Chapter 114

Chapter 114
Samara POV

She looked at me strangely, like I should know the answer to the question I was asking already. I felt like I needed to explain the reason I had to ask.

“I mean… I remember but it's all hazy, you know,” it was the only reasonable thing I could come up with.

"No," she replied. "There was no help. But who could tell? It was all very chaotic. I stayed hidden somewhere in the palace until it was all over. I wasn't really watching."

"So how did you find me?" I asked her.

"I found you lying in the midst of all the dead bodies. Then I brought you to a room in the palace."

“Oh.” That meant she had not seen my dragon wolf. It meant she had not met Nyla. But in my memories, Nyla protected her from the rogue wolves.

I tried to think of something else. "Where is Alpha George right now? Or Aeron?”

"Why don't you get a good bath first and perhaps eat something? I'm sure you must be very hungry."

I did as she told me. I took a long, hot bath and then ate what she saved me. It appeared like there were no servants around to do anything.

About an hour later, she took me to see Alpha George. But before we entered the council room, she stopped and looked at me. "I'm not sure how he would react, seeing as you tried to flee the palace."

I shrugged. "Well, what do you think? I should not go in there?"

"In my opinion, Samara, you should be running away from this place."

"I want to see the Alpha," I said. "Perhaps there is something I could do here. Maybe it is time I buy my freedom."

She nodded gravely at me and opened the door for me.

In the council room, there was Alpha George, there was Aeron, and there were a few old men, including Kendrick. Alpha George looked like he had not slept in ages. His features were haggard, and so were Aeron's. Everyone had that weary look in their eyes.

Lilian spoke up first. "Look who I found," she said, holding my hand firmly.

George looked at me. Aeron eyed me from head to toe.

"Does she have any injuries?" Aeron asked.

"No. She is unhurt, actually."

"It appears a number of people—a good number of people—were able to survive the attack without any injuries," George said. "Only those who could not flee the courtyard were severely injured."

He continued to talk with the others like I did not exist. Neither George nor Aeron would acknowledge my presence in the room. It stung a little. The last time I had seen them up close, I had been rescuing them—Nyla had been rescuing them.

I tried to search my mind again, hoping to find her, hoping that a voice—her voice—would pop up in my head. But there was nothing. My hand played with the pendant on my neck. Perhaps if I took it off, she would respond to me.

I sat in a corner with Lilian while the men and women at the council table spoke. We were not a part of the discussion, but we listened intently.

Lilian whispered beside me, "The rogues freed all the prisoners in the palace, so everything is a bit upside down. No one cares about crime or anything, or even if you're a witch." She looked at me and asked, "Are you a witch?"

I shook my head. "I don't even know what that is. What do you think witches look like?"

She chuckled. It was good to hear her laugh.

We waited until the council room quieted and members of the council—the ones that were still alive and not severely injured—made their way out of the room. George looked at me, really looked at me, once almost everyone had left. "How come? How come none of them attacked you?"

Lilian spoke up. "Maybe it was because she was human. The rogues... they appeared to be programmed, almost like zombies. Maybe they couldn't see. Maybe they were just going after those with wolf scent."

"I doubt that," Aeron said.

"So," Lilian asked, "are you trying to say that she is a witch indeed?"

George shook his head. "If she is, I guess we would need some of her powers. I'm too tired for any of this. I'm not interested in killing you or anything. You are free to go if you wish. I already have enough on my hands."

The nonchalant and dismissive tone with which he spoke to me stung me. I was not sure why I felt hurt—because I was his mate that he had rejected, or because... I didn't even know.

"I can help," I said. "It appears you need a lot of hands right now. I can help put the palace back in order, clean up, do what you need until everything is back to normal."

Aeron interjected, "Nothing will ever be normal here again."

I shrugged. "But I can pull my weight around here in exchange for wages. I will no longer be a slave."

George looked at me with eyes that would haunt me perhaps forever. "If you do not want to be a slave," his tone was grave, "then you should run. Because if I get things back under control, you would be back to where we were before all of this."

I looked into his eyes and I could see that he was telling the truth, which made me shudder a bit.

"I would take my chances," I said to him.

"I need a personal maid," George said after a while. "Someone who would follow me everywhere, help me with my bath, take care of me—everything."

When I looked at him more closely, he looked like he was fighting pain and losing very desperately against it.

"Then you may need to help out with the other servants. There is a lot of work to do, as you can see," he said. "But I will pay you for the work you do now for at least a fortnight, and then after that, you have to make a choice: whether you run and I never see you again, or you remain here as a slave forever, where I will always own you."

I did not miss the heat in his eyes when he looked at me, like he could burn me with his gaze. It made me look away. I became uncomfortable for a second.

"I understand," I said finally.

When I walked out of the council room with Lilian later, she looked at me like I had lost my mind.

"Why? Why do you want to stay?" she asked me. "You were about to run away just before the rogues attacked us."

I looked at her, not really having an answer. I could not decide who I was without Nyla. Perhaps if Nyla were here with me, I would have made a different decision. But without Nyla's strength, who was I? Where would I run to? What could I do without her? How would I even survive outside of the palace? The last time I had run away, I had ended up in Lucian's palace, and then somehow life had spiraled into what it was now for me.

"I don't know what to do, Lilian. If I were to run, where would I run to? If the rogues were to attack me, what would happen to me? I don't think I can survive outside of these walls."

She stared at me for a long time. "You can, Samara. You just need to find strength from within, and I know you have that strength.”

And I guess I also believed that things might be different now. With the rogues defacing Laura, maybe George would not want her as his Luna anymore.

So I asked Lilian, "Your sister? Is she still to marry the Alpha?"

She stopped. "Why do you ask?"

I shrugged. "Well, I just... I guess I just want to know."

She looked at me for a while, as though deciding whether or not to tell me. "My father survived the attack. He believes it is best we move forward with the union, with George's army, as he thinks we could stand a chance against the rogue wolves."

In my head, I realized that was not good news. "But what about her face?"

Lilian sighed. "She keeps screaming, keeps telling everyone she wants to die because she believes she looks so ugly now. But my father won't let her. He wants the union to move forward. It is just all about convincing George to marry a Luna with half a face."

"So there is no remedy for her?" I asked carefully.
Lilian shook her head. "The rogues really did a number on her.”

It was evil that that made me happy.

“My father believes they only need to have a child,” Lillian continued, “a child that would be the next Alpha, that would become George's heir.”

It meant I had to forget all about George now. It appeared the only life I could live with him was as his mistress and that offended me. I could not do that to myself.

“Come,” Lillian held my hand out of the blue, “you should see Laura.”

My heart raced.

“I don't think so,” I said.

“Oh please!” she was laughing a little, “she looks so hideous now it's funny.”

“You are enjoying this,” I saw the glee on Lillian's face.

She did not look the slightest bit remorseful.

“Of course,” came her response, “she has always been the beautiful one and she is unbelievably cruel. Do you know she wanted to make me watch as the wolves tore you apart? Then she told me she would strip me off any royal privileges once she became Luna because I helped you escape.”

So I followed Lillian to see her sister. The second I stepped into the room and our eyes locked, she tried to lurch towards me.

“You evil witch!” she screamed at me, “You did this… you did this.”

I looked into her eyes and I knew she could tell. She recognised Nyla, and she knew I had saved her life out of cruelty.