Her Rejection's Revenge

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: GROWING UP

“Kitty is a ridiculous name,” Miriam said in a severely haughty voice, as she grabbed my arms to steady me as I vomited my lunch in the water basin. I gurgled as bile was wrenched from my stomach, and weakness overpowered me after.

Really? Was that what she was coming up with in a moment like that? Her f*cking name?

“My head’s bursting,” I replied briskly. At that precise moment, I didn’t care that she was an Alpha and I had been a mere omega. A perverse satisfaction filled me that we were equals, both outcast from our packs. Helpless and hurt.

She dangled a glass of water right in front of my face together with an aspirin pill. “Look what I got you.” I reached out for them in gratitude, but she pulled them out of my grasp in perfect timing. “Your name?”

“What does it matter?” I growled viscerally.

“It doesn’t. I just don’t want to call you Kitty anymore. It’s ridiculous,” she looked pretty stubborn as she crossed her arms across her chest in a final gesture.

I sighed. “Zelda.” I wasn’t prepared to say more. She seemed satisfied for she thrust the meds in my hands. “Here you go, Zelda. Zel, Can I call you Zel?” I grunted in response but swallowed the pills in one swig and relaxed against the bed post as I massaged my temples.

“So, Zel, you should thank me for helping you out. Or is that beyond you?” she asked with sarcasm laced in the question.

I could already feel the ache dissipating, and in my current state, I lost some of my inhibitions. “I guess you’d bore me with your sob story now?” I pried one eye open to look at her meaningfully.

She gifted me with a mirthless smile. “My own pack turned on us,” she stated dispassionately. “The one who betrayed us was none other than my uncle – my father’s brother. There was some kind of hustle about a woman leading the pack amongst the patriarchal elders. You see, I was judged not fit to lead merely because of my gender. Both my father and me disregarded the rising rumors as bullsh*t until one day, there was an attack.”

“Your uncle, he wanted the throne for himself I presume?” I asked with my now jaundiced view of the world. Everything was about power and money. Nothing else was important. If only I had both, I would have been able to stop the wedding at the snap of my finger.

“Ever since the beginning,” she said with a grimace. “It’s quite a hectic story in fact. Uncle Vince hated my father ever since they were born. My father, King Lance was…”

“Wait,” I perched on the bed, my headache forgotten at the new revelation. “Your father is a f*cking King?!” I exclaimed in stupefaction. “Get out of here!”

What were the odds? Royalty were rare in the werewolf world - it was usually meant for pureblood werewolf families who’d kept the genes for over centuries. To translate, every ancestor of Miriam Sullivan was a werewolf, her genealogical tree would be full of only werewolves. Which also entailed that she’d undermined herself when she’d told me that her world was very strong.

Purebred werewolves possessed unlimited powers. I was nothing next to her – she was a legacy I’d never dreamt of meeting. I was now more vested in her story. How did a werewolf princess land in a place full of rogues? Had she told the others about…?

“Of course not! Don’t be silly,” she replied to my question, and I gasped.

“You have telepathic powers??!” I almost shouted, and she threw me a measuring look. I immediately recognized my mistake. Somebody could hear my loud tone, so I lowered my voice a few decibels. “You can read minds?” I whispered dazedly. So far, I’d only read about werewolves who owned such powers.

“I can. I was able to do lots of things. But after my brother died…,” her green eyes clouded with a darkness that I was unable to bear. It was the epitome of my broken heart. I sucked in a breath at the feeling which empowered my heart. Miriam was right, sharing did throw us into another perspective.

“How did he die?” I asked with bated breath. There wasn’t much which could affect the royal werewolves. They were immune to wolfbanes. The only lethal weapon which could weaken them was…? “Silver?” I answered my own question morosely.

“He took over the Alpha position from my father years ago and he was doing such a great job. We were all so damned proud of him. Then, Uncle Vince sent him on a mission to hell and he never came back. We were devastated. My father and I were in mourning for months – and needless to say my dear uncle took advantage of our grief.”

Expected, but I refrained from any comment. It was bad enough for her to lose her brother, but to have her own blood backstab them when it mattered the most. Who better than me to attest to that fact? “What did that bastard do?”

“Well, he built his own army right in front of our eyes. We were beyond ourselves with grief to care. So, at some point, I can relate to your comment of earlier. I could have saved myself from this fate had I been paying more attention. But…,” her slender shoulders dropped up and down in a dejected shrug.

Guilt filled me at my insensitive comment. “I didn’t mean it that way. I mean it’s different in your case, obviously. There isn’t much you can do against evil.”

Arrogant eyebrows arched in an unmistakable regal manner. “I guess there are some pretty heavy villains in your story as well, right? A succinct nod was enough to answer her question. “So, I rest my case. Neither of us could have done anything to prevent what happened to us.”

Her green eyes gleamed dangerously. “That rat fed my brother silver right before he went for battle, weakening him to such an extent that he was defeated. We could not get over his death. He was much beloved. Then, my father started to fall sick as well, and there were rumors as to whom would ascend the throne next. My uncle was old, so some were against crowing him. But there were more protests against putting a female in the Alpha position. My uncle rejoiced in the conjectures and used every political strategy to his advantage.”

“Your father’s illness was staged?” I asked with a heavy heart.

Miriam shrugged with a grimace. “I didn’t have the time to find out. When my father was no longer able to walk, I started taking certain things in hand. But the demise of our powerful Alpha had weakened both our positions. My uncle was everywhere and when my father died, some faithful servants asked me to run away when his men were looking to eliminate me.”

“He’d seized the throne for himself?” I made an educated guess. Wasn’t our stories similar? We both had to run after our own had betrayed us and taken the position we’d deserved.

“You bet! If I stayed, he would have killed me. He couldn’t disown me – that’s not allowed in our pack. So, he had to drive a silver bullet right in my heart to end our connection. I figured that’s exactly what they did with my brother and father as well because I could no longer feel them protecting me.”

I frowned. “Why isn’t disowning you from his pack allowed?”

“Well, hierarchy-wise, I am superior to him since I am the daughter of the first born. Both my father and brother had casted protection auras around me to prevent that leech from destroying me. That was how I managed to escape the castle.”

“What happened then? How did you end up so bruised and abused?”

“What I didn’t know was that the protection of my father and brother only extended in our territory. Once outside, I was vulnerable to his attics and his guards easily caught up with me.”

I sighed loudly. Our destinies seemed intertwined whether I liked it or not. “Today is the wedding of my boyfriend and best friend,” I blurted out the words for the first time to a complete stranger. I waited for a while for the ground to swallow me for the blasphemy, but when nothing happened, I relaxed against the bathroom floor.

Miriam stood up and offered me a hand which I took, and she pulled me up from my crouched position.

“Tell me the story on the way,” she informed me gently, and I was so surprised that I could only follow her. She was a queer phenomenon, so unpredictable sometimes that I felt inexorably drawn to her enthusiasm and sunny disposition, in stark contrast to my dark morose mood.

“Where are we going?” I hurried my steps after her as we sneaked out of the neverlands unseen. It was the first time I was adventuring outside the boundaries of the sanctuary for months, and I felt my heart picked up speed at the effrontery. Why was I so apprehensive all of a sudden?

“To the wedding,” she said in a determined voice, and I pulled my hand back as I gasped in shock. She kept a firm hold over my hand.

“You’ve got to be kidding. We cannot just barge in there, Miriam.”

“I can,” she said. “Aren’t you tempted to cause a scandal at the wedding? To stop them from achieving their goal?”

Truth be told, I was. But I wasn’t too blinded by my thirst for revenge to forget that we were both refugees still recuperating our strengths. Any wrong move could put both our lives in danger. This act of revenge would not be an impulsive act, but a well-planned plot.

As the idea was planted in my mind, I could not shake it off. The promise of making them pay for every humiliation was so strong that I could even taste it. But for now, I would simply be a passive observer. Only watch them drive the knife deeper in my heart with a final ruthless act. That would make the revenge sweeter.

“Got it!” Miriam nodded with approval. “Today we’ll be mere passive observer until our time comes,” she beamed, and took my hand closing her eyes. Within a blink, I found myself in the familiar territories of West Bronx with my head twirling at the speed at which we’d traveled.

“H…How did you do that?” I mumbled groggily, gripping my head to wait for the dizziness to subside. But every thought was wiped from my mind when I caught sight of the local chapel being filled with people. Following the direction of my gaze, Miriam picked up the cue, for she grabbed my arm and led me nearer to the holy place.

I gagged when we entered, but she placed a cape over my head and we sat in a dark corner, oblivious to the guests. I wondered briefly at how the Ocean Howl pack members could not pick up our scents.

Miriam opened her hand to reveal pine needles to answer mu unspoken query. That was how she’d managed to conceal our scents. The perfume of fresh pine was well-known to hide the scents of hunters which they used while hunting. I was impressed, but my foul mood was back.

The fact that everyone was sitting in the front benches did not offer any comfort. I wanted to puke – I could see familiar heads from behind. My father was standing proudly near the altar in the same line as Braxton’s best man. Wasn’t that why they’d sold their daughter for? To s*ck it up to the Alpha? I wondered disgustedly.

“Down, Zel. Let’s not attract attention,” Miriam warned succinctly.

“I wish you would stop poking in my mind. It’s impolite,” I admonished crossly, and she winked cheekily at me.

I opened my mouth to give her a good piece of my mind when there was a hush at the end, and the bride appeared at the back. Miriam disappeared from my vision and my jaw snapped shut as I stared at a beautiful bride. Jealousy and envy pinched me at the sight of her bright eyes following the loving groom waiting for her at the altar. Was I a masochist?

In my blinding grief, I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder, and I longed to bask in the comfort it offered. “It’s all part of the process of growing up, Zel. Trust me,” Miriam told me, and I focused back on her, suddenly very grateful for her uncanny appearance in my life.