Amelia
After a hard day's work completing pack cleaning duties meant for myself and a couple of pack omegas, who ran off leaving their duties to me, I hummed as I walked deep into the woods heading back to my cottage where Hazaiah and I were planning to wait for Isaiah to wake up from his hibernation together.
I plucked a peppermint leaf and pushed it into my mouth as I walked past a peppermint bush. As I moved closer to the cottage, a strange restlessness kept urging me to walk faster and I couldn't help wondering what was wrong.
I had been restless all day, and that wasn't a good sign. Although I had no prophetic magic, I often had ominous feelings. And since the same ominous feelings had saved my life more than once, including when Evelyn had given me a drink with Wolfsbane just after my parents' deaths, I had learned to trust it.
By the time I got to the clearing of the cottage, I saw Evelyn, her crew and some of the young adults training to be pack enforcers coming out of the cottage.
My heart stopped beating for a second and then started beating at 5 beats per second.
I had no coherent thoughts as I rushed into the cottage.
The carnage of the cottage didn't bother me. And the fact that some of my mother's priceless medical books were torn and thrown around carelessly didn't bother me. What bothered me were the two snakes lying dead in the cottage.
Their bodies had been cut in various areas, and Hazaiah's head had even been sliced off.
They had tried to fight, but somehow they had gotten to Hazaiah first before dealing with Isaiah, who definitely woke from his hibernation before he was murdered.
The smell of the drug that had been used to incapacitate two smart and powerful animals like Hazaiah and Isaiah still lingered in the air as I stared at the hole where Hazaiah's gallbladder had been dug out of him.
A scream involuntarily left my mouth.
No, no, no.
Those two were supposed to leave here after I went to Camdine Academy and go deeper into the woods to live together forever.
How could this happen now?! How could this happen?!
What were these idiots even doing here? No one came to this part of the woods except in wolf form and only once in a while.
I looked around at the young adult pack enforcers staring at me, engraving their faces into my heart. If killing them wouldn't warrant tarnishing my parents' image, I would have sacrificed my future to kill them all here.
Did they know it was a Supernatural Council crime to kill animals that had awakened their soul wisdom like these two snakes had?
Did they know how rarely it occurred, how hard it was, and how long it took for an animal to let go of dull animal thought, gain sentience and soul awareness, and begin to think and react to situations with human-like wisdom?
When my eyes met Evelyn's eyes brimming with malicious amusement, I knew she was the one who had led them here. After all, she was the only one who even knew that there were snakes in here because she'd tried to sneak in while I wasn't here, but had been scared away by Isaiah just before he went into hibernation.
Without saying a word, I rushed out of the cottage to where Evelyn and her crew were standing talking about me.
"She's so creepy. I can't believe anybody would keep such enormous snakes as pets."
"I read an article once and the writer said that only psychopaths liked reptiles. There's no doubt now that Amelia is just a psychopath and a freak."
Before they could react, I was standing in front of Evelyn. In a smooth movement, I punched her in the face and the satisfying crunch of her nose breaking was the best ASMR sound I had ever heard. I followed the first punch with a simultaneous punch in her gut.
When one of her friends tried to move closer to stop me, I slapped her away and then pushed Evelyn to the ground, straddling her waist before I started to punch her anywhere my fists could find.
She, a mere female wolf, trained by her mother to be a 'lady' and not a warrior, couldn't raise her hands to protect herself. The only thing she could do was take the beating she deserved until someone pulled me off her and then punched me in the face.
Cassie's brother, Jeffery. I knew who he was from that right hook he had always treated me to while I was 'training' with the young adult pack enforcers.
When I staggered away, he didn't stop. Instead, he bent slightly to sweep my legs from under me. And then straddled me like I had straddled Evelyn raining punches down on me. When I wanted to fight back, someone held my arms down so I could only lie there to receive the heavy punches from his ruthless fists.
By the time they let me go, I was dizzy with pain and probably had a concussion, so I let them drag me back to the pack to Alpha Vincent's office.
***
By the time I got to Alpha Vincent's office, the drowsiness had passed, the slight concussion was gone, and the pain from the beating I'd taken had simmered down to aches and throbbing. This was one reason why my father had started training me into a little warrior when I was younger. I healed fast.
I sat in front of Alpha Vincent's desk with my head down and my disheveled hair covering my eyes and listened to him talk as though he was the most reasonable and caring Alpha in the world. But all his words were indirectly coercing me to hand over my Camdine Academy special admission ticket voluntarily.
So they'd done all this for the ticket again.
Unlike before I had read my parents' letter, I now knew that I had control over what happened to that admission ticket that had been bought with my parents' sweat and blood in the Supernatural Council.
So I waited patiently for Alpha Vincent to finish his useless spiel before raising my head to stare at him from behind my bangs.
"You wanted to use this incident to get me to voluntarily turn in my Camdine Academy special admission tickets to you, right? That was why you allowed Evelyn to take pack enforcers in training to that cottage to kill those snakes. But I think you're being ridiculous. You can't throw me out of the pack without a tangible reason. What makes you think you can force me to give up my Camdine Academy admission ticket?" My words were quiet, but only I knew how hard I was holding back from hurling insults at this greedy Alpha who wanted to steal what was mine.
Alpha Vincent obviously didn't expect me to say these things out loud.
His eyes turned frosty with every word I said, but I was beyond caring. I wanted to shove it in his face how much I knew about his operation of this pack from what my parents had told me, but my last bit of sense overpowered my anger and stopped me from painting a bright red target on my back.
"You'll get my Camdine Academy special admission ticket over my dead body. I don't mind you calling the Supernatural Council. By the time someone professionally examines those two snakes, they'll realize what you did. You killed a 500-year-old snake and a 300-year-old snake that had gained soul wisdom. I'm pretty sure that's a crime. You could weasel yourself out of it, but what about Evelyn and those enforcers who had gone with her to that cottage? The negative points for their actions would always be on their Supernatural Council file."
Alpha Vincent bared his teeth at me with a hard glint in his eyes. "Are you threatening me?"
"No. I'm simply buying myself refuge from you and your pack. I know you want to kill me now, but I don't think it's a good idea. My parents left a few things in place in case I die suddenly." I didn't even shake as I bluffed my way out of a sudden death.
The only sign that I was afraid was the fact that I was pinching the flesh on my right thigh.
"What do you want?"
Even though I knew this question was a concession that could mean that he would let me go, I didn't allow myself to get complacent.
"I want to go to Camdine Academy in peace. I want to be left alone. I no longer want to do pack chores and I don't want to come out of the woods other than to eat until it's time for me to go to Camdine Academy."
His hard green eyes bore into mine, openly displaying the blatant dislike that he had always hidden under indifference before. "And in exchange, you will not tell the Supernatural Council about the snakes?"
"Yes."
"Swear on it. Swear on your pack, your Alpha. No, swear on your parents."
I stared into his green eyes that were staring at me like a predator stared at prey that it wanted to tear apart. And it took a lot of strength, that I didn't know I had in me, to stare into his eyes as I swore, while doing the swear neutralizer spell in my head.
By the time I walked out of Alpha Vincent's office, I was drained. I was trembling all over and my legs felt like they could give out at any moment as I walked toward the woods. As soon as I had walked a little into the woods, my legs gave out.
They had killed my friends because of me.
If I had handed them over to the Supernatural Council after I found them, instead of caring about their freedom to roam wherever they wanted, they wouldn't be dead.
If I didn't exist, they wouldn't have died.
A sob was locked in my throat, burning me from the inside out as I sat on the ground surrounded by tall blades of grass that grew on the outer edges of the woods and the sound of crickets, birds, and other critters.
My eyes hurt, my head hurt and there was a burn down my throat because I hadn't cried yet, like I should have. My body also hurt from the beating I had taken from Jeffery.
But I still had something to do.
I still needed to bury my friends.
I staggered to my feet and walked into the woods. It took some time to find a good spot deep in the woods close to a small flowering tree for Hazaiah and Isaiah's burial.
After I dug two holes beside each other and buried Hazaiah and Isaiah, I walked back to the cottage, knowing that I had a fever. I pushed open a compartment in the wall that Evelyn and her crew hadn't had time to find and picked the blue potion there.
My body would heal my fever, but I still wanted to take this blue potion. It would eliminate my fever and pounding headache, and it would also help me sleep.
And I needed sleep. Because I needed to train harder than I used to.
I needed to become strong enough to get to the higher tiers of the Supernatural Council where I could finally deal with the Mcnarty pack and my evil Alpha. If possible, I wanted to become strong enough to, one day, disintegrate this rotten pack.
After taking the potion, I ignored the pain and changed into my wolf form and went to sleep, leaving my wolf to keep watch. Tonight I would sleep well, but from tomorrow, I would need to stay sharp because even though I had struck a deal with him, I still didn't trust Alpha Vincent.
He might have promised not to do anything to me, but I had something on him now that could affect the pack's reputation adversely, and he could decide at any moment to kill me.
So I was walking on eggshells now.
In the next three weeks before I left for Camdine Academy, I had to stay alert and protect myself.
Otherwise, I would die a sudden death without knowing how I died. And no one would investigate whether my death was natural or unnatural.
~~~
Read the other books in The Fae Omega Standalone Series:
Book 1: The Pack Slut (this book)
Book 2: Who Wants a Blind Mate?
Book 3: The Pack Outcast
Book 4: Who Wants a Broken Mate?
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