BENEATH THE FROZEN OATH

Aurora's POV

There was a silence that followed so stiff it was hard to breathe in and a lump forming in my throat, my movements becoming shaky.

But Ragnar was quick to defend me.

"Colt, this is why I always tell you never to skip your lessons. How could you possibly sense wolf energy from somebody possessing such a unique aura? Clearly, you were mistaken,"

Colt wavered.

"I suppose you're right Uncle Ragnar, and if she really is your daughter…. There's no way she could be a wolf you hate them more than the rest of us combined,"

I nearly stopped there that would have been enough to expose me but I kept moving, my heart pounding with every step.

The dispute between wolves and witches had gone on for generations, nobody even knew what caused it. All of it was simply a cycle of revenge.

They took from us.

So we had to take from them too.

If Ragnar hated wolves so much, then was this a trap? However, he knew so much about my mother. The simple data of a dismissible gamma family.

She wasn't that popular amongst our pack members much less among witches.

I was skeptical but decided to trust my gut and go with him. We arrived at a small town. With about 300 residents, before I could follow Ragnar home I had to be introduced to the other two heads.

Unlike in a werewolf pack where the alpha reigned supreme and some sense of power was given to the beta and gamma families Covens equally shared power between the chosen matriarch or patriarch of their family.

My father was the patriarch of his family.

All in all, it was a strenuous process.

By the end of it, he took me to his house and I was floored by how beautiful it was, and spacious too. Werewolves had a thing about living together so generations would reside in the same house meaning that stuff like privacy and alone time were practically non-existent.

I washed up and finally we were seated in his private study late into the night.

I could already imagine how everyone was panicking in the pack.

So that was the first thing I addressed.

"I have to go back home, Mom needs me…"

Ragnar contemplated my request.

"Did they see you teleport?"

My chest got tight at the implication of his words.

"I think they did," then I explained how I was surrounded by the highest-ranking wolves in the pack. In the end, I have to go into some detail about the mating ceremony.

"I see those people are still as despicable as ever, Lyra should have run away with me when I offered. I knew she would never be happy in that place, did they force her hand to make her consent to selling you off to a living corpse?" he said, shaking with rage.

"No they didn't have to force her to do anything, my mom she's been in a coma…" I burst into tears as I told him about the terrible accidents. He walked over to me and cautiously asked if he could hug me. I didn't say anything then he just suggested holding my hand and I agreed.

But when he squeezed my fingers I asked myself if he was the one consoling me or if it was the other way around.

He looked like his mind was about to collapse but was barely holding it together in front of me.

"I'll save her…I promise you that, I don't care how long it takes I will save her,"

A conviction was planted in my heart.

"No we'll save her, train me…I want to be strong enough to protect the people I care about and not watch them suffer instead,"

He looked skeptical for a moment.

"I don't want to put you in danger," he said.

"If it's for mom I don't care, she sacrificed everything raising me she was scorned by everyone and treated like dirt…this is the least I can do to repay her,"

And just like that my training began.

But I was not Ragnar's only student.

Colt Stone, heir of the second family head.

He was rather arrogant, but ironically training with him made me work even harder. Nothing made me happier than mastering a technique that he was still struggling with.

But Colt's confidence wasn't for nothing, he was a powerful rival, somebody who endlessly kept me on my toes.

And with time, he became something more.

Ragnar asked me to drop off something for him, to make sure he didn't come up with some story of me losing it. I went directly to his room to drop off the said item.

That was when I noticed a journal peeking out from his pillow.

My better senses told me to leave but my pettiness pulled me towards the journal like a magnet, I thought about arming myself with one or two embarrassing secrets.

He had been extra annoying recently, endlessly teasing so the point starts I was considering murder.

Don't even know what brought this up he was either trying to make me explode at him or ignoring me together. It was taking everything inside of me not to just grab him by the neck and strangle him until he choked.

But what I saw when I opened his journal made my jaw drop to the floor.

It read; She's basically my best friend and I shouldn't know I shouldn't feel this way about her but it's getting harder to ignore. She used to be as flat as a chessboard but recently she's filled up quite nicely everywhere. I don't know where to look when I'm with her. I'm afraid that one of these days, when we're alone…I won't be able to hold myself back…

I was already red to my ears when a familiar voice came from behind.

"Do you need more time to scroll through or can I have my journal back?"