182- Spite and the Alpha’s Resolve
POV Elowen Grimwald:
“I… I… I’m getting sick…”
“Sick, spy?” He wrinkled his nose in scorn. “And what are your symptoms?”
“Fever. My legs…” I could barely describe what I felt in them. “My body is burning!”
My confession triggered an adverse effect in Aldren. I thought he would accuse me of lying, but instead, he gave me a dangerous smile.
“For someone who can’t find relief, it really does seem like an illness.”
“Relief?”
His strong chest rose and fell rapidly as he stepped back and released the bars, crossing his arms.
“You’re going into heat, bitch. That’s why the most loyal of my men was here, circling you.”
No. It couldn’t be.
I’d gone months without the inhibitor herbs and prepared to miss work when my cycle arrived—but it never came. Why, in this situation, was my body betraying me?
“Oh, no…” Aldren’s eyes went distant, yet still perverse, as if within his mind a puzzle of a malicious plan was assembling. “I don’t have the herbs…” I whimpered in lament.
My whisper made him return to the bars, gripping them in rage as he snarled.
“Is this what you’re looking for on my lands, spy?” he growled through elongated fangs.
“My father! My father controlled my heat with herbs! I went months without them after mine ran out and… I don’t know where to find more. Do you have them? Please. I don’t want to feel this.”
His eyes gleamed with suspicion, and the pain between my legs became more unbearable with every passing second.
“What are you willing to do for anti-heat, spy?” The question sounded suggestive.
“What do you mean? You use it here…?”
“My question is clear. What are you willing to do to receive the herbs?”
My wolf stirred inside me. I wondered whether she felt the insult as much as I did—or whether she was thrilled by the idea.
“Anything… except sleeping with you or anyone from your pack.”
He let out a dangerous laugh, as lethal as his eyes.
“And who said I want to sleep with you? Look at yourself in the mirror, female.” He hurled it point-blank, looking at me as if I were a piece of dried shit he had just stepped on. It hurt.
“Forgive me. We’re in agreement, then…” His response shook me, dragging my self-esteem—once sky-high—down into the basement, right where I was.
And he noticed, because he seemed to enjoy watching pain cross my face.
Demon!
“Take another bath, that one didn’t help,” he continued to offend me, suggesting I stank. Quickly, he picked up the clothes Kehin had dropped and threw them through the bars. “Get dressed. I don’t want to come in here again and find you naked, with those bones exposed.”
His cutting words struck my core, causing not only more pain but revolt. A desire for revenge set fire to the surface of my skin, already burning.
I didn’t know how yet, but I intended to make that man pay—with interest—for every humiliation.
(...)
POV Aldren Valmorin:
Inside my library, I met with two of my oldest guards—Victor and Serpentino—who alternated shifts outside the corridor where I kept the prisoner. I sat cross-legged in one of the reading armchairs, while they remained standing.
Both were always dressed in black T-shirts and pants, without any insignia. What distinguished them was only Serpentino’s lack of hair—the bald brother—since the two were twins. Their skin was lighter and paler than mine, and their eyes were coal-black.
“Are we understood?” I asked after issuing the new orders.
“Yes, sir,” they replied in unison.
“I don’t want to have to punish either of you, so I will reinforce the last order: do not exchange a single word with the prisoner, much less enter that cubicle. When Nerin goes down to take her to bathe, leave and stay at the basement door until she comes back up.”
“Sir, the prisoner is in heat and has been suffering for two days…” I swallowed the explosion that struck me just by remembering, keeping my expression neutral. I tested her desperation by asking what she would do for the herbs, and she dared to say she would not lie with me. Poor thing—I would never grant her that honor.
“I know.”
“She won’t be medicated?”
“No.” They both nodded upon hearing my refusal. “You may go.”
After a brief bow, they left, allowing me to suffocate once more in my private pit of agony.
In my centuries of life, I could not recall the last time paranoia caused me not only mental confusion but physical pain. My beast waged war against me, causing disturbing internal sensations, as if trying to convince me of that spy’s innocence.
Was she really a spy?
Were Kehin and she connected as mates?
Why did my bloodthirsty beast not join me in my thirst to hurt her for invading my territory and becoming a torment in my life?
What had that purring been? Just an attempt to manipulate me, as she had done with Kehin?
All the gods bore witness to the control I had to establish not to bend those bars by force and enter that cage—not asking, but taking her.
All of her.
Every part.
In those days, my guards observed no strange behavior from her, beyond the suffering of her heat cycle. Nerin, who never sympathized with anyone, seemed inclined to grow fond of her. One of my best friends, for the first time in his life, disobeyed one of my orders—probably affected by the heat.
My focus was destroyed, and I could not continue like this.
My pack needed an attentive leader, willing to give up everything to protect them. That was what I had done for centuries, failing only once. I did not intend to lower my success statistics and expose my people because of a mutt spy.
I was pulled from my spiral of thoughts by a call from Edric, the only alpha of the Tharnak who held my complete trust. I had avoided meeting him ever since I discovered which pack Elowen belonged to.
No one would have informed him about the prisoner, but I knew I needed to tell him what was happening.
If I remembered correctly, he had annihilated that pack after Lunara was taken by force by that bastard Alessio.
I used to have the reputation of being the alpha who always offered solutions to any difficult matter, but at that moment, no correct resolution came to mind—not even a mere hypothesis.
That frail pup was driving me insane.
Driven by sudden courage, I invited the alpha of the Eldoria lands to come to my home.
Perhaps, by the end of the conversation, I would need to decide to condemn her to death.