Chapter 2 : A Willing Victim

‘What the hell?’ I thought once I felt the initial shock wear off.

“What just happened?” I asked, shaking myself. “Did my father really just trade me to the most fearsome Alpha in our world? The one that literally became Alpha by killing his parents?”

I was half speaking to Salmakia and half to the damned bricks of the citadel. The bricks that, a moment ago, I had thought were worth it to be traded in exchange for.

“That’s what I heard,” Salmakia hissed. “I have no idea what you heard. Given how calm you sounded when you told me that things weren’t as simple as I was making it out to be.”

Salmakia’s words came back to me then. But I shook my head. Even without the shock bearing me down, I still knew that wasn’t the right way to do things right now.

“No,” I told her, shaking my head. “I’m an Omega in the Silver Stone pack, and that means I am the fastest here. But I don’t know what kind of wolves Varon brought with him, and I’m guessing that it's more than just the ones we saw right now. And we don’t know what abilities they all come with.”

Salmakia bit her lip and rubbed her hands up and down her arms like she was suddenly cold.

“No, we don’t,” she said. “But you can’t just go with him like that.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t go with him at all.”

Varon had a terrible reputation, but if I was being honest, it wasn’t his reputation that was making my decision for me. It was the fact that I refused to be treated like this. I wasn’t something to be traded, especially in this world where things like this just weren’t done.

“What are you going to do?” Salmakia asked, a frown marring her face.

“I’m going to my father,” I told her, speaking my thoughts as soon as they came. I had no plan, no real plan, in any way. And I was pressed for time. There wasn’t much else that I could do.

“Okay,” Salmakia said. “I still think you have a better chance just running away.”

A part of me was sure that she was right. But I also knew that what I said to her was the truth. I had yet to learn how many wolves Varon had brought with him, or how dedicated he might be to the new deal. I couldn’t take that chance.

My father and I had never seen eye to eye on anything in my entire life. But then again, we had never had something like this either.

I squeezed Salma’s hand one more time for good luck and then left the little room that we had been hiding in and went into the throne room. I turned down the corridor that my father had gone down not too long ago, following the path until I reached his office.

I took a deep breath and went into the room. He didn’t so much as glance up when I entered, but that wasn’t anything that I wasn’t used to.

I was an only child, like my father, and that was where the things we had in common ended. I didn’t get to know my mother; he claimed she died when I was younger and I had no memories of her. There were more than a few holes to his story, but I hadn’t managed to find anything else out on my own.

I didn’t say anything, just stood in the room waiting for him to acknowledge me. That was his rule. I couldn’t talk to him – disturb him, as he put it – and I had to wait for him to be ready to talk to me.

I waited a while, though not long enough for the pain to kick in yet.

“You should be packing,” my father told me simply. “I assume that you were hidden away in your usual spot, listening to my conversation.”

My father had made it clear on numerous occasions that he didn’t care for me standing in the secret alcove. I had made it just as clear that I would keep doing it anyway. If he wanted me to stop, he could seal the room.

“Father,” I said, though there was no part of me that felt he deserved the meaning of that word. “You can’t let him take me.”

My father turned and snarled at me.

“I am not letting him take you,” he growled. “I am giving you to him. And I am grateful that I can rid the debt by giving him something that I don’t even want.”

I felt the sting in his words, but I didn’t let it show. My father had never been kind to me, and his words now were nothing that was either new or a surprise. I just had never thought that he would actually trade me away just like that.

“The debt won’t be paid,” I told him firmly. “He will come back here. After he’s killed me. He will come back for you.”

“Then at least I will buy myself a few months with your head,” my father spat.

That hurt, and it was harder to mask my indifference. I refused to cry in front of him, and I wouldn’t let him see that he had gotten the better of me in any way. I simply turned and left the room.

I passed by Salmakia’s quarters, but I didn’t go in. There was no point. She would tell me to run and there was no point in trying that. Everything that I had said to her still stood. Running wasn’t an option because I wouldn’t get very far.

And then I would be in a worse place to negotiate from.

And if my father wasn’t going to listen, then it didn’t naturally follow that I was without options. I went back to my room and stared at my bed.

Bags had already been gathered and put onto it. I hadn’t put them there. I walked over and gingerly touched the first one. It wasn’t filled, not yet at least. I knew that it was in no way an indication of anything, but I felt like I still had time to find a way to stay.

But my father wouldn’t listen to reason.

He wouldn’t try and find another way through this mess.

But this deal was being brokered by two parties. And just because I couldn’t get my father to listen, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t get the deal called off.

There was still someone else that I could speak to.

Varon.

I knew that it was a long shot, but I didn’t really have much of a choice. My father was firm on his end, and the only way out of it would be to get Varon to possibly call the deal off.

It was harder to find Varon than it had been to find my father, but it wasn’t impossible. I asked one servant and they gave me a room. I spoke to another and got the right passage to get there.

My father – and grandfather, if I was being honest – had one important rule for the servants, and that was that they shouldn’t be seen. So, to keep to that rule, the servants used secret passages to get around.

I used them out of necessity.

I exited the passage just before the antechamber, which was where Varon was being kept. I then went in through the main door.

The wolves didn’t seem too bothered by my entrance, but I knew that they all noticed me. They were all hardened for battle, so there was no way that they wouldn’t notice someone new entering the room.

They just wouldn’t say anything.

“Varon,” I greeted, going right up to him.

He had just been waiting in the great hall, so I wasn’t interrupting anything. My father normally let his visitors wait in here if it was needed.

Some of the wolves that were with him were his personal guards. I recognized Theo and Granger from another meeting, but they didn’t stop me from approaching their Alpha. I would be insulted, but it was clear that I was an Omega, smaller and shorter than them all. There was little damage that I could do to an Alpha like Varon.

“Are you ready to leave already?” Varon asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

That must have been the first time that he ever spoke to me. But he obviously had paid meticulous attention to the lessons his father would have given him in preparation for Alpha. He would have been taught the names of all the Alphas of the region, and their immediate families. He knew who I was. It wasn’t often that I was recognized.

Which was a little mystifying. He wouldn’t have been shown a picture of who I was. He must have seen me and noticed me before this.

“I wasn’t aware that you knew me,” I told him, my voice soft. “I thought it was only the heir the other Alphas were informed of.”

“No,” Varon said, shaking his head. “We are told of the daughters of the other Alphas too, in case we look for a mate.”

“Is that why you came here today?” I asked him, my voice rising a pitch. “To look for a mate?”

Varon regarded me for a moment before answering. “You were in the room behind the throne room as I spoke to your father,” he said eventually. “You know why I came here.”

I frowned. There was no way that he should have known that I was there.

“My gift,” I told him, waving my hand a little in front of my torso, “is to cover my trace. A common gift among Omegas in my pack. You should not have been able to tell that I was there.” I frowned at him.

Varon smirked. It was a little infuriating. I was trying to have a normal conversation with him, and he was busy lording over me. It didn’t bode well for any interaction in the future, and it just told me that I was all the more in the right for coming to him now to cancel the arrangement.

“My gift,” he said, waving his hand before him in mimicry of my action, “is to sense the presence or absence of any wolf. A rare gift for my kind. I could feel the air that you carved out of the world. And because we had crossed paths before, I knew your particular trace too.”

I was confused for a moment. When had we crossed paths before? I remembered seeing him when I was younger, but I didn't know he had seen me too. Or that he'd recognize my particular trace. What did that even mean?

I pursed my lips. His gift was the only thing that would have been able to tell that I was there. The exact opposite of what I could do. It wasn’t ideal.

It also meant that I had done the right thing by not just trying to run. Even if I had masked myself, he would have been able to find me.

I doubted a little that he would give chase, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Tell my father that the deal is off,” I told him, cutting to the chase of why I was there. “You don’t want me, you didn’t come for me. I don’t want you. I don’t want to go with you.”

Varon was silent for a long moment, watching me curiously.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “in the Rising Moon pack, items do not speak. Be ready to leave soon. Or don’t. Either way, we will go.”

Maybe I should reconsider my plan of running away. If neither my father nor Varon would listen to me, I didn’t really have much choice. Even if the normal advantage of my ability would be gone.

I turned to leave. I wouldn’t beg him.

“You should know though,” Varon called from behind me, “I am Alpha, and I have ascended on my eighteenth already. I have more gifts from the Moon. And I promise you, if you intend on running away, I will hunt you down.”

A mind reader. No, that wasn’t possible. I wasn’t part of his pack, and there were limits to what we could do. He was just guessing, trying to intimidate me.

“And if you force me to do that,” Varon said again, slowly walking toward me. I closed my hands in tight fists, trying to hide the fact that they were starting to shake. “If you run from me and force me to chase after you, then I will slaughter your entire pack. And I will still take you back with me, this time in chains.”

I swallowed hard. There was not an ounce of a lie in his speech. There was nothing in his words that he wouldn’t do. I didn’t doubt it for a moment.

He had slaughtered his father as his mother watched, crying. And then she collapsed, her heart stopping.

I had to go with him. Or I had no doubt in my mind he would make sure his threat became a reality.