CHAPTER 4: SHADOWS REMEMBER
1163 Words
Peace was not in sleep.
It did not do so anymore.
As soon as I shut my eyes, I was in that place.
Stone cold under my knees. Torches burning. Wolves watching.
My execution.
I was standing in the courtyard again, and I was cut by the chains on my wrists. The memory was keener this time, more distinct, as though somebody had used a dustcloth to remove obscured details.
Alpha Kael was in front of me just as I had remembered, powerful, cold, detached.
However, there was something different.
There was another person who stood close to the Elders.
A hooded figure.
I scowled in the dream, in an attempt at concentration. The figure bent forward to the council and told him, in a whisper, that he must. I did not see their face, but only pale fingers and a ring that flashed in the firelight.
At these words, the Elder nodded.
Then the charge was started.
Then my death followed.
My breath hitched.
“It was not you who decided.”
The dawning hit me.
The sentence had been spoken by Kael, all right, but the judgment had been thrust along by another.
Everything had been arranged by someone.
The hooded man glanced back, as though he heard me.
Then the dream broke.
I woke up gasping.
My skin was wet, and my heart beat shrilly against my ribs.
“Not just him,” I said into the dark.
Doubt had crept into my hatred, such as it had never done before after my rebirth.
Maybe Kael had not been my true enemy.
Possibly, some other had desired my death.
Morning came with hunger and exhaustion.
I was sitting among the omegas, where breakfast was being served. Bowls of fine porridge went in and out. No one spoke much. Here to live was to be silent.
Someone pushed a bowl in my direction.
“Eat quickly. Work soon to come.”
I thanked and accepted it.
The odor was bitter to the point.
I froze.
My wolf stirred uneasily inside me.
Something felt wrong.
Nevertheless, I took the spoon and swallowed a mouthful.
Pain exploded instantly.
My throat burned. Fire ran through my body, and my stomach was turning violently.
I put the bowl down and cleared my throat.
“Hey! Waste not, food, another omega!”
But I heard them hardly.
My vision blurred. I started breathing shallowly.
Poison.
My food had been poisoned.
Why?
Panic increased, and before I could be completely terrified, something warm spread through my chest. An odd energy was diffusing out of my heart, through my veins, like blood.
The heat discomfort was gone. My body. cured itself.
The pain disappeared.
I blinked in shock.
My body… healed itself.
The poison was as though it never was.
I looked at my shaking fingers.
“What… are you?” I whispered to my wolf.
No reply followed, but silent strength.
A person already desired me to be dead.
Which meant one thing.
I was no longer invisible.
I saw Beta Ryker watching me again later that day.
He approached the archive hall, talking to one of the guards in a low-key voice, and went in on his own. Curiosity was tugging at me, but I stood my ground, feigning to clean the floor of the corridor.
I heard the turning of pages through the half-open door.
Ryker was talking to himself.
Seris Velen. was executed as a traitor.
My breath caught.
He had been reading my old records. Height. silver eyes. The type of wolf is unknown.
Papers rustled again.
“Height… silver eyes… wolf classification unknown…”
Silence followed.
Then his voice became darker.
“And now… Lira.”
I tightened my fists on the cloth in my hands.
He knew something.
I could hear feet coming closer to me, which is why I soon dropped my head and continued to clean. The door was opened, and Ryker came out, his eyes fixed at once on me.
Too sharp.
Too knowing.
He leaned forward a little, drawing himself to my height.
“Believe me,” he said to himself, “can wolves come back out of death?”
My heart beat was very quick, and I gave a bewildered look.“I. I do not know, Commander.”
“I… I don’t understand, Commander.”
His eyes looked into mine with burning intensity.
For a moment, I thought he would expose me right there.
Rather, he got up and walked away without any more.
Suspicion had begun.
And it would not cease increasing.
Afternoon came, and the whole pack assembled on the training grounds.
Swordsmen fought and others observed. I took water buckets on the side, es, minding not to attract attention.
Alpha Kael was at the center, and he showed combat techniques. His gestures were strong, accurate, and authoritative to all present.
I attempted not to stare at him.
Attempted to pass off as an ordinary Alpha.
My wolf, however, was very sensitive when he came in my direction.
Then suddenly
Kael froze mid-motion.
His head swiveled round.
Toward me.
Instantly, the air grew heavy.
His yellow eyes were staring at me over the practice field.
A bitter growl went out of his chest.
The warriors recoiled in astonishment.
“Alpha?” one said timorously.
Kael puffed in and out. His hands closed as though in a struggle with something in him.
His wolf was straining ahead.
I felt it clearly.
Recognition.
Confusion.
Longing.
He gave a stumbling step and held his head. “Why,” he said to himself.
“Why…” he muttered under his breath. “Why, why do I know that scent?”
My heart pounded violently.
Memories passed through his eyes: pain, regret, loss.
And in one terrible moment, I thought he was really looking at me.
Not Lira the omega.
But the woman he executed.
“Go,” he commanded abruptly in a rough voice.
No one moved.
“Get away,” I said, and the force leaped out of him.
Wolves scattered instantly.
I turned to turn away, too, but he called after me.
“You.”
I froze.
I slowly turned back.
Kael looked at me as a man possessed by a ghost.
His voice became tender, even delicate. “Have we. Metbefore?”
“Have we… met before?”
My chest tightened painfully.
All his instincts cried to flight.
But I simply lowered my head.
“No, my Alpha.”
There was a silence between us with an unspoken truth.
His wolf growled impatiently again, desperate.
Kael made a step toward me--then halted himself, bewildered by his perplexities.
He looked shaken.
Uncertain.
Afraid of what his instincts were telling him.
And as I walked away, I felt his eyes scalding my back.
Something inside him was starting to remember, because down inside him.
And the Alpha, in case he really recalled the woman he murdered.
would he be my guardian--
or finish what he started?
- Writer
