Apples and trees
Selena
I found Killan's office to be more soothing than any other place. Maybe it was the way his scent rolled off the furniture, the way I could picture him standing with his wide back facing me in front of the window. He was beautiful, majestic, and an Alpha through and through—and he was close to being mine, if not for her.
I felt my eyebrow twitch. I balled my hands to fists until my nails nearly dug into the soft skin of my palms.
“I need to do something,” I said out loud. I'd be dawned if I let him go after everything I'd been through to have Killian and let that human have him.
Ugh! Even the thought of her having him caused my mind to begin to spiral into that dark place that marked the start of going berserk.
“One, three, five,...” I started to count odd numbers to calm myself while I went to find Amanda.
She stood at the training grounds outside the alpha's residence.
“I heard.” She hissed, pulling me aside to the row of benches framing the large gym. My eyes found the group fighting on the mat.
“I want her gone, Mandy. I just had him. I can't let him go.” My voice was a whisper just for her ears.
“She'll probably be guarded.” Amanda huffed. “How will you do it?”
I was blank. Blank, save one thought that might work. Amanda would hate it, after all we had both sworn never to use our parent's power to get what we wanted. But desperate times truly did call for desperate measures and I had no options to begin with.
“Whatever it is you're thinking about, don't do it. If you're going to your father, don't do it. You know how he is.”
I felt her hand on my shoulder, squeezing.
“I want to do it right, I said. I don't want to go behind anything. I don't want to have to hire George. You know how clingy he gets,” I said slowly. Amanda rolled her eyes. George, her younger cousin, was convinced I was his mate even though he had one, he still wanted me for reasons only known to him. He was young, that was true but he was also very mad. He loved to kill secretly. His wolf was a tad bit mad.
He would be perfect, I thought to myself. But it would also be messy. Two messy for me to handle. Somehow it will be traced back to me and knowing Killian, he would punish me. Killian was thorough.
“No, I didn't need anything messy, I needed things done by the book.” I looked at Amanda and she could probably tell what I was thinking.
“The council will make him do it.” She said, "You have no choice but to do it," she smiled just a little bit.
“It was after all the Council that forced Killian to meet with me and to make me his Luna.” I said a little louder this time.
I stood up quickly and made my way to my father's house, barely a stone’s throw from the Alpha's residence. Of course, he was there. Father liked to sit on his favorite armchair in front of his favorite window, sipping on bourbon and plotting ways to make Killian's life a living nightmare. Which was why I hated asking him for favors with regards to him. He was, after all, the one who pushed me into becoming his interim Luna. I was all Luna in name alone, save for the official duties of giving him an heir.
Father looked up from where he sat, a shadow of a smile littering his lips. Father, like all other werewolves, aged painfully slow, and being in his second century alive, he looked barely a day over a human in their 50s—with salt and pepper hair at his temples, fine but small lines around his lips, and crow’s feet by his eyes. They said I looked like him, and maybe I did. But I knew it wasn’t in looks—his whole blue eyes stared back at me, and of course, mine stared in turn.
“So, what does my ever-devoted daughter want from me this time?”
He set down the glass of bourbon on the mahogany stool beside him and threw one leg over the other. Then he smiled, this one reaching his eyes, quite different from the ones he gave to others.
“There is a human. And I want her dead.”
His smile faltered.
“You mean the one that made a spectacle at the ceremony, yes?” He drummed his hands on the armrest in a rhythmic manner.
I smiled. Of course everyone would have heard of her by now.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “The rumors surfaced in no time—some seconds, but yes, everyone knows of the human that was somehow undetected into our territory, spent enough time to eat, drink—”
He chuckled. This one was a genuine chuckle.
“I’m supposing—at least I thought—she would have been dead by now. But alas, time proved me wrong. Why? Does he have some sentiment attached to this human? Does she remind him of what was once lost or—”
He trailed off when his eyes suddenly lit up with recognition. This time he burst into laughter, clutching his belly, his shoulders quaking. His lips split apart, giving me ample view of his teeth, his eyes glued shut with tears coming out of the corners. It took him a good minute or two to stop laughing.
I crossed one leg over the other, waiting, playing with one ringlet of hair until he was done. He stopped, wiped the tears, and let out a long sigh.
“How many years has it been since I laughed like that?” he mused to himself.
“A while, I’ll tell you,” he answered his own question. “She’s his mate,” he said. “Interesting.”
He raised a hand and ran his fingers across his lips. “Very interesting,” he said. “Almost too interesting. But I don’t recall a time in our history when a werewolf—maybe a few here and there—mated with humans. But Alphas? No. Forbidden, perhaps,” he said slowly.
“More like an unspoken rule. You see, humans are—” He trailed off, raising one eyebrow. “We only knew it, and perhaps they knew it too, but they couldn’t quite mix with other creatures. In times past, when we did try to reveal ourselves to them, they called us demons and other things, and so we were relegated to the back of their folklore as… well, very good.”
“The human hardly even believes what she sees. But that’s not why I’m here. I want her dead.”
Father smiled.
“You know that will be hard. You might not have seen this before, but I have. The way an Alpha would guard his mate is not the way our every other wolf dialed up to—how do the humans say it again?”
He pursed his lips.
“Eleven, yes. Dialed up to eleven.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand why you’re so interested in their kind and their way of life.”
Father only smiled. “It’s interesting. They also have the most interesting kinds of alcohol I’ve ever seen. Plus, it does me more good than harm. When their women see a man who looks to be in his late 40s to early 50s, they turn to throw themselves at his feet—especially when he has money. But that’s another thing. Their lives are barely the flicker of a candle, or a matchstick. Eighty years, if they do well. A hundred, if they’re on some sort of incredible stroke of luck. In such short lives, they accomplish so many interesting feats—plunge the world into war several times due to their own greed. So yes, they do make quite an interesting case study for myself and my friends.”
I frowned, baring my teeth slightly. “So you sympathize with humans.”
It was his turn to frown.
“You know better than anyone else that I do not sympathize with anyone, much less humans. They're like pets—but every now and then you do snap the neck of one that gets on your nerves, don’t you? And I see this one is doing a little more than just getting on your nerves, dear daughter of mine.”
“If she’s here,” I said, “she will cause enough harm.”
He smiled. “That’s not what you’re worried about. Selena, I’m not a fool. Everyone knows—well, those close enough to you—that you are utterly smitten by the Alpha. And you’re the only woman with the balls and the nerve to actually go for him and get him. You love him. You will not stand another woman having him. Even if she were aware of you, you’d probably find a reason to kill that little creature. And her being human is reason enough for you, isn’t it?”
“He’s marked.”
He laughed. “Then if you know, why do you say it? What’s the point? You know how bad it is, not just to me but the Pack optics. We don’t exactly stand well in the council of Alphas and other Packs—at least in recent times. Wasn’t it a decade or two ago that we were the laughingstock of the world? If he has a human mate, it’ll take this Pack several decades, if not centuries, back.”
He smiled, his eyes glazing over. “No, we had our golden days several centuries ago. Don’t say things you don’t understand, girl. Yes, Killian’s father was a fool and a mad raving beast, but you couldn’t blame him. He had, after all, lost his mate in the most unfortunate of ways. And yes, we were indeed the laughingstock while he was still Alpha. It only took Killian long enough to put us back together—but even if that made him Alpha, he is only at half his strength.”
“Which is why I made myself his mate. He has no objection—and for good reason too. I help him. I am your daughter, one of the most prominent council members.”
He smiled. “Yes, you are. Which is why I told you to do better. I thought you’d take that line yourself. It’s Damian. He would’ve done anything for you. He was mad for you.”
I looked down. “He has a mate now, doesn’t he?” I said. “So he doesn’t need me anymore. My mate is Killian, and that is how I would have things be. I don’t want anything else, anybody ruining things for me—especially in her case. She just has to ruin things simply by existing. No, I want you to make a stand before the council. Pack law states that any human found on our territory is to be executed, especially where they see our secrets. She has seen enough. It shouldn’t even be a question, it shouldn’t even be debated. She needs to die, and we need to put this debacle behind us. The rumor has already spread around the Pack. It will spread to other Packs. Everyone will hear it at some point, and the news will spread outside. We will, in the end, be the laughingstock. Father, you know this. I know this. Push the council to make him do it.”
Father said nothing. He just picked up his bourbon, took a small sip, and then set the glass back where it was. His eyes found mine, and his lips stretched into the smallest of smiles.
He wasn’t convinced.
“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen,” he said. “He will not let you have her. He would rather die.”
“He’s rejected her,” I said.
Father would definitely agree to that, I thought.
Father looked surprised—but only for a moment. The surprise, however, soon turned into a smile, this one reaching his eyes but doing more than that. It made him look evil. But so long as he agreed with me, I was fine with it.