The Alpha's Secret

Forgotten

Moria

Oh God…what now?

Blinking furiously, I feel myself sink to the bottom step.

A deflated ballon sucked of all air.

Everything, my whole life, it was turning in a direction I did not understand.

But even worse, it was becoming something I could not control.

And sitting on the hard stone floor of the house of the ones responsible for it all, I can not even decide what part scares me more.

My head seems to be racing at a speed faster than I can keep up with.

Thought after thought flashing through my mind until I start to feel like I might either faint.

Or run mad.

What about my mother?

I sniff back the stubborn tear that threatens to fall.

I had already broken her heart so many times.

Getting expelled…

Being a…a…freak with her glowing red hair and sudden swing in moods.

And now…now I would be missing.

I know my mother. Know how strong willed and intense she could be.

I know she would go crazy looking for me.

I refuse to listen to the tiny voice scratching at the fibers of my heart, threatening to draw blood.

The ones that remember how scared of me she had been when she saw my hair.

The ones that say she might not even try at all.

The image of my mother almost running out of my room flashes through my mind and I bury my head between my knees, pressing hard against my ears because the pain helps me resist the urge to cry.

Chryseis shoots Axe a stern look even as I feel her settle down beside me on the step.

Axe sighs and comes back, sitting down on my other side.

Chryseis is rubbing my back in gentle circles.

It reminds me of my mother.

I shove off her hand and sniff hard.

I would not cry, not in front of them.

I glare at her with all the anger I can muster.

“Don’t touch me. Where in blazes am I and you better not lie to me.”

Chryseis folds her hands gently in her laps and stares back at me with a wide eyed innocence that quite frankly only serves to make me more angry.

But before she can answer…

I hear a voice.

“Why would we lie to you? You should be the one scared of us not the other way around.”

My entire body tenses at the sound of his voice behind me.

Our bodies react to danger in one of three ways.

Fear, flight or Fight.

And somehow, he makes me want to do all three at the same time.

I turn my head to sneer at him even as he walks down the steps.

“Why, are you going to try and drown me again?”

He does not even glance at me as he walks past.

“I don’t need to try anything. Next time, I’ll do something that actually kills you.”

Axe stretches out his legs and leans backwards on his elbows.

“No he won’t. He’s just kidding”

This time Tristen, now at the bottom of the steps does turn.

His eyes narrowing into dangerous slits when they meet my own.

“No. I’m not. If you do anything to endanger anyone of us, I will kill you.”

It is like a band snaps in my head.

And fight wins.

I fly off and down the steps so fast, I do not even realize what I have done until I am close enough to finally make out the color of his eyes.

I decide there and then that I hate the color green and all its shades.

“Endanger you?! Are you flipping kidding me? I’m the one who was held against her will, nearly drowned, and dragged away from the only place I know to some godforsaken Never land with floating people and murderers and two damn suns, leaving my mother, the only person who actually cares about me to wonder and worry herself to death about my safety and I’m the one endangering you?”

He towers over me.

Enough that common sense should have me running away from and not towards.

But I do not care.

I glare up at him with all the anger I can feel.

Daring him to touch me again.

To make one move and see if I did not bite all his fingers clean off.

Except…

The anger I can feel, it isn’t mine.

Not entirely.

For some reason he was furious too, livid even.

And somehow, I could feel it.

Just as acutely as I could feel my own.

He stares down at me, brilliant hazel eyes so cold, I almost shiver.

And then he opens his mouth and says the words that let me know that I would hate Tristen for the rest of my life.

“She does not remember you.”

Axe gets up.

“Tristen…”

There is a warning in his voice but Tristen ignores him and instead takes a step closer to me.

“You precious mother doesn’t remember you…”

I am shaking my head. At least I think I am.

But as he speaks, everything starts to hurt and I am not sure what I am doing any more

“No. stop…”

But he doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t stop.

“She’s never going to look for you…never going to wonder where you are.”

“Tristen. Stop it”

Axe again.

But I can barely hear him over the blood rushing between my ears.

Over the feeling of Tristen’s anger building to a crescendo in my head even as he takes one more step towards to me.”

“You are not gone, you did not disappear. To her, it’s like you never…even.., existed.”

I stagger backwards like I have been struck physically.

I might as well have been.

“No, you’re lying. Why are you saying…why is he saying that?”

Chryseis flies towards the both of us.

She is angry too.

I can feel it. I can feel everything and it hurts.

God it hurts.

She lands besides me, shielding me.

Cutting me off from Tristen and the malice in his eyes that I did not understand.

“Tristen, that’s enough.”

But Tristen isn’t done.

His eyes find mine again.

“There’s no one left to care about you Moria and you better start getting used to it.”

One second I was hurting.

The pain so sudden in its severity, it made me gasp, made the space in my chest too small for my heart.

And the next minute…

The next minute I was charging at a man twice my size.

Axe catches me before I can get to him.

I struggle in his arms, legs kicking violently in the air.

And Tristen, he just stands there.

Watching me try to attack him.

As if daring me to give him an excuse to kill me. Once and for all.

The words start to form themselves in my head.

Like tiny worms eating their way out of the softness of my brain.

They had taken everything away; they deserved to hurt just as much.

My eyes widen as I watch Tristen start to walk away.

That thought just now… it had not been mine…

It had been his.

Almost instantly, I feel myself go went limp in Axe’s arms as the headache hits.

A blinding pain that threatens to split my skull in two.

Chryseis is there in a second. Hand tiny and cold where it touches my head.

“Skies, she’s drained.”

Drained?

“We need to get her inside now.” Axe’s voice but it sounds foggy, like it’s coming from l under water.

I see Chryseis shake her head in response.

“No, she’s lost way too much. She needs the sea.”

Christ, couldn’t I have been kidnapped by normal people?

“But that’s miles away, we’ll never get there fast enough.”

Their voices sounded faint and far away and I want to ask them what the f**k they are talking about.

Why they seem to know so much about what is happening to me.

But wave after wave of pain washes over me and I can barely even keep my eyes open much less form words.

I feel tired.

Bone achingly tired.

Maybe I should go to sleep.

Yes…maybe I should.

I feel Axe’s arms around me shake me back to the pain of consciousness and if I were stronger I would have slapped him.

He brushes the hair from my face.

“Come on Princess. Don’t close your eyes.”

“Give her to me.”

Axe raises his head at the sound of Tristen’s voice.

I do not know if he knows that he is unconsciously holding me tighter against his body and out of reach.

“I’m the only one who can get her there fast enough so you either give her to me or I walk away right now.”

Tristen again, responding.

Even now, he still sounds the same.

Cold and calm.

Like he isn’t responsible for any of this and that it matters nothing to him either way.

God I hate him.

If I somehow I die today, I will haunt his f*****g ass for the rest of eternity.

I can feel Axe reluctantly start to hand me over. Moving me away from his body.

Except he isn’t giving me to another pair of hands like I thought he would.

Instead I feel myself being placed on the back of something.

Something warm and large and…

My fingers flex weakly against what feels like large shoulder muscles.

Is that…fur?

What’s going on?

Did Tristen leave?

I want to open my eyes and scream and demand answers but my body is refusing to cooperate with me

I hear Chryseis speak beside me.

“I’ll go with you. Make sure she doesn’t fall off.”

Then Axe adds in a voice that tells me he isn’t quite comfortable with this.

“And I’ll be right behind you. You better not throw her off on purpose.”

I want to protest.

To ask Axe if he is insane. Leaving me with this beast.

I feel the whatever I am rumble quietly beneath my body.

Almost like it is scoffing in response

And then, the world around me becomes a blur of colors.

We…it…is running.

Moving faster than sound with me hanging on weakly to it’s back.

Even barely conscious I can tell whatever this is…it isn’t human.

But it is saving me.

From what, and why I would need saving in the first place, my foggy brain couldn’t even begin to decipher.

But I try…and I try…and I try…

“W…why”

The words fall from my lips like a flickering flame.

Dying out before it even starts to burn.

But is loud enough and I hear Tristen start to reply.

“I will not let you turn me into something I am not.”

In my head.

His voice was in my head again.

“What does that…”

But the words never fully form.

I hear Chryseis announce that we are here.

And the last thing my consciousness registers is the smell of the sea breeze and the feel of the ocean as I am lowered into the water.