Olive's eyes widened in shock. Wayne Knight… her mate? Was that even possible? She laughed at her stupidity. Yes, she was stupid enough to think that. She knew that it was just her mind playing with her and giving her what she desired. She desired a mate, and her mind was toying with her. Wayne was Cynthia's mate. That explained why she was with them in the first place, because she couldn't work against the cult unless she was mated.
Olive shoved the thought of Wayne being her mate back inside. She growled at her wolf to sit still and stop miscalculating things.
Though this was the very first time her wolf had acted this way with someone, she still didn't want to believe her. The Big Bad Alpha couldn't be her mate. And even though he was, she was sure to be rejected by him. That angry look he was giving her few seconds ago explained that he was not going to show her any mercy. She closed her eyes on the floor there and slept off.
***
Alpha Wayne Knight was beyond angry when he saw Olive. So, she was sent to kill him?
He walked into the kitchen where he found the rest of his men, alongside Cynthia who was the only woman.
He ignored all their looks and opened the fridge, almost yanking the door off. He pulled out a bottle of shifter-made tequila and a shot glass. He filled the glass to the very brim and chugged it down.
All eyes were still on him, seeing how angry he was, no one spoke. They thought he was having a hard time with the fact that The Vrek Cult was truly after him like Cynthia said.
“Did you kill the girl already? You look so agitated,” Cynthia's smug voice rang across to him. He looked at her, scoffed then chugged down another shot of tequila.
“She's alive,” he simply answered… coldly.
Cynthia smiled. By his answer, she knew he was going to give her a slow death. He was going to torture Olive because he seemed agitated and angry. She tried to walk up to him and massage him to calm him down. But he asked a question with a very deadly voice.
“Who. Tortured. Her?”
Cynthia stopped walking and blinked repeatedly.
“I did,” she answered. His face reddened as he looked at her.
“You did that to her?” he asked in a calmer voice than the first question.
“Yes, I did. Did I do a good job?” she smiled at him, thinking he was impressed with her.
He raked his fingers through his messy hair and clenched his jaw.
“You did too good of a job. She looks like a battered piece of bread!” he gritted his teeth angrily. Cynthia flinched at his tone.
“If she did a good job then why are you yelling at her, Alpha?” Jake, his Beta asked. Cynthia made a puppy face.
“Because that girl lying on the bare floor, bloodied and in pain is my fucking mate!!” he barked while pointing out the door.
Everyone in the room was shocked beyond comprehension. Their hearts fell to their feet. Their blood turned lighter and reddened their skins. No one moved, no one talked, no one even tried breathing heavily. To say they were shocked was even an understatement.
Cynthia—she was killed. Yes, she felt like she had just died the very moment he said that. The body standing was just a mere pound of flesh. Her mouth was aghast, her eyes as wide as that of an owl and her breathing, seized.
“What?” her subconscious mind spoke out loud for her. Wayne kept emptying glass upon glass until he began to sway and held the counter for support.
“Shit,” Jake's voice was heard.
“How's that…” one of the men, Terry, wanted to ask how that was possible but he trailed off.
The rest of the men recovered from their shock and looked at Cynthia who was still standing like Lot's wife. They knew how obsessed she was with their Alpha, and she was too possessive of him. She didn't waste a minute to flaunt him before any girl they came across. And they knew she was flaunting him to Olive too. But that same Olive turned out to be Wayne's mate. Irony of life!
“What are you going to do now?” Jake asked a very tipsy Wayne Knight. He ran his fingers into his hair and clutched them hard.
“I don't know. I fucking don't know,” he muttered and was about to take another shot but Jake grabbed it and poured it in the sink. He put the bottle in the fridge and closed it.
“Is she still there? In that room?”
“Yes. I couldn't stand the sight of her,” Wayne answered and closed his eyes, as if she was still before him. The blood flowing down her face hurt him badly. How dare Cynthia?
“Terry, go take her to a room with a bed. Clean her up and find something for her to eat,” Jake ordered. Terry was about to leave when Wayne stood straight.
“No. I'll go clean her up. You go get her some food,” he said and walked out of the room, swaying a little. Terry looked at Jake with questions written all over his face.
“What are you waiting for?” Jake asked him. He looked at the door then back at Jake.
“Are you sure that is really his mate? What if this is just—”
“Terry, how many years have you been with Wayne?” Jake cut him short.
“Roughly five years,” Terry answered.
“And you've seen him sparing his victim, getting drunk for his victim, going to clean up his victim and getting so angry that she was hurt?”
Terry gulped down. Truly, what just happened was very foreign. The Big Bad Alpha wasn't one to have emotions other than hate, anger and pleasure. He didn't have sympathy, empathy, love or kindness towards any other person apart from people on his side. So, for him to spare someone sent to kill him, that was definitely something new.
“Now, go get that girl some food,” Jake added and Terry walked out of the kitchen. There was no food in the house because they had come there to set a trap for Olive. The tequila bottle was the only thing in the fridge and it belonged to Wayne. It was still the early hours of the morning so it wasn't hard to find food outside.
Wayne Knight staggered until he reached the empty room where Olive was kept. He opened the door and steadied himself. He saw her lying on the floor in a ball and surrounded with blood. So, this was his mate. The one created for him… alone.
What if he had let his men kill her immediately last night when she was caught. That was how he would have lost his mate forever. He walked up to her and bent down. Her hair was all over her face. He pushed them all away and stared at her.
She was really a mess. He saw torn skin on her neck and face, and knew it must have been the whip that bounced against those places. He shuddered at the thought of how the rest of her body would actually look like. Gently, like a new baby, he carried her in his arms. She whimpered and winced in pain but didn't wake up from her sleep. He took her to a room, the room he slept last night.
After placing her on the bed, he began to tear off her clothes until it was just her undies. He closed his eyes at the sight of her skin. He had no idea that a person's wounds could affect him this much. He didn't want to look at her like that, but he didn't want any of his men to see her that way either. It would be embarrassing for her to be seen in this state… even though she was tortured in their presence.
Wayne got towels and a bowl of warm water from the bathroom, then began to wipe off her blood. She wasn't healing, making him a tiny bit worried. Some of her injuries kept seeping out new blood. He however, managed to clean her up fully.
He didn't want to see her naked, so her undies and bra were still on. He treated her wounds and rubbed healing balm made in his pack on them. Then he covered her with a blanket and gently removed her panties and unhooked her bra, all the while careful not to touch her skin. He was sure she had injuries there too, but he just didn't want to see her naked.
On a normal day, he wouldn't care if she was the curviest woman in the world. He would have seen her naked and not glanced twice. But today wasn't normal for Wayne Knight. He had found his mate, the woman he ordered to be tortured—the one he wanted to murder badly.
Olive was sleeping soundly and didn't even stir. Her face was still reddened because her blood had not cooled, she needed time to regularize her temperature. He left her there after discarding her torn clothes and undies. He closed the door, walked into the kitchen to wash his hands before heading out. He found his men at the front of the house. His face was in a terrible frown and they all stood straight, knowing he was still in a bad mood.
“Where is Cynthia?” he asked.
“She's in my bathroom,” Jake answered. Wayne's brows furrowed and he looked up as if he could see through the ceiling.
“Jake, go stand by the door of my room. Don't leave there until I return,” he ordered and began to walk down towards his car parked at the driveway.
“Uh, where are you going?” Jake asked.
“To go get some clothes for Olive,” he answered, opened the door of his car and sat in before shutting it.
Jericho, one of his men looked at Wayne and stifled a laugh. Jake shot him a glare and he looked away immediately.
“Okay, Alpha,” Jake responded and walked inside. He had an idea why Wayne had ordered for him to go and stand there. It was for fear of Cynthia doing something bad to her. Everyone knew the relationship between Cynthia and Olive was anything but love.
Alpha Knight drove out and went to buy new clothes for Olive. He didn't know her size but he could guess the one that would fit her. When he arrived, he met Jake at the door of his room.
He gave him an appreciative look and Jake walked away. He opened the door and walked in only to be greeted by the wide, extremely terrified green eyes of his mate.
“I half expected you'd not give me back my dagger,” King Xandros joked as soon as he stepped out of the forest, the way he had done two days before. Only Wayne and Olive were standing there to meet him. The others had mostly returned to Balendin Pack earlier. “I just finished one war with a vampire, I'm not quite ready to start another,” Alpha Knight joked in the same light.The vampire king laughed. It was so soft and innocent a stranger could fall for it. If he didn't see the fangs that is.“Wise of you. Very wise. Well, thank you for bringing it back.”He lifted his hand and the dagger lying on the soil rose to meet it. King Xandros looked it over, examining every crystal on it and the way the moon's glow bounced off the sharp blade.“It's not a fake. It's the very same knife,” Olive declared. King Xandros smirked.“If it wasn't the same knife, I'd have known the moment I stepped foot on the ground. I'm just... wondering how it felt like to have plunged into Prince Valerik's hea
Olive woke up abruptly after a nightmare. She saw The Baron touching her again and her Firewolf hadn't damned the bloody dampeners this time. She exhaled and rubbed her neck, right over her physically hidden mark. She looked around her and realized she was in a very cosy tent. The walls were icy. Literally icey and as she looked around with compression, she realized her mate had iced the entire tent.Why?“Burning hot you were. So hot you could have barbecued us all from fifty metres away.”Olive looked up to see Mufasa threading carefully towards her on the ice ground. She smiled brightly but couldn't bring herself to hug him. She had no strength.“Beautiful to see you back with us, my dear. Believe me, life without you is not worth living. Especially as your mate took it upon himself to personally see to our premature deaths.”Olive laughed at this. “Here. Drink this all up. It's the Ethe Orbs but for a different purpose for you. You need strength.”Olive gulped it all down but ma
The Baron smirked and Olive would have given anything in the world to just smack it off his face. “That one is very dear to me. He came in two days ago, two days after you came. You both are very dear,” he drawled. “Let him go. Don't you dare hurt him. Or any one of them!”“Sssh now. I said I wouldn't keep them if you complied. I'll free them if you strip.”“Never.”He shrugged.“Well then. I'm very sure this suit doesn't stop them from getting a brain rush. They can stay upside down for as long as it takes for them to choke on their own blood.”Olive exhaled and shut her eyes. She tried to summon something, anyone, anything. But she was blank on the inside. She looked at the manacles around her ankle and gritted her teeth. She knew what they were. Special Vrek Cult punishing tools. “I see you recognize the dampeners. Good. You will remain helpless for as long as it would take to get you to cooperate.”With this, The Baron flicked his hand and darkness clothed the cave again. His c
The safety edge was drawn up again for the third time in two weeks of nonstop fighting. This time, however, the Unbidden Army seemed to be dwindling in their numbers. Hopefully, they would soon run out of all unbidden warriors and The Baron would show himself for the final battle.Alpha Knight's hair was chin length now and he had it tied to the back of his head in a small ponytail. The effect of using his powers was shown in the growth rate of his hair.He was now standing in one of the tents, receiving reports of the war and how the people enclosed in their safety facilities were faring. A huge frown was on his face as he listened to a new report.Some of his soldiers were missing and they had last been sighted while fighting.“It's extremely strange. Even their mind links have been silenced. Nothing from them, as if they are dead,” one of the commanders revealed.Alpha Knight shut his eyes and traced them. He felt their auras and followed the trail. It kept going and going and goin
The suits were ready in two days. They were this full-body, extremely fitting like-a-second-skin, midnight blue, superhero-like suits. They clung to the bodies of the soldiers like wet polyester and were as tough as metal when struck from the outside. However, they weren't heavy neither did the soldiers feel like they were wearing the toughest and strongest uniform on earth. Impenetrable. After training with the new uniforms and suits for a whole day, Alpha Knight called the next day a day of partial rest then the following day they would move out to war. A pathway had been created from their park to the hideout location of The Baron by the joint work of Ami, Lutz and more Alchemists. All they had to do was march through the massive pathway only the Alpha family could control and they would wage war on the side out of the blue. The partial rest day had already begun, soldiers were milling around fully dressed, weapons strapped in and ready for war. But they were laughing and jesting
The hustle and bustle in the pack was evident even to a napping baby. The entire pack had more tension than the electrical tension wires around the pack. Pack members were growing nervous and fearful, with all the rumours of war and vampires flying around. Some were trying to leave the pack but Alpha Knight ordered that no one left. At first, it seemed like a tyrant command. But it soon became clear to them that if they had left the pack and were attacked, what would they do? None of the packs had the security that Balendin Pack had, and surely they wouldn't even accept them in. The human world was out of the question for those who had never left their realm. If they fled Balendin Pack at the moment, they would just be rogues—not accepted in any pack and not able to return to their own pack. There was also that fear surrounding the rumours of disappearing rogues. It could be anything. Alpha Knight had summoned his generals and commanders, ordering them to get troops ready to be depl