The Queen of Alphas

6. Friend or Foe

Victoria

I breathed deeply and swallowed down my tears. I was afraid, more than ever before. But I knew that was what I had to do.

I just hope that if they take me to the Dungeon, I will have another chance to see the owner of those green eyes. 

Hump, I am so stupid! In a moment like this and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I felt something vibrating in my chest. Was it my heart? 

I closed my eyes and inhaled another stride of air.

“Let’s open the door,” I told Beta Aaron, trying to sound as secure as possible and not the nervous wreck I was right now. 

The two Gammas were already in their wolf form, ready to lunge at whoever was on the other side of the door. 

Beta Aaron nodded, and his hand twitched the knob to the side. When we opened the door, we saw a large group of people, none in their wolf form. They looked rather impatient, but I didn’t imagine that attackers would look like that. They didn’t have the severity or the anger that I saw on the castle’s guards. 

Alpha Marcus was growling very loudly, not allowing the newcomers to even say a word, he was about to launch at them like a predator, when I told him, “Stop!” my voice had the desperate rawness of a plea, rather than a commend, but he did what I said. 

The giant brown wolf looked intently at me, taken aback. 

“Let’s listen to them first,” I said, breathing a lungful of air to calm my wrecked nerves down. 

“Princess Victoria,” one of the males in front of me, on the other side of the door bowed down. The other with him followed suit.

“We aren’t here to attack you, we mean no harm to Your Holy Highness,” another male, seemingly older added, also bowing down.  

“We are here to show our support and to witness the divine gift of your presence with our own eyes.” The first male spoke once again, “We aren’t ranked or powerful, we are simple and regular wolves. But we know that the Goddess acts in mysterious ways that transcend our comprehension, we know that you will bring our Realm peace, prosperity, and union, and lead us towards greatness, Alpha.” He bowed down again.

His words made a little jolt of energy travel down my spine, something vibrated in my chest once again, as my eyes opened wide, and my breath caught in my throat. 

Alpha. 

“How many are you exactly?” Beta Aaron asked as Devon pulled me towards him in a protective way.

“You shouldn’t trust that easily, my Princess,” he almost whispered in my ear, making me gasp. He wasn’t an Alpha, not even a Beta, but Devon was indeed a bold wolf. 

His action made a funny sensation arise in the back of my neck, but something didn’t feel right. 

The male moved from the front of the door and we were all overtaken by shock when we saw dozens of males and females behind him.

“There are more of us, there are many that still worship the Goddess, are faithful to Her among every and each pack. We are here to support you in your claim and to achieve your destiny, Alpha.” The same male said, looking intently at my eyes. 

A smile arose on my face, we had a chance. 

It wasn’t a lost cause. I could do it; I had an actual chance to become their Queen and above that, have them as my people. 

~ * ~

After Alpha Marcus and his allies -  our allies realized that we were not under attack, everyone calmed down and some of my new supporters went inside to talk to us. Of course, Alpha Marcus went away to shift back to his human form before joining us. 

“I am Killian, and he is Landon. We are from the Black Forest Pack, our Alpha doesn’t know that we are here, if he gets to know it, we are in trouble…”

“If you are genuine supporters of our cause, of Victoria’s claim, I can give you shelter in my pack.” Alpha Marcus's grave voice echoed around the room. 

“We will show you that we indeed are, we and our comrades would do anything to secure the princess her right, even go to war,” Killian said.

I looked intently at him, overwhelmed with shock. War? Wasn’t that extreme? I didn’t want to bring more destruction or casualties to this Realm. 

“Besides being the Goddess descendant, she is the oldest heir of the late King. Hence, the crown couldn’t belong to anyone else. We …” Killian started once again.

“I believe that war should be avoided,” I cut him off, as soon as I recovered from my little surprise-haze.

“Probably it will end up this way, I don’t see Prince Henrik or his supporters giving up his claim any easier and we won’t either.” Alpha Marcus affirmed, and all the other males present nodded their agreement. 

“I understand, but war should always be the last resort. We should at first try to have it in a peaceful way, negotiate, maybe even strategize. I don’t know anything that could avoid going down to a military confrontation.” I added.

“You have the same pacifist spirit as the Goddess,” Devon remarked with a smile. 

However, I felt like there was something more to his smile than only a little astonishment. His eyes grew darker every time he looked at me and it made me a little nervous. 

“She does. But we can’t lose time or believe that the other side would agree with a peaceful solution at all, we can’t be that gullible,” Alpha Marcus said, glancing at me. 

He was right, I was gullible and didn’t know anything about military strategies, but I knew that endangering people’s lives shouldn’t ever be the last choice.

“Maybe if we rail many supporters and show Prince Henrik that we have a considerable number of people believing in the Princess’s claim, we could avoid confrontation to a certain extent,” Devon suggested, glancing at me with a mischievous smile. What was he trying to do? 

“That would be great!” I replied.

“We could go around the villages in the nearby packs, the Princess could go undercover to talk to the people, let them see her, that would renew their faith in the Goddess, in the Princess and guarantee her many more followers,” Killian uttered, looking between me and Alpha Marcus. 

“That could be very effective, but it is too dangerous. We can’t risk Princess Victoria’s safety and expose her like this.” 

“We would be very careful and take many strong wolves along, even yourself, Alpha,” Landon offered without holding the Alpha’s gaze and lowering his head slightly out of respect. 

Alpha Marcus stood up and paced around for a moment, huffing and placing his hand over his forehead in a bit unsettled way, “We could try, once, a nearby pack and a lot of security. No one could know that she would go there, no one besides us.” He conceded, without looking at any of us.

I wondered what I could even say to the people. How could I tell them that I was their rightful Queen? I already understood that my little speech, ‘I am your latest King’s oldest child, hence the heir’ didn’t work as well as I planned. 

I wanted to be here, be close to them, and do something for these people. But was I the best option for them? Was I their rightful Queen? What made me so, besides my desire? 

I had to know why I should be their Queen, before trying to convince the people about it. 

~ * ~

After everything was decided, and we established that I would go to the neighboring pack in a bit more than one week, I went back to my new room. I was very tired, and I really needed a shower, so that was what I did. 

After showering I realized I had no clothes to change to, so I went out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel only and tried to think about something. Shelby told me she would help me to get some clothes.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I sneaked out of my bedroom after looking at the sides and made sure no one was around and went to look for Shelby’s room. 

It wasn’t hard to find, it was two doors after mine, and it had a little wooden plate with her name written. I didn’t lose time knocking on the door, only opened it and closed it fast behind me. 

But I didn’t meet Shelby there, the light lavender-coloured bedroom seemed empty but not for long.

Out of the shadows, came a sneaky little thing startling me and making me lose my hold on my towel and drop it onto the floor. She opened her dark little eyes widely, with the expression of someone who was caught doing something wrong, as she let out a piercing scream, surprising me and making me scream too.

“Ahhhhh” she started, and I continued. 

“MJ, what are you doing here? I mean, it’s Shelby’s room, isn’t it?… where is she?” I asked after recovering my breath, still a bit confused.

MJ looked to both sides, and pouted slightly, motioning to me to come close to her. I collected my towel on the floor and wrapped it around my naked body once again. I think it was the first time I was naked in front of someone who wasn’t my mom. 

“You have to keep this a secret… Shelby keeps some candies hidden in her room, and maybe I came to get just one or two of them,” she said, shuddering and pouting cutely. I laughed at her antics after being caught in action. 

“Okay, I will keep it a secret,” I replied between chuckles. 

But our secret didn’t have a long life, the noise of approaching steps startled MJ and me. We exchanged a look, and she placed her finger on her lips signalising for me to keep silent. I guess I have officially become her partner in crime.  

She pulled my hand, leading me to hide inside Shelby’s spacious closet. 

“MJ, are you sure it’s a good idea?” I whispered.

“Shhh… we don’t have another option, Vicky” she muttered back. 

Vicky, the same way Marg called me. I liked to be called this way. 

I could hardly see anything in the darkness of the closet, but I could hear the noise of the doorknob being open and of steps, she was coming closer. 

“MJ, your little tricky chihuahua! I can smell you; you can’t hide. I know what you want!! If you haven’t eaten all your sweets in one single day, you wouldn’t try and steal my Sugar!! Give up, I caught you!” Shelby sounded angry. 

I turned to MJ, strangely after blinking twice my vision in the dark improved considerably, and I could see the little girl shuddering and making a fake angelic expression. 

Some minutes earlier I was preparing my heart for an attack and discussing war, and now I found myself hiding in the closet with a sugar thief. Life in this Realm is everything but boring, funny!

“Dang!” MJ murmured, as the steps got even closer. In a moment, Shelby opened the closet door, revealing my partner and me. I don’t know why, but it made my heart race slightly and once again I let the stupid towel fall down. 

Damnit.

MJ screamed again, but Shelby couldn’t stop laughing. 

Maybe that was how it feels to have sisters. Fun, crazy and loud. 

“Oh, what happened to you? How did you end up naked in my closet?” Shelby asked, laughing.

“Humm…I was looking for clothes, but I didn’t have any…”  I started, collecting my towel and covering myself once again. 

“So, you just got inside there and decided to live among the clothes while butt-naked?” she laughed. 

“No, I just came to look for some clothes, actually to look for you.” I tried to explain.

“Okay, I will lend you some clothes, and tomorrow I can show you around the towel… I mean, the town and we can go shopping,” Shelby told me with a smile, as she looked at my towel. I was glad she wasn’t angry that I was naked, well the way I was. “And you MJ, stop being a thief” she scolded, pulling MJ out of the closet by her arm.

“Ouch Shelby, you could just share a bit!” she pouted. 

I didn’t get how she could say no to that cutie.

Shelby furrowed her brows, “Out!” she told her sister half-annoyed. 

We heard the door open, and our gazes shifted in its direction.

“Why so much screaming? Oh, Goddess, I thought you were all being attacked,” Marg said as she entered the room, bringing her hand to her chest and sighing deeply. 

“Sorry,” MJ’s lips curled up in a sheepish smile, as she fluttered her long and thick eyelashes adorably. 

Marg also didn’t fall for her cuteness and only shook her head and narrowed her eyes at MJ.

“It wasn’t anything, just another case of the sugar-thief and Vicky was looking for clothes,” Shelby explained.

“We can go around the town tomorrow,” Marg said. 

“Me too? Me too?” MJ asked, almost jumping out of excitement, as she wrapped her hands around Marg’s arms. 

Marg huffed, “Okay, otherwise you won’t stop.” She agreed resignedly. MJ ran to hug her bigger sister and started jumping again. 

“That is why she can’t have even more sugar; she would get even more hyper. We don’t want it, we can’t deal with it” Shelby told me shaking her head but chuckling a bit, “Let’s get some clothes for you.” Shelby added, she gave me a couple of clothes and underwear and motioned to me to go change in her bathroom. 

“Wait, Vicky,” Marg called, making me turn around and look at her brown eyes. “I am sorry for what I said and the way I behaved earlier… thanks for standing for us, for our family,” she uttered with a thigh smile.

“Now you are officially part of the gang!” Shelby exclaimed, as her face lit up with joy.

I really liked that differently than everyone else I met, the girls treated me not like a queen, or a Goddess, but with familiarity. 

That was all I wanted. 

For the first time since I came to these Realms, I felt really welcomed. I felt like part of something, and dang! I loved it!