Once, I Stole A Crown

Five Days Later

After three days of detoxing, my appetite returned. Danielle had attempted to get me to drink water with charcoal in it to absorb the toxins in my blood and stomach. Luca was so happy to see me eat that he insisted on bringing all of my food to me. He would sit across from me at the little round table in the corner of his room and grinned at me every time I ate. It was silly and adorable and made me self-conscious at first. By the fifth day, I was teasing him by pretending that I was going to take a bite and then changed my mind and put my fork down. His reactions were priceless.

By the fourth day, I was able to hold a conversation, but caught myself feeling paranoid over every personal question he asked me. He was considerate and understanding; saying it was okay that I felt the way I did and promising me that he would never do anything to harm me. I had questioned why he kept watching me; why he would step away from running his pack just to watch me eat. It made me feel caged. There were moments where I knew he was protecting me and that I was in no condition to be out and about, but for most of the day, I was admittedly a little rude.

Luca forgave me easily.

Lily and Delilah visited with me in my better moments. It was so odd to see them wearing modern clothes. Lily was like a little princess in her baby blue sun dress. She was so proud of herself for how quickly she was learning. I was shocked that Luca had arranged for her to start tutoring with Delilah. She was learning about the modern world, our history, human history, and she was allowed to learn about music and art. I was so proud of her, but it made me feel so far behind.

The first thing I did when I felt more like myself was test that my power was still intact. The second thing I did was to insist that I have a tutor too. It wouldn't do for Brightling's Alpha to have an ignorant mate. Day five was easier. It still made me anxious to be questioned about my life, but I knew that ours wasn't a temporary situation and that I really had no reason to keep anything from him.

I was, however keeping one thing from him. If I'm being honest I had avoided saying anything about it. I didn't want to tell him about it because I had never told anyone; not even my girls. Not even Lily. It was terrifying to let go of that one thing when I would have to share everything else. I had evened toyed with the idea of using my power to manipulate him to make myself feel safer. I knew that would never work though. I imagined an Alpha would be able to tell if they were being controled which is why I never used it on Father.

I also didn't want to have to use it on Luca. I was trying my best to remind myself that Luca wasn't my father. I had entrusted this fear to Danielle on one of the few occasions where she would come to watch me while Luca attended some sort of pack business. She was another abuse survivor after all, and as such I trusted her advice. She told me that abuse and drugs like what my father gave me can have very negative effects on the mind and that while Luca was indeed not my father, it was no use making myself feel bad or guilty about those fears. She told me there would be plenty of time to retrain my mind when I was better and the drugs were no longer in my system.

Her advice in the meantime was to practice trust. Letting Luca bring me food was a big step. Letting him watch me eat was another one. That first five days was a series of small compromises with myself.

'I won't tell him my secret yet, but I will let him hold my hand. I won't tell him yet, but I will let him run me a bath. I won't tell him, but I will let him buy me clothes.'

Each day got a little easier, and finally I lost the choice altogether, though thinking back, it was a relief to not have to choose between telling him or manipulating him.

"Scissera, Love, how are you feeling today?" His tone sounded nervous.

"I'm alright." I said slowly with my eyes narrowed. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Why do you think something is wrong?" He asked.

"I can hear it in your voice."

He grinned. "You know my tone well enough to tell that?" He asked proudly.

"Don't change the subject, just tell me what it is please. If you insist it's nothing, I'll know you're lying and then not only will I be upset about being lied to, but I'll just sit here and dwell on what it could be for days, so please just have mercy and tell me? I don't like having my feelings protected for me."

"Okay, I understand." He smiled gently. "It's been almost a week since you left Shadow Pack. The medical suite is almost finished, Sam is almost ready to start the treatment... it's time to talk about what will happen after."

That was perfectly logical. I didn't understand his desire to tiptoe around the subject. "I thought you were absolutely certain that I'll survive the treatment. Why do we need to have this talk now?" I was only teasing him, but he took it seriously and agains, answered with logic.

"I have complete faith in that outcome, Princess. But as an Alpha, I have to have plans for all outcomes. Especially when we have Lily here. I want to be absolutely sure that no matter what, she will never have to go back there. We need a plan for that, because we're subject to the law of two different lands - ours and the human world. There are laws that protect the rights of a parent unless abuse can be proven-"

"Well that's not a problem, Danielle and Sam have all those notes and records of the abuse I suffered. Wouldn't that be enough?"

Luca sighed. "Yes and no. In the human world, yes. But if a social worker confrontst them to prove it, I can almost guarentee your father will kill them, especially if it protects his reputation."

"You're right." I frowned.

"There's another problem. The other option is to report him to the council. They have the largest army of all the packs and quite a few of those warriors were donated by the council members' packs, which means that there a lot of Shadow warriors, which would help us if it came to war, but the council won't want to cut off their supply to new warriors."

I started shaking my head as I stuffed a strawberry into my mouth. "Wouldn't work anyway." I said after swallowing. "Shadow warriors will always obey their Alpha first. The men suffer just as much the women do. They're completely brainwashed. If it comes to a fight, they'll turn on the counsil members like rabid dogs."

Luca gaped at me. "Wait...you're saying that even our own warriors from Shadow are still loyal to Shadow?"

I nodded. "Yep. Father would never have prospered this long in his trade if he lost the loyalty of his men. Considering that fact, Shadow is actually much larger than even the council realize."

Luca rubbed his face. "If that's true, the council will demand that they turn them over. They won't allow one pack to hold that much power. We'll have to report him."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Luca, what makes you think Shadow warriors will allow any of us to live long enough to go against Father? You must realize that the Shadow warriors that are here are reporting everything to him."

"I hadn't even considered that." He groaned. "I'm an idiot."

"Don't be so hard on yourself. No one has realized what a vulnerable position they've put themselves in."

"I don't understand how you've managed to maintain such resolve when it comes to saving the girls. How on earth did you think you were going to accomplish it?" He asked, exasperated.

I shrugged. "Well if I'm being honest my plan involved a lot of spite and hoping to be mated outside of the pack. But I did have a back up plan."

There it was. The moment when my mouth decided for me that I would share my secrets with Luca.