Just Begun

Karina's Pov

“You are here for me yet you aren't here for yourself?” Alpha Marcus replied now, squinting. “Your presence of mind and stability are absent, and the only thing you have to show is a skimpy dress and your pale skin…” he remarked, burning.

He straightened up in his seat, setting himself deeper in its size and relaxing even more. While each movement he carried out made Karina even more tense.

She wasn't expecting this level of unconcern. The glow in her eyes had faded, and the fire she had burning with confidence had gone out faster than it had been lit. As the Alpha brooked no nonsense and watched her like a miser watching a customer trying to pull the wool over his eyes.

She was lost for words. She hadn't even found them in coming here. And now she was simply left speechless. The scathing remarks he had made dropped her lower than she'd ever been. As all her usual pride and ego fell like a barrell of rum down a vikings throat. “I…I seek an address…” she said, almost in a whisper.

“And an address is what you have found…” Marcus answered. “Now what are you going to do with it?”

Karina felt her whole world crumble with each word that came from her lover's lips. Her mind breaking like a glass jar at each condescending statement. Her heart tearing in two every time he talked with his eyes away from her and at his jewels, too busy to even spare her intermittent glances.

Her lips suddenly moulded in one for fear of saying the wrong thing. Her hands held her purse tightly and with excess force that her fingers had turned white. She was standing but wished the ground would open up and swallow her.

“I seek to confess my admiration for your beauty sire…” she started, reciting shakespeare. “Your authority, your power and your excellent leadership…” she called, almost theatrical.

And the words as they rolled out of her mouth were as unnatural as they sounded. Herself feeling the bitter taste in her mouth as she said them. Yet her eyes hopeful he was accepting of the kind gesture.

But he wasn't…

As his cold eyes rolled over in her direction now. His right hand raising his wrist, and his wrist raising his thumb and index finger in a snap. That echoed around the room sharply and made the ground suddenly vibrate. With the thudding of seemingly a hundred feet booming from outside, and bursting through the door behind Karina.

She gasped as she turned and saw half a dozen guards standing with full suits of armor and blades resting on their sides, their hands on the hilts facing her stern and motionless before throwing a salute to their Alpha.

And Marcus cleared his throat at their arrival. His hands rubbing against his jaw line and the diamonds and emeralds on his hands clanking against each other quietly like glasses struck in a toast. He looked from his men to the troubled woman before him. The view from outside showing him contemplate a decision, but not with too much effort.

The guards stood in wait for his command and he made it as clear and consice as he could.

“Bring me Freya…”

And as the words left his lips the guards made another salute and departed as quickly as they had come. Their iron clad bodies clanking along in rhythm as they moved.

And Karina was left confused? As she turned back around and facing the Alpha. With brows raised and her face frowning.

“My Alpha?...” she called, like a mother of two. “I am confused…” she added, her frown deepening.

“Who is Freya?...”

But Marcus's face remained unapologetic. His eyes roaming everywhere except at her. As he serenaded his ears with the echo of the door closing shut as the guards left. And he released a careful sigh.

“A woman that exists as none of your business…” he replied, fluid.

“And I suggest you get back to your duties…” he said now, with his deamenour dropping slightly. “I’d have you prepare a grand dinner tonight. And I seek no more of your poor attempt at humour…” he continued. “Please do leave and spare yourself further disgrace. You have suffered enough at the hands of your fantasies…”

And now he raised a hand again, but this time to wave her departure. His hands gesturing her to the door. Now tired of placing his eyes on her or even having to respond.

Karina on her part was now completely broken. Her dreams shattered, in pieces and shards on the floor. What she had imagined and what was her reality were now two different things that stood in parallel planes of existence. She was dumbstruck, unable to move from the shock. Her fingers feeling numb. Her purse slipping from her grasp.

When the door behind her suddenly burst open again. And the guards had returned, with Freya now in tow; groaning and struggling with her hands held behind her by two guards each applying a vice grip to her wrists.

Karina was too hurt to be shocked the second time. As she slowly turned to see who Freya was. Her eyes already burning red in rage.

She turned and saw her brown hair and pale ice cold skin. And her anger doubled as she wondered how her complexion was better than hers? She looked at Freya's body and noticed her own hips were more curved and accentuated than hers? She looked at her clothes and saw that hers was better? Everything about her was better. Her anger boiled in annoyance at how the Alpha wanted a second rate version of her instead of choosing her complete beauty…

She stared at Freya with a deep hatred building up inside her heart. Her eyes already sparking internal flames of desirous destruction. Karina turned back and looked at the Alpha who stared down at her with disregard seemingly not leaving his face anytime soon. And then turned back to Freya in a grimace.

She huffed in embarrassment and suddenly tapped on her heels, walking past Freya and the guards, leaving the room with her face folded in envy…

And an envy that showed a war had just begun.