Cruel Alpha

Chapter 23

Robin’s car came to a stop in front of the River Banes Pack House. She felt tired as it was only early morning hours on Sunday. She left Oak Tails as soon as it was reasonable enough for her to drive. She drove around and to the human city where she printed out everything she has gotten on her phone. Now they sat in multiple files, on her front seat. Robin looked at it, she wasn’t even sure why she printed it as if it made any difference. She had a pile of documents that told everything about her home and the Alpha that wished to control every aspect of it. It told everything River Banes would need to know to prepare for the attack. It would even out the fighting ground. Robin justified. 

She couldn’t accept the reality that if she handed it over to Axel, she was betraying her home and also admitting to accidentally revealing private facts about River Banes to Lucien. Robin was his accomplice, he learned a lot from her, he made her help rebuild the pack, he wanted her to lead an attack. Lucien was making sure that if they lost, Robin would be coming down with him as well. She was left without an escape. If she told anything to River Banes they would blame her and have every right to do so, and to prove herself trustworthy she would need to fight alongside them against Oak Tails. 

No matter what she did, Robin would have to fight. She would have to attack and kill and be the reason for the war. Robin grabbed the files and exited her car. She would just leave them in the room for now. it was only Sunday. She still had a week to decide what to do with them. Robin stuffed them among her artworks and went to shower. She missed her room. Robin lived there enough to make it look and feel exactly as she liked. The Beta House still felt like an empty canvas and she was sleeping in the master bedroom which made Robin feel like she was trespassing into her parent’s territory. 

After a shower, Robin rushed to Iris’s house, the more she thought about her ignorance towards her friends, the shitter she felt. Lucien nearly made her cut all of them out of her life. She needed to fix some friendships. She didn’t know if she will have another chance to fix stuff. Robin parked her car and knocked on her door. It was 11:30 am by now and Iris was an early riser. So, when someone else opened the door Robin looked at them in confusion. It was a man at the same height as her, he had brown hair and a confused face. “Who are you?” Robin asked and he looked at her with the same question on his face. “Robin?” a voice from inside the house spoke. Iris. Robin pushed past the unfamiliar man and run to hug her friend. “Robin‼” Iris exclaimed and hugged her closer. I am so stupid, Robin thought, she got stupidly manipulated into leaving the best part of her life on read. “I missed you so much,” Robin said, inhaling Iris’s smell who chuckled in surprise, Robin wasn’t usually the one to speak her emotions. 

“So, you are back,” Iris said as they pulled away. Robin nodded. “Yeah for a week, I promised I would come back, remember.” Iris chuckled and nodded. “Oh, this is Henry, by the way. My mate.” Robin looked in the direction Iris pointed. It was the man that opened the door to her. Robin offered him her hand. “Robin.” He nodded and shook her hand. “I don’t think you need me to warn you about what happens if you hurt my friend,” Robin said, giving his hand a harder squeeze. A humming in her made her want to pin him to the ground and make him yield to her power. Iris chuckled along with Henry who looked a bit uneasy. “No, of course, no. Jacob and River already told me enough about your threats.” Robin chuckled. “My reputation precedes me.” 

“Alright, I assume I am the first person you have seen since coming back?” Iris asked and Robin nodded. Of course, she would come to Iris first. Iris is more than her friend, she is the sister, the caretaker. She is the one that gets everyone together. She is the one Robin loves most. Iris nodded with a smile. “Nice to know I am the favorite. We were planning on having lunch today, I’ll text you the location, just show up and let’s surprise all of them.” Robin smiled. “Need me to jump and yell?” Iris chuckled, “I wish but I am afraid Hope is too pregnant for that joke. Who knows she might accidentally pop that baby out.” Robin barely kept in her laugh. 

The lunch people were Blair, Hope, Iris, Wren and all of them were very loud and excited when Robin just came in and sat down at the table. They asked her a lot of questions and Robin told them what she could. She spoke of that side of the forest and how they were ‘restoring’ some of the building to give the sense of its time and were looking through old files. 

The girls were more than excited for Robin which made her feel guilty for lying. If they knew what she really was doing, they would be less excited. But Robin couldn’t just come out and say ‘hey guys, I nearly killed a man for annoying me the other day, but it's all good because I am powerful and allowed to do it'. 

So, she spent the next few days catching up with friends, having a movie night, another lunch, a run in the forest, and a game night with all of their mates and other friends. Robin was analyzing Henry when River slid along to her with a chuckle. “If stares could kill,” Robin laughed, “If they could, you all would be dead by now.” River shook his head with a laugh. “relax, Henry is a good guy, I talked with him in training and stuff, seems solid to me.” Robin eyed River. “Since when are you the one to ‘know’ people?” River shrugged, “well you weren’t here and someone needed to give the guy a ‘you are on thin f*****g ice, River’ talk. So, I stepped in.” River mocked her tone from a year ago when Robin was constantly sending death stares at him, telling him he was one misstep away from being attacked. “Alright, fair enough. But you are still on thin f*****g ice, River.” Robin said and they both laughed. 

Robin left Blair’s house and decided to walk around the pack. She had a lot more time in here and she was away from Lucien who controlled the flow of her thoughts. So, Robin had made few more realizations about Oak Tails. First of all, Lucien never told how he got the money or pack members or even Derek. He just said it as if it was just given and Robin went on with it. Stupid.

 Secondly, from the moment they initiated pack members, things got worse. More members granted both Lucien and her more power. And it's never enough so you start craving more, you become more violent, you want to prove your superiority. You lose all other goals and only think of everyone in point of rank. You became feared. Robin remembered the fear in Derek’s eyes, she remembered her grip on his neck, the way her nails dug in but she was still reluctant of letting go. You became cruel. Robin spoke to herself. A Cruel Alpha and Cruel Beta. 

Robin wandered back towards the Pack House, tired of her walk when she saw someone walking towards her from the opposite direction. As they drew closer and the figure tried to fix his hair, Robin realized that it was Wilder. “hey there, explorer.” Wilder said with a chuckle. “Hello, fellow alcoholic,” Robin said and Wilder just rolled his eyes. “For the record, I haven’t drunk in 2 weeks.” Robin raised her brow and Wilder sighed. “I haven’t gotten drunk in 2 weeks. Though I did have an occasional wine here and there.” Robin chuckled. “I knew it! The sobriety of yours was too good to be true.” 

“I was about to go and annoy River but, you might do as well,” Wilder said and fell into a step beside her. “So, did you dig out anything exciting yet?” Robin thought of Lucien. “Well it looks interesting but as you get to know more of it, it becomes worse.” Wilder scrunched his brows. “How do you get to know… whatever you find?” Robin realized she spoke too vaguely and tried to offer an explanation that would fit her lie. 

“Well there are things called books, I don’t know if you have ever heard of them. But you open them and read about the history of whatever you uncovered or want to learn more about.” Wilder laughed and nodded. “Alright, it was a dumb question,” Robin nodded. “It was, but in your defense, I made it sound ominous.” They chuckled and continued to walk. “The more you learn, say about the Vase the weirder it gets. I thought something was of good origins and now it’s like it was part of this one bad family that lived a century ago.” Robin tried to explain her disappointment in a clearer way and Wilder nodded. “Man, I would kill to be a historic Vase buried somewhere, this werewolf s**t is exhausting.” Robin laughed. If you only knew half of it. 

“What is making your existence so dire? Didn’t you have a work party or something along those lines?” Robin asked, as usual River talked about everyone’s life. Wilder chuckled, “it was drinks night with the whole office and I left halfway through.” Robin raised her brow. “You left a drink night to come back and annoy me. Aww, how sweet.” Wilder chuckled. “it was quite boring, they kept talking about work while drinking and I was already tired of speaking about it. Besides, none of it could be as important as annoying you in the middle of the night.” 

Robin chuckled and pushed him away. “I am serious, I would rather talk about some ancient vase than the tax numbers. Gods damn the tax numbers‼” He said dramatically making their laughs fill the silence of the night.