“Do you think I’m dumb, Cathy?” Lupa sat at the table, her hands curled and her eyebrows raised. It was sometime past breakfast and she’d insisted to talk to me in private. We were sat in the lunch cafeteria munching on grapes, because sitting alone without purpose looked very suspicious.
“Pardon?” I asked, then gasping because it seemed being around my mother too much had rubbed off on me. Lupa saw my internal embarrassment and laughed, popping a grape into her mouth.
“No one can follow you? Not even Lucas? Come on, Cathy, just because the others know you as an alpha doesn’t mean I don’t remember you as an omega. I’m not letting you do it.” I knew what she saying, I knew she knew. She knew I dreamt of flying away. She knew I wanted to burn the walls of Necker Island.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I tried my best to look ignorant, picking a grape of its little branch and looking down at my fingers. My mom had insisted I painted them gold.
“You do. I’m not dumb. And neither are you, Cathy, but there are other ways.” She had lost all interest in the grapes and was now leaning towards me with her elbows on the table. I leant back in my chair. She could see right through me.
“If there were other ways do you think I’d really do this?” I whispered, still playing around with the grapes in my hands. I picked them all of their branches until I was just holding the wood that looked like a tiny tree. But then it started to look like veins. The veins of my people. Eustatia’s veins. I put the branches down and picked up another grape, rolling it around on my fingertips.
“We will find another way.” Lupa picked up a stray grape. I shook my head. “Cathy. Do you think Lucas will let you do that?”
“He won’t know.” I whispered, still admiring the grape and not meeting her eyes.
“I’ll tell him. God dammit, Cathy, I’ll tell him!” She raised her voice slightly, but it was nothing in this hall of echoes and chatter between people who had shouts for whispers.
I kept shaking my head. She kept trying to argue with me. I didn’t say anything for a while, and neither did she. There were tears in my eyes.
“I have to save them.” I said, regaining my posture and my confidence. “You know what it’s like being an Alpha, Lupa. If you were in my position, you’d do the same thing.”
And then eventually, she nodded. She wiped a tear from her eye, too.
“If you see Lucas soon tell him we miss him.” She said as she stood up, eating the last grape on the table.
“I’ll tell him you’ll be seeing him soon.” I replied, finally eating the grape I’d had in my fingers and standing up. I walked away before she could process what I had said.
“I can’t be locked up like this!” Was the shouting I heard next, walking towards the air loft centre. I turned on my heel, recognising the pain in his voice. “You don’t need me, just kill me already!” No. No. Lucas. No.
I ran over to the door in which was surrounded by gaurds all trying to contain him in a brawling mess. His eyes were puffy and red, but not crying. He was pale, but not sick.
“Lucas!” I pushed my way through the guards, practically throwing them away from me.
He was on his knees, being held by a guard from his underarms. He was out of breath, his head hanging. He didn’t look up to meet my eyes.
“I’m sorry, miss, he attacked.” The guard looked guilty, scared of me nearly.
I ignored him and fell to my knees too, wrapping my arms around the empty boy in front of me. “Lucas.” I whispered into his ear, stroking the back of his head. I missed him so much.
“I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t.” He replied, his voice breaking. “I’d rather be dead.”
I stood up abruptly, looking at him like he was stranger. “Don’t say that.” I said stubbornly, frowning harshly.
“WHY NOT?” He struggled in the grip of the guard, who couldn’t have been older than 19. “IT’S TRUE!” He stood up, in an attempt to free himself, but an older, more muscular guard helped keep him detained.
“What is going on?” The queen walked to the front of the door, her hands like she was carrying a purse, hands outwards in question. She looked to me and smiled a little, before turning to see Lucas and sighing.
“Please,” Lucas met her eyes, but refused to meet mine. “Why are you keeping me here? Why can’t you just kill me already?”
The queen was taken aback, and looked at me for the answer. I looked back, just as answerless.
“This is torture.” He spat. “My war is raging and I can’t even fight!” He looked at me now, narrowing his eyes. “And I’m forced to watch my mate be brainwashed into one of your bloodthirsty followers!” He said it with such anger, anger I hadn’t recognised before, nothing I’d ever seen from Lucas. I’d seen passionate shouting, but never shouting so aggressive it made me want to curl up and not exist.
My mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out but an offended intake of breath. He stared at me, fire in his eyes, and I stared back, ice in mine. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. But, God, I wanted to tell him. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs “DO YOU THINK I’D REALLY DESERT MY PEOPLE LIKE THIS?” But I couldn’t and it killed me. The lies were rotting my insides, turning my lungs into stone so I couldn’t breathe.
“That’s the problem with mates.” I hadn’t noticed Max stood next to me. He must’ve came over with the queen. “They’re the best thing in this world. Until they’re not.” He looked at me with sympathy, or sadness, I didn’t know.
“Alright, Max.” The queen smiled, knowing what I knew, nodding at him but not agreeing. He pursed his lips and stepped back, out of the attention circle.
“I still love you Cathy. Dammit, I’d die for you still, but not like this. I can’t live like this. A prisoner to my own mate.” He was shaking his head, trying to explain himself, but it was I that needed to do the explaining.
“Cathy?” Was the queen really asking me if I wanted my mate dead? I hated seeing him like this, but I wouldn’t have him die. He needed to be alive. For Eustatia. It was me that must be sentenced to death.
I put my head in my hands, breathing heavily. Could I ask him to live, just for a few more days? Would that look suspicious?
I felt a hand on my back I knew it was Max’s. His mate left him to die. Even he, the loyal young boy for the queen, knew that it wasn’t a question. There was only one choice to be made.
“I’m sorry, Lucas.” I shook my head, taking down my hands as my face contorted so I wouldn’t cry. “I can’t let you die.”
He looked annoyed, but he couldn’t fight me. He just looked back. I knew he understood, but he could never really understand. He couldn’t hold me and tell me it was ok, that I was doing the right thing. He couldn’t even know what I was doing. How could he understand?
“You do realise, Cathy, that we must have a serious talk about the accommodation of your mate soon?” They couldn’t keep him here forever, they couldn’t let him go, either. I knew what she was suggesting. “I know it may be painful. Daughter, don’t you doubt that I understand. But it must be done. These things do not come and go lightly.”
I was still looking at Lucas while she said all of this. I tried my best not to curl my hands into fists. I tried my best not to let my eyes widen in panic, or in anger, but I knew they did. I knew Lucas felt it the same way I did. Our mind link may be separate now, in different packs, but the connections mates have never die, not really.
He could feel the fear, the confusion, the internal decisions I must make on my own, and looked back at me. He couldn’t understand why I was feeling these things, because to him I was safe, I was in a new pack and I was heartless. But he felt them. I knew he did. The way his breathing changed, the way his eyes flickered between mine, the way his whole body deflated, away from the struggle in the most submissive position.
“I want to learn how to take off.” I was walking away from Lucas’ room to the executive lounge. It was half an hour before official lunch but occasionally Max and I waited on the sofas because we had nothing else to do. My hands were in fists, my head was high. I knew I needed to do this now and I needed to do it quick.
“You’re very eager.” He noted as we walked into the lounge, nodding to a waiter as they walked out.
“I have nothing else to do.” I replied bitterly, it wasn’t aimed at him, but it sounded like I was trying to insult him. I didn’t apologise.
“I’m taking that as an official application to be part of the military air force.” He was grinning wider than I thought possible. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Would that mean I’d have something to do?” I asked, sitting down, knowing I could never fulfil the role Max wanted me to be.
“It’d mean I’d have an apprentice. And you’d get a uniform, if you’d like. As much as the gold and white flatters you, camouflage black and white is quite the fashion statement.” He joked, posing in his own black and white camouflage outfit. I laughed, covering my mouth.
“What do you mean? My mother buys my clothes!” I was laughing, looking at the nail polish that reminded me of being a two year old messing with their elder sister’s make-up. Except it wasn’t my elder sister’s make-up it was my elder pack member’s and when they found out I’d be heavily shunned. I didn’t understand why then, but when I watched my father turn into a wolf, his tail between his legs, submissive to anyone, I understood. This is just how life goes for us, he told me. We don’t have a choice, he said. We have a choice. I know we have a choice.
“Is Max trying to recruit you already?” The queen waded in, her necklace shimmering in the light. Already? It’d been weeks.
“The air force is only for the best, ma’am.” He replied to the queen, smirking and sitting down next to her.
“You think she’s good enough?” The queen questioned, waving a waiter over, ordering a drink and then waiting for his reply.
“She’s got me as her trainer.” He replied, cockily. The queen and I laughed in harmony for a while and I wondered how much alike we really were.
“Alright.” The queen nodded towards me. “Welcome to the team.”
The quicker I learnt the faster Eustatia was saved. “When do I start?”