Chapter 8: Chapter 8

[Nivera’s POV]

“Find that slave girl and bring her immediately to me, or you’d pay with your life,” I heard Alpha Tyler scream at the warriors just before I opened the door to the throne room and stepped in.

As soon as the door was opened, everyone present in the room looked up to see who it was, and the shock boldly written on their faces told me that a lot of time had passed by and I was in for a lot of trouble.

“There she is,” one of the warriors said, pointing at me.

“We can see that, Jerry. Neither of us here is blind. The question is, where was she all this time?” Alpha Tyler asked, stepping down from his throne as a maid dabbed the sweat that had trickled down his forehead with a napkin.

The eight warriors who had assembled before him parted in two halves and he walked through them and came to me, staring at me as though he had just seen a ghost.

“Where have you been?” he asked, gazing deep into my eyes with his brown eyes.

I couldn’t look away from him as much as I wanted to. The look he gave me made my heart race faster than usual and as he came closer to me, the more lost I became.

“I… I…” I didn’t even know what to say. I just stuttered, looking helplessly at him.

“It’s been three days since you went missing. Where were you all this time? Do you know how everyone searched for you, but yet, we just couldn’t find you?”

“Three days?” I was stupefied. The man and the woman at the magnificent house I had found myself in said nothing about me being with them for three days. I merely thought it had just been a few hours since I passed out.

“Yes, three days. Who has been hiding you all this time?” he demanded in a furious tone.

“No one. I… I collapsed and I just woke up, then came here immediately,” I explained.

He scoffed. “Oh. Is that so? Tell me then, where exactly did you collapse?” he asked.

“In… in the meadow,” I lied.

He walked even more closer to me till he was right in front of me and our noses were almost touching. He looked down at me with a menacing gaze and I shuddered, refraining from looking him in the eye.

I stood there, fiddling with my fingers and looking at my toes, knowing he could tell that I was lying.

“The problem here is that no one saw you even at the meadow. Worst still is you kept on doing all your chores throughout the three days, but refused to show up even though it was obvious that everyone was on the lookout for you,” he said.

“My chores? I have no memory of that. Perhaps, Tami did…”

“Tami did nothing,” he cut in. “Tami was among the maidens that went out to search for you. She knew nothing about doing your chores and certainly didn’t help you to do it,” he said.

My eyes twitched from place to place, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Perhaps, it was the stranger who had done so to keep me from being in trouble should I decide to return to the Pack. It got me thinking. If I had accepted his offer and stayed with him, I wouldn’t be facing this much query right now.

Before I could think of anything else, Alpha Tyler grabbed me by the neck and began choking me. I tapped on his hand, struggling to breathe and trying to stop him from strangling me to death. “You must have had so much fun, not so? You were just there playing everyone. You’d do your chores, then have fun laughing at how stupid we were for searching around for you. And now, you think you can just show up and make up lies about where you’ve been over the last few days?. Who do you think we are? A bunch of fools with no common sense? I won’t ask again. Where the hell were you?” Alpha Tyler screamed at me, before letting go of my neck forcefully and pushing me away.

I landed on the floor with a thud and began coughing out loud. “I… I…” Tears began to spring out from my eyes and I began to ramble on about things even I didn’t understand.

“Are you kidding me right now? Speak up, or I will kill you right here and now,” he threatened.

I swallowed and tried to calm myself down as I was hyperventilating. “After what happened three days ago, I… I was scared and I hid in the old abandoned mill. I didn’t want to be around… around the other maids anymore, but I was scared of what punishment I would face if I didn’t do the chores required of me,” I lied, but luckily, he seemed to believe it.

I was afraid that he might do something to the good stranger who fondly called me Eloise if I said the truth, and apart from that, it didn’t even sound believable, so I thought it best to say a believable lie.

“You were scared? Why?” he asked, and for the first time, it seemed like he did care.

“They… they beat me to a pulp.” At least, that was true.

“Why?”

As I opened my mouth to speak, Malia appeared from behind the curtains and I choked on my words immediately. I was surprised to see her there, and for a second, I thought I was dreaming.

“Speak up. Why did you suddenly go mute? Tell us. Why did these so-called maids beat you to a pulp?” she asked with a friendly smile, but the look in her eyes was one that screamed: “I’ll kill you if you dare say a word.”

I knew better than to create trouble for myself. She was the Alpha’s childhood friend, and I would only be doing myself a disservice by speaking out against her. I was also a hundred percent sure that he wouldn’t even trust my words over hers.

I knelt down and bowed my head. “I disrespected my leader, that’s why. It was fault, and I am sorry. I was angry that they beat me up, but realised I deserved it and that was why I returned to apologise. Please, forgive me, your highness. Please, do not punish me,” I said, looking remorseful for a sin that I did not commit.

He was quiet for a while, then he cleared his throat. “It is good that you have accepted your mistake, but if I bestow my grace on you and not punish you for the crime you committed, what would you do for me in return?” he asked.

I was puzzled by his question. “Alpha Tyler, what can a mere cursed and possessed Omega like myself do for you? I am nothing but a vessel and tool for your use,” I said to him.

Call me stupid for acting worthless and trying to get on his good sides, but being this way to everyone has made me survive in the Pack for the last eighteen years.

“That might look true on the surface, but there is something you can do for me,” he said.

“And what might that be, your highness?” I asked.

“Accept my rejection,” he replied.

My heart sunk as he uttered those words. That was all he wanted? For him not to be associated with him by virtue of the mate pull? Was that what this had actually been all about?

“What’s that look on your face? You don’t want to accept the Alpha’s rejection?” Malia asked, eyeing me.

What was she even doing here? I thought to myself, but didn’t say a word to her.

“Come to think of it. The Alpha obviously does not like you and he does not want you to be his mate. Why don’t you take the high road and accept his rejection with your pride and dignity still intact? Why do you want to force someone who wants nothing to do with you to be with you?” Malia asked.

A drop of tear fell from my eyes, not because her words hurt me, but because they were true. “But… but why does he not want to have anything to do with me? What is so wrong about me? I’m a person, too. Why does everyone hate me? Why can’t I be accepted by the Alpha? What wrong I do?”

Malia crouched to be on the same level as I was while kneeling down. In a soft voice, she said: “Everything, Nivera. Everything is wrong with you. You might think we are the bad people here, but you’d have done the same thing if you were in our position. Also, don’t blame us for hating you. Blame your parents for abandoning you. But seriously, can you even really blame them? They must have known from the moment you were born that you were cursed, and that’s why they left. You shouldn’t have ever been born. The only crime you committed was being born,” she said.

I started crying hard as soon as she was done with what she had to say. Her words stung hard, and it was worse that she was being real about everything. She was right; my birth was a mistake. I should have not be been born, and as the reality of that dawned in, my tears morphed into uncontrollable sobs and I started hiccuping, while sniffing in my catarrh. It was a complete breakdown.

“The truth hurts, dear Omega, but it is what it is. Sadly, you can only accept my rejection during a full moon, so I’ll be locking you in a prison cell till that day comes,” the Alpha said, then gave a signal to the warriors.

“Why… why are you locking me up?” I asked in an unclear voice.

“I don’t want you to be beaten up again, so I’m hiding you away from the other maids,” he replied.

A tiny glint of hope surged in my heart. “Why? Are you worried about me?” I asked.

He suppressed a chuckle. “No, dummy. I’m worried you’d have another excuse to pull a disappearing act before the next full moon. At the prison, I can monitor you closely and ensure you don’t leave while I am still being tied to you,” he replied.

Just like that, the hope in me died down, and I didn’t even protest as I was forced to my feet and led out of the throne room; deeply hurt and tired of it all.

“Oh, and Nivera…”

I turned back around to see if he had a change of heart.

He continued. “Don’t forget that accepting my rejection isn’t the only thing that is possible to free me of you. You dying can always be another option,” he said with a smirk.

Malia cackled like the witch she was, and I looked away, accepting my fate. The stranger had been right; me coming back here was a mistake and now, I was left to regret my actions and deal with the consequences.