Chapter Six
981 Words
Alaric’s POV
The scent hit me first, smells like jasmine.
Not a random maid.
Hazel. In my room. Alone.
Blood still stained my hands from the hunt. My shirt clung to me, damp with sweat and forest dirt. And she stood there, a silver tray in her hands, eyes wide like a doe caught in a wolf’s den.
Except she didn’t run.
“Leave,” I snarled, my voice rougher than I intended. The anger from Vincent’s trial still simmered under my skin. I didn’t trust myself around anyone right now ,least of all her.
She didn’t move. Instead, she lifted a cloth from the tray. “You’re bleeding, Alpha.”
I glanced down. A shallow cut across my forearm from a rogue boar’s tusk. I hadn’t even felt it. “It’s nothing.”
“It’ll get infected.” Her voice was steady now, nothing like the hesitant whisper she used in the hallways. “Aurella told me you hate when the maids fuss. So I’m not fussing. I’m cleaning it.”
I barked a laugh, humorless. “Aurella told you that?”
“She talks a lot when she’s not scared,” Hazel said, stepping closer. “She also said you haven’t slept in three days.”
That made me freeze. Aurella noticed that? She never noticed anything except which stuffed bear she wanted.
Hazel was already dipping the cloth in the basin on my dresser. The water turned pink. “Sit,” she ordered softly. Not asked. Ordered.
No one ordered me. Not even Vincent.
But I sat. On the edge of my bed, because my legs suddenly felt too heavy. The hunt, the trial, the rage ,it all crashed into me at once.
She knelt in front of me. Too close. I could see the pulse fluttering in her throat, smell the soap on her skin. Omega. Sacrifice. The one I was supposed to break to send a message to the packs.
Instead, my daughter had chosen her.
“This will sting,” she murmured, pressing the cloth to my arm.
It did. But I didn’t flinch. I watched her face instead. No fear. No disgust at the blood. Just… concentration. Her brow furrowed the way Aurella’s did when she was figuring out a puzzle.
“Why are you really here, Hazel?” I asked, my voice low. “Dominic didn’t send you. The maids are forbidden from my room after sunset.”
Her hands stilled for half a second. Then she kept cleaning. “Aurella had a nightmare. She asked for you. But you were hunting. So she asked for me.”
“And you decided my bedroom was the next best thing?”
“I was bringing you fresh water,” she said, nodding to the tray. “For when you returned. The other maids… they draw lots to avoid your room. I didn’t want you to come back to nothing.”
Lies. Pretty, careful lies. But I let them sit between us, because the truth was worse: She didn’t fear me.
Everyone feared me. Even Vincent , right before I stripped him of everything. Fear kept my pack alive. Fear kept me alive.
But this omega, with her soft hands and stubborn eyes, looked at my blood and saw a wound, not a weapon.
“Dominic said you were at the shed,” I said suddenly. Testing her.
Her fingers tightened on my arm. “I was. For three months.”
“Did he hurt you?” The question came out like a growl. I hadn’t meant to ask. Didn’t want to know.
Hazel finally looked up. Met my eyes. And for the first time, I saw it . The shadow behind her calm. The thing she hid from Aurella.
“No,” she said. “Not the way you think. But he let others.”
The cloth in my hand tore. I hadn’t realized I’d grabbed it. Red soaked into white.
She didn’t flinch at my snarl. Didn’t move back. She just reached up, slowly, and covered my clenched fist with her small hand.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Not for me. You’ll scare Aurella if you lose control.”
Aurella. My daughter. The only reason this omega was still breathing.
I inhaled. Forced my claws back. The monster in me wanted to rip the pack house apart for what Vincent allowed. But the Alpha in me knew,if I started now, I wouldn’t stop at Vincent.
“You should fear me,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“I do,” she replied. But she was still touching me. Still kneeling. “I fear what you’ll do to the people who hurt her. And I fear what happens to Aurella if you fall.”
If you fall. Not when. If.
No one had ever worried about me falling. They only worried about being under me when I did.
I stood abruptly. She fell back on her heels, startled. Good. I needed distance. Needed air that didn’t smell like her.
“You’re dismissed,” I bit out. “And Hazel ,if I ever find you in my room again without summons, I’ll..”
“You’ll what?” She stood too, chin lifted. “Throw me to the rogues? Aurella would never forgive you. And you know it.”
My wolf slammed against my ribs. She was right. And she knew it.
“Get out.”
She bowed, picked up her tray, and walked to the door. But she paused, her hand on the frame. Without turning, she said, “Aurella’s fever broke. She asked if you’d read to her. She said you do the voices best.”
Then she was gone.
I stood in the silence, staring at the bloody cloth on my floor. My arm was clean. My chest was not.
Aurella chose her. And now, so had my wolf.
Gods help me.
- Writer
