given undue privilege only because they were born into it. He believed that whoever was succeeding anyone should prove it through rigorous exams because an idiot should not become a minister and debate the Pack's policies. His uncle had enjoyed the support of those who wanted to keep the status quo and so he had been encouraged to kill his father.
“So I can become The Beta?” asked Nydia with twinkling eyes. She had wondered from then on what it would be like to become the Beta. All her life no one had ever conceived the idea that she could amount to anything other than become the wife of a powerful king or prince or a noble lord. She had resented her parents for ignoring her education and giving all their attention to Edvin. She was the older twin and yet she was overlooked and her brother was favoured.
It had started as a thought; more like a thing she fantasized about. Then the thought had begun to consume her every move. She could think of nothing else. She wanted to become Beta more than anything in the world. Because Dagen had inherited the throne rather early, she had been privileged to attend court with her brother. Her opinions were irrelevant but she had observed the power at play in court and it filled her with much excitement.
However, she was displeased at times at the obvious error in judgement the men made. Unfortunately, she was not allowed to say anything. One day, she told her brother what she thought about the flood problem. She had been able to proffer a solution and her brother had presented it to court. The ministers had voted in favour of the solution and at a very young age, Edvin had been tagged a genius. Nydia had been full of envy and she felt justified in her envy. After all, it was her idea that had made Edvin rise to such prominence at court.
It was then she conceived the idea of poisoning her brother. She had disguised herself as a poor lady and gone to the local market to purchase the poison. She had made a special meal for her brother and seasoned the food with the poison. Edvin had been sick for several days after that but he had not died. When the physician revealed that he had been poisoned, and their cook had been killed as a result.
Meanwhile, Nydia was disappointed. She tried a different poison the next time but he remained alive afterwards. The poison did not even have an effect on him. She tried again with a different poison and this time she recorded some success. He fell into a terrible sickness that lasted for three months. He was so sick that the physician believed he would die.
He had not died.
He had made a slow and painful recovery after that. During that time, she had attempted to poison him on several occasions but the food he ate was being watched so closely that it was hard to do any harm. A year after the incident, Edvin confronted her with hard evidence of the poisoning. She had not offered any explanation to defend herself.
“You really want me dead?” quipped Edvin. He could not believe that she had tried to end his life.
“What do you want me to say, Edvin? You have the evidence,” came her calm, cold response.
“Why? Why? Just why?”
“Why? You ask me why? No one, not even you, stops to think of my opinion about anything. You relegate me to…”
“Relegate you? That is your justification for trying to end my life?”