307- Fuck
POV Viktor Averwyn:
“We came here to talk, not to kill each other, fuck!” Aldren roared.
“If that flea-ridden piece of shit lays a hand on me, I’ll rip his head off!” I threatened through clenched teeth, ready to attack.
“Liar! Sneaky thief!” The muscular alpha with shoulder-length hair snarled in my direction, his claws ready too.
“Baby killer! Fucking coward!” I moved forward and Aldren spread his arms, trying to bring me to my senses.
“Respect this place! We have laws!”
“Fuck that!” My voice struck the walls like thunder.
“Enough! Sit down, Lucian.” The eyeless one spoke without changing his tone. “You requested this meeting, so behave. Or we will end it now.”
He huffed, retracting his claws and fangs, his breathing ragged. I remained ready, keeping him in my sights.
“Viktor, sit down as well.”
I looked at the old man and almost said he didn’t command me. But I thought of my daughter, of my visions. Perhaps I would need future support. I had to be smart.
I straightened my spine, very erect, my face lifted proudly. I put away my claws and teeth as well, until the atmosphere in the room calmed.
“Let us try to resolve things like gentlemen, not like beasts.” Edric relaxed a little, going back to his place as well.
I stared at him for a moment. Unruly hair, intense blue eyes streaked with silver. He was so similar that I swore it was impossible for me to be mistaken.
Only grown now, without the childlike features of my vision.
A strange emotion wrapped around me, leaving me even more confused, unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.
“Call your older brother!” I could almost hear her voice, the two of them near the valley. As if she were referring to me.
Fuck!
I took a deep breath, too tense for my own good. It was too much at once. I needed to separate it into parts and solve each one in turn.
Aldren settled himself as well. Konrad had not even stood, watching the whole fight in silence. I had always thought him a coward. A dirty politician and an ass-kisser.
I adjusted my jacket and headed to my chair. To make what was already bad even worse, when I passed beside him, that putrid old odor in the air was invaded by another one so intense that it caught me off guard.
I stopped and turned my face toward him, inhaling. White tulips. Tiger lily. Nutmeg. Stronger there, coming from his skin or his clothes.
“What smell is that?” I grunted.
He lifted his head, his pale eyes meeting mine.
“What are you talking about?”
How could I explain? I shook my head and sat down, but without taking my eyes off him. Far too nervous and perplexed to calm myself.
It was Konrad who looked away. He could never look at me for very long. He hated me, that had always been clear, even when he pretended to be everybody’s friend and the good one. Yet he rarely confronted me. He knew who was the strongest among us.
“Viktor, Lucian requested this emergency meeting,” the blind Elder began. “I give him the floor.”
I stared at that demon spawn. His eyebrows arched upward into points, as if that frightened the unwary. I couldn’t care less. Just imagining that miserable bastard touching my daughter made me want to kill him right there.
“At peace. We are talking.” Konrad tried to be his usual political self.
“Now the hypocritical coward who stayed seated has decided to speak up.” I attacked, and he said nothing more. I turned back to Lucian. “Speak already! I skipped lunch to come to this shit.”
“Shit that you caused!”
“Alphas! One more outburst and this meeting will be ended.” At last the one without ears deigned to speak, but his voice came out low and trembling. There really was something wrong with him.
“This morning I received a visit from a drunk. He was stopped at my gates, asking to speak to me.” Lucian stretched in his seat, his eyes on mine. “I almost ignored it, but I was surprised when I learned it was a wolf from Averwyn territory.”
Aldren sighed and exchanged a look with Edric. They always seemed to speak without saying anything. I remained silent too, imagining that Vlad had stayed in the bar all night. Then gathered the courage to betray me.
“He told me that my destined mate, the one who came from the lands of Hungary twenty-one years ago and whom I thought was dead, is the daughter of our esteemed alpha Viktor.”
“What does that have to do with you?” I did not lose control, though I was boiling inside.
“You still ask? You hid this from everyone! Even from the Elders! You know the rules. They must accept new people into the packs.”
“So if I had let the baby die in the forest, everything would be fine?”
“That’s not it, Viktor.” It was difficult to face Edric’s eyes at that moment, but I did. “We should have been informed.”
“Did he inform anyone when he killed the representatives of the Budapest pack in a cowardly way? When he ordered his wolves to finish off an innocent baby?”
The other alpha did not answer, uncomfortable.
“If I had said anything, I would have signed her death sentence. So now I ask: why am I here?”
“Did you claim her as your female?” Konrad cut in.
“She is my daughter, for fuck’s sake!”
“Calm down.” Aldren raised a hand, his dark green eyes on mine. Of all of them, he was the one with whom I had the most connection and respect. We traded together, he came to my village and I to his. “You hid all this to protect the female.”
“Of course I did!”
“But she is my destined mate!” Lucian had the audacity to say.
“Go fuck yourself, you lying bastard! If you wanted the girl, you wouldn’t have ordered her killed!”
“And what did you want, fuck? For me to raise a baby and then fuck her when she got hot? Those idiots from Budapest deceived me! I was expecting an adult female! Now she is. And I want her.”
“You’ll keep wanting her.” I stood up. Lucian did the same.
Edric and Aldren rose as well, alert. Only the coward stayed in his seat.
“If she is my destined mate, I demand the right to see her and get to know her, to know if it’s really true!” Lucian demanded, turning to the Elders.
The mute one remained hunched. The one without ears sighed. The blind one stood, shaking out his long robes. That air of kindness I had been suspecting lately.