Wrong fate
Killian
20 minutes earlier
Adrian’s face had the look of one who knew he was cornered. The blind alpha clicked his tongue and turned his head away.
“Fuck you,” he said to Damon.
Damon, with no response, just stared for a minute with his mouth open; then he began to chuckle. Elias the Elder began to grumble something in the old tongue, a new language, he said in that ancient speech. “These children don’t know what they deal with: the wrath of the gods.”
I turned to the elder. “Maybe because the guards themselves have not shown their wrath in centuries,” I said. “Or are you one of those who sympathize with the cursed ones?”
They shook their heads. “You know your folklore,” the elder said. “I see that. You value some things, but don’t forget that you must kill the girl.”
“fFuck,” I said, turning my face from his. “Then you might just as well ask me to kill myself,”I further replied. “Being that I have no heir, it will not benefit you. I doubt you will be the one to hold my lands or crown yours. My pack will not accept you.” I let my eyes run over his seated frame. “You’re too old.”
I felt silence wash over me; of course, the rest of them were watching the exchange. I was not the youngest, but I was one of the youngest. The elder was the oldest alpha on this continent, ruling his pack with an iron fist for the last four centuries.
He chuckled. “And yours is far,” he conceded. “Of course, I will not deny the merits of having your lands as mine, but mine being at the other end of the continent does not help me. And your lands being so vast doesn’t help you either. Many other offers were not part of this council; they’ll see it as a sign of weakness. The united great now will not touch your lands, but they will. They’d come like hyenas, vultures they will be, but I will be indulged, let’s see something bite the hand of the monster that feeds them.”
I lowered my chin, darkening my eyes as I stared at him. “Do you threaten me, old man? I will not hesitate to add another scar to your collection.”
Elias smiled and barked out a laugh. It was no secret he had many scars; in fact his face was weathered with them — one running through his eye (a miracle that the eye could still see), another striking through his lip, another on his chin disappearing into the make of the shirt he wore, and several peeking up from his fingertips.
“You would scare me,” he said. “I have no doubt about that — you are quite powerful. But that doesn’t change the fact that the matter is younger alpha,” he said with smiling eyes. “Kill the girl. That is why you’re not in your own good. I’ve seen little ones lose their minds over aesthetic pairings like this.”
“But it is not your business, old man.” Adrian interjected. “If he chooses to keep the human as his mate, as the witch so well put it, it is well beyond us; it falls into the internal dealings of their pack. If they fall, then they fall. If they rise, then they rise.” The old man conceded and said nothing. “So be it,” I heard him mumble. “The matter of Alpha Killian and his human mate shall be left to be considered within their pack. This will be the last discussion, just and fair.”
Calypso dipped her hand into the sand and was ready to raise it.
“Fuck no,” Damien said.
Damien, who had been quiet for most of the meeting, being a closely related nephew to Damon, had just about as much power as he could muster. On the council he was one of the youngest, earning him less right to speak and more to observe. Then again, his sitting on the council was up for contention, and being such a close relative of another alpha, he tended to test his fate once in a while.
“I think we should deliberate on this. Pack some laws for this reason. You can make a law and then break it and expect the rest of the community to watch you and smile,” he said.
I chuckled. “Funny that comes from you, after all you are the one who recently allowed your beta to take a girl who had not shifted. How old was she again?” I asked, noticing the way his eyebrow twitched.
“I thought we said it was park law not to touch the girl who was yet to shift, even if she was his mate. He should have avoided her, at least till she was shifted, many do so. But he took her still, and not one soul called him out despite how terrible and crooked it was.” I looked to the elder alpha. “You called it a travesty, and you, Adrian, called it pathetic. Yet the stunted bitch still lives, your beta still stands in this position. So do not, for one dumb reason or another, lecture me on what to do with pack law.”
He began to growl, but he was a toothless tiger. I continued without consequences.
“Don’t think for one moment that you can lecture me on what to do. You so well and adequately longed to the best of your abilities. Do not think for one moment that we upon this council do not see the obvious unfairness of the fact that your uncle sits on it as well.”
I slammed my hand down and stood to my feet, jabbing my finger at him. “Sit down, boy. He has you by the balls.” His uncle, beside himself, spread his five fingers apart, a subtle sign of surrender.
“I admit you had him bested, Killian,” Damon said, smiling that creepy, skin-crawling smile that made me genuinely wish to tear off my skin and bite into his neck.
Calypso raised her hands with sand. “It is settled then,” she said, letting the sand pour, but just as it did, a wave of magic so strong the sand shifted, the wind howled, and I felt a small earthquake shaking the earth beneath my feet. I stood up just as everyone else did.
“It is forbidden to use magic during the council,” the old man said. He ran into words, the building running toward the source of the magic, and the scene made my blood boil. My beta was pressed to the floor by a force of magic so strong it could lift a mountain bearing down on him. The caster was the red-haired mistress with Melissa.
She had her jewel staff pointed toward him and her mouth open in a silent scream. Yes, she was the silent witch, the one who could cast spells without uttering a word. Melissa.
“You had better have a good enough reason for his alpha not to snap your neck,” I said. Melissa’s white eyes turned toward me and then behind me. I heard Calypso walk over to me and place a hand on my shoulder. “Forgive her,” she said.
My head snapped toward her, and that was when I noticed I had nearly shifted. “I will kill her for this impunity,” I declared, and the magic stopped. He was attacking my intern. My girl was going to be killed by him. She pointed to the figure crouched beside Lucas.