Chapter 117

Chapter 117
Samara's POV

"What do you think we'll find in those books?" Lilian asked me.

Since we had mentioned them the day before, she had not stopped whispering about them. I could see the glow in her eyes. Somehow, she had found her will to live. She was an adventurous soul. I mean, the very first time we had met, she had made me an accessory to a serious crime. If it were not for the whole thing with the rogue wolves, George and Aeron would still be on the hunt for the thieves who took the books away.

"I don't know," I whispered back, "but I guess we'll find out tonight."

She nodded, and I nodded back.

We snuck into the grand library, where several rows of books covered in fine dust awaited us.

"Do you think anyone ever comes here?" Lilian asked as we walked around a row of tall shelves that appeared two stories high at the least.

"I don't know." I was admiring the whole place, taking it in.

There was a literal ladder to access the books, because there was no way anyone's hands could reach the top of these shelves.

"It's so quaint in here," Lilian remarked as we walked further into the library.

When we got to the end of it, we saw a glass box, just like the one we had seen in the library where we had taken the other books from. Lilian bent down to look at it closely, and then she gasped.

"They are the books," she said, looking at me.

"What books?" I asked.

She leaned in to me. "The ones we stole," she whispered.

"What?" I bent down too to check for myself, and she was right.

The books we had stolen were looking right back at us, and it was the same setup as in the library we had stolen them from.

"Do you think they are like a duplicate copy or something?" I asked her.

She frowned. "Those books... they were supposed to be a one-of-a-kind thing." The frown on her face remained. "Or maybe that was just a lie told to the public." Lilian shrugged.

I looked at her, and we looked at the books, and I knew that we were thinking the same thing. We could steal them too, and with all the distraction about the rogue wolves, no one would even notice they were gone—at least until we had returned them to where they belonged.

"I know you're thinking what I'm thinking," she said to me. "And I'm thinking what you're thinking, too. But if we get caught..."

Both of us shuddered with excitement and stared at the books again. There was just something thrilling about stealing something that was meant to be forbidden.

"What's the worst that can happen?" Lilian speculated.

I shrugged. "We could be executed."

"Well, I don't think the Alpha could do that to me. My father would oppose... oppose my execution. And not because he loves me, but apparently this Alpha I'm to marry is to give him a lot of money."

I hated the way she felt caged with her parents. I understood it, too, on some level. My grandfather had literally turned me into a slave girl in another pack and then sold me into slavery. And when he realized I could be of use by selling me off to marry some old man, he had tried to do so. Then I had run away, and I had been on the run ever since.

"I would be executed for sure," I said.

I could still remember the excitement in Aeron's eyes and the judges'. They would not have minded. If anything, they would have found another slave girl to fill my space. I would have been forgotten in the blink of an eye, and that hurt more than anything else.

I searched for Nyla to comfort me in this time, but she was still quiet. There was nothing from her. It was almost like she had never even existed in the first place. I tried not to dwell on such dreary thoughts and brought myself back to the moment.

Perhaps a grand theft was what I needed to keep myself feeling alive.

"Aeron already suspects us," I said to her, remembering the confrontation he had given me when I returned with Falstaff that day. "If these books were to go missing soon, it might just cement his suspicion of either of us—or both of us."

The smile on her face told me it did not matter to her. She was feeling mischievous, and she was going to go through with this plan. More importantly, she was going to convince me to. And I could feel it already—I wanted this just as much as she did.

"What if..." she started, her voice husky. "What if we stole the books, and then we go on a little adventure into the woods and leave them there? Who do you think they would suspect then? Ha—and more interestingly, wouldn't it be fun if they found the books there and could not confront us, basically because that place is meant to be a no-trespassing area?"

I looked at her, the excitement in her eyes reflecting the excitement in mine. "You are one naughty girl."

"I know."

We laughed together.

"So, we are doing this?" she asked me.

I nodded.

She slipped a hairpin out of her hair, causing her curls to fall down her shoulders and onto her waist in soft waves. But as she inserted the pin into what should have been the keyhole to the glass box, alarms went off.

The both of us froze. We were going to get caught.

"Oh my goodness," I panicked. "Why is this happening? This was not meant to happen!"

We exchanged a look.

"Do you think this was a trap?"

"I don't know! I don't know!"

"Hi, ladies. I thought I would find you here."

We both stopped and slowly turned back, only to see Aeron with his arms folded, staring down at us.

"I knew it," Aeron said. "I just knew it. That day you came back from the market and pretended like you knew nothing of what I was speaking of—you're such a damn good actress, Samara. I need to give you credit for that. I was totally convinced by your little performance. But when I saw you and Lilian pretending like you did not know each other... oh my goodness, I just knew it."

Lilian folded her arms and looked at Aeron without remorse or fear in her eyes. "Are you going to rat on us, you snitch?"

Aeron shook his head and laughed. "You don't get to do that, Lilian. You've been caught in a serious crime. You don't get to turn this around and play me like I'm the snitch. That's not going to work on me."

"Oh, really? So what are you going to do now? Run off to Daddy George and tell him that we've been bad girls?”

Aeron turned red. The comment had clearly thrown him off, and now he was stuck without a response. Lilian stared at him with a daring look. He was not sure what to do now, and that made me chuckle.

They both looked at me like I was crazy. This was a high-stakes situation, and I was basically turning it into a joke with my laugh.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said. "It's just..."

"There is nothing funny about this," Aeron said. He was clearly pissed at us, and I feared he was not pissed because we were committing a crime, but because we had lied to his face. We had basically gaslit him before now—convinced him that we had no hand in this, and we had done it so well. We would have gotten away with it, too, if he had not caught us just now.

"No one said this is funny, Aeron," Lilian said. "But you know, there are two of us here, and there is just one of you."

Aeron's eyes darkened. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"We could steal the book, silence you, and then just disappear."

It was Aeron's turn to chuckle. "The two of you could never."

"Really? Are you underestimating our strength because we are women?"

Aeron shook his head. "This is not about underestimating anyone. There is one werewolf here and a human girl. If anything—"

"Ha! Now you're being a bit speciesist."

"That is not even a word, Lilian! What the fuck do you mean by that?"

"Oh, come on, let's face it. You do not think a human girl can take you on."

"Do you really want to test that theory, Lilian? And wait—wait, stop, the both of you! I think I see what you are trying to do."

"What?" Lilian asked with a small laugh.

"You are trying to play this off, and it's not working. The both of you are following me."

"And when we follow you," Lilian rolled her eyes, "you are going to take us to Alpha George, and then he's going to punish us for being bad. Yeah. Is that the best you've got, Aeron? Really? You are the Beta of this pack, and yet you act like his—"

"Stop it, Lilian. It's not funny anymore.”

"Fine, fine," Lilian said, putting her hands together. "So where are your handcuffs? Cuff us then."

Aeron's eyes were filled with rage. He was angry at us—and for the wrong reason. The crime itself was not the main problem; it was the fact that we had lied to him, and the fact that we were showing no remorse for what we had done, even after being caught red-handed.

"What is so special about these books that you want them so desperately?"

He was looking at me when he said that. I felt my heart flutter. Did he know? Or was I just overthinking things again?