Chapter 2

Emily.

Felix was her husband’s second in command, the pack’s beta. He had never liked Emily. She didn’t know why, she had only ever been nice and respectful towards him. But he had never approved of her. He had always looked at her with disdain and hatred, and didn’t respect her authority.

When it was time for the lashes, he didn’t hold back. In fact, she thought he would’ve kept on going if Nick hadn’t told him to stop. Whatever the reason, Emily was sure Felix was feeling quite proud of himself in this moment.

She heard the door open and a moment later a small figure was walking up to her cell.

“Luca!” She said seeing her son.

The guard unlocked her cell to let him enter. He had brought a salve for her cuts. She wondered if Nick had ordered him to do this, probably the opposite.

Nick had always spoken to their son as if he was grown. She hated that he put so much pressure on him, he was still just a child. But he was heir to their little kingdom, and Nick wanted him to be taught the ins and outs of alpha life as soon as he was old enough to understand what they were.

“I brought you some medicine.” He told her.

“Thank you, Luca.” She said. Emily reached for him, but he moved back quickly.

“What’s wrong Luca?”

“Did you do it?” He asked her.

“Did you really kill Aunt Susan?”

Emily sighed and closed her eyes. She felt that Luca was way too young to understand any of this.. but his father had insisted on him growing up quickly and had too many adult conversations in front of him. So she decided to tell him the truth.

“Yes Luca, I did.”

Her son looked down defeated.

“But there’s so much more to this that you don’t know yet.”

Luca looked at her, a confused look on his face, he slowly began shaking his head.

“Aunt Susan loved me.. she always brought me presents and let Andrew come and play.”

“I know this is hard to understand.. but Susan wasn’t who you thought she was.” Emily explained.

Still, Luca didn’t look convinced. She supposed it was a difficult thing to take in at seven years old. Susan had been nothing but nice to him and Olivia… and now Emily was telling him she wasn’t a good person.

“When I become alpha nobody will die. Nobody will kill anyone. I won’t allow it.”

Emily smiled at her son. If only it were that easy, she thought. But she didn’t want to dispel his dreams of a peaceful future, so she kept quiet.

“Mom… Andrew was gonna be alpha too just like me. But his daddy kicked them out, and he was really sad about it. So I decided to make him my beta.” Luca was telling her.

Emily got tears in her eyes. It was always the children that suffered from the sins of the adults. The people that were meant to protect them, always ended up causing the most harm. Still. She couldn’t find it in herself to feel bad about what she had done. She loved Andrew, he was her nephew after all. But she hated Susan with such a passion it outweighed everything else.

“I’m sorry Luca,” she began saying. “I know you don’t understand everything right now….”

But Luca interrupted her. “You took that away from him, mom. Now he doesn’t get to be alpha.. because his dad kicked them out of the pack.. and now he can’t even be my beta.. because you killed his mom!”

Werewolf law forbade orphans from being high ranking officials. So no matter that Andrew had been the son and nephew of alphas, he could never be beta. Unless of course his father, Caron , decided to take ownership and claim him as his own again. Emily didn’t know if that would happen or not… she wasn’t sure what kind of man Caron was as she didn’t know him that well.

But all of that would play out in the future, whatever happened.. there was no use worrying about it now. She could see that Luca was getting increasingly upset, and she started to reach over and take him in her arms when the door opened once more.