Chapter 2 I Handpicked You To Fail!
1864 Words
Rhys
"Thanks, Rhys," Addison muttered as she squeezed past me in the doorway.
I just nodded. I tracked her fading footsteps down the hallway, hating the lingering scent of distress she left behind.
She was already stressing over how to drain her own accounts for a male who did not deserve to breathe the same air as her.
Once she was out of earshot, I turned my attention back to the piece of trash standing in the middle of the cramped backroom.
Marcus looked me over slowly. It was the exact way high-ranking wolves looked at pack members beneath them.
"Hey, I am a warrior," he boasted, puffing out his chest. "You can work out all you want and have those bulging muscles, but she will always see you as a weak little brother.”
“I, on the other hand, will be the Beta after my trials next week. She will fawn over me even more."
He smirked, running a hand through his dyed red hair. "Until then, she definitely considers you family, so you should be working to make her life easier.”
“So, do you have any money to give me? I need something in my pocket until she scrapes together the cash I asked for."
I looked at him. My expression remained completely blank as I stepped away from the doorframe and closed the distance between us.
"You will be beaten badly at your trials," I told him, my voice dropping to a terrifying, absolute whisper. "I will make sure of it."
"You’re just a useless kitchen boy trying to act tough." He sneered, his fangs elongating slightly in a pathetic show of dominance. "But after I dominate the arena next week, Addison will fall in love with me all over again."
I stared at him with cold, dead eyes. I leaned in slightly, allowing a dark smile to ease into my expression. "Have I ever told you my last name is Dane? Yes. The Royal Lycan bloodline of New Shire."
Marcus blinked. The sneer faltered on his lips for a fraction of a second.
"I handpicked you to fail," I continued flatly, watching the realization try and fail to process in his thick skull. "My enforcers organized those trials next week just so Addison will finally realize you are garbage."
Marcus scoffed loudly. To him, it was clearly the most pathetic lie he had ever heard.
As long as he was concerned, I was just a broke orphan who wore cheap clothes and suppressed my scent to avoid bullying.
Hearing my arrogant words made him see red and he snapped.
He swung his fist before he could even process the movement.
My eyes immediately flashed a glowing silver.
My first instinct was to tear his arm off at the shoulder.
My second was to cave in his skull.
Then I caught Addison’s scent.
Addison.
I immediately stilled. I forced my bubbling aura down, burying the lethal power humming in my blood, and took the weak hit directly to my face.
A loud crash filled the air as I hit the floor, dragging Marcus down with me just as Addison appeared in the doorway.
"Stop! Stop it!"
Her screams brought the tavern guards running. They dragged Marcus off me, hauling him away for violating the commercial district's strict no-fighting policy.
He did not even get a chance to defend himself before he was thrown out.
Addison grabbed a first aid kit and rushed to my side. I groaned painfully, playing the part of being battered.
"It is nothing. I am fine," I said as she hovered over me.
"He broke your nose, so sit still."
I stopped resisting and sat quietly, enjoying the gentle touch of her hands as she treated my wound.
"I will get Marcus to apologize," she fretted. "No matter what you said, his wolf should not have attacked you."
"I told him he was a shitty fighter and he would totally butcher the trials next week."
She paused, almost wincing at my words. "Oh, Rhys. You have known him for three years and still cannot tell his wolf does not like it when people challenge his strength."
"A shitty fighter," I corrected firmly, refusing to back down. "You should break the bond with him. If you like warriors so much, I will learn how to fight."
"That is cute," she sighed softly. "But you’re only twenty-three, and besides… we’re basically siblings.”
"Adopted siblings," I murmured under my breath.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. So, how will you get the money for him? You paid your pack dues this week, so I know you have zero in your account."
"I will ask around," she said with forced optimism.
She finished cleaning up the blood, gathered the supplies, and left the room to return the medical kit.
The moment I was alone, I dropped the helpless act.
I slid a hand into my pocket, took out my secure phone, and quickly typed a text message to my Beta.
In the next five minutes, arrange for Addison Gerald to receive a four-thousand-dollar Omega Welfare Grant through the Regional Pack Council. Make sure it cannot be traced back to New Shire.
Ten minutes later, Addison burst back into the room, her eyes wide with shock.
"The strangest thing just happened to me! The regional pack council just messaged to say I was selected for an Omega welfare grant, and they immediately credited me four thousand dollars."
I picked up a chocolate from the counter, pretending to be completely surprised as I unwrapped it. "Huh? That is so lucky."
"I know, right? It is almost as if the Moon Goddess is watching over me." She was beaming as she stared at her banking app.
Then she immediately dialed Marcus’s number to tell him the good news, but he did not pick up. She tried again, only to be sent straight to voicemail.
Seeing her worried frown, I knew exactly what she was thinking. He needed the money urgently, and since he had just been thrown out of the diner, she assumed he was screening her calls out of anger.
She quickly took off her apron and gathered her things. I stood quietly near the counter, watching her hurry out the back door of the diner to head straight for the warrior compound.
I take out my phone, sending a quick message to my Beta.
“Are they together?”
I get an affirmative response almost instantly… followed by a photograph.
Marcus and Bella in each other’s arms. Addison standing frozen in the doorway.
They were chatting away in each other's arms, completely oblivious to her presence.
I take off my jacket and leave through the back of the diner, walking straight to the warrior quarters.
I do not hide my presence as I approach the compound, but I stick to the shadows, squinting through the cracked door at the three individuals.
I can see and hear them clearly.
“Huh. Addison. What are you doing here? I've told you not to come here without telling me,” Marcus snaps, pulling away from Bella when he saw her.
“You, uh… you kissed her, and that is what you are worried about? That I came without telling you?” Addison's voice is entirely broken and she barely sounds audible as her eyes darted between them in shock.
“Well, yes. If you won’t listen to me about something as simple as not coming to my room without telling me, how do I know you’ll believe that what you’re seeing isn't what you think?” he hissed, growing more irritated by the second.
I calmly twirl my phone between my fingertips, my eyes tracking Addison’s every flinch.
Do you finally see what he is? Just a stupid, miserable son of a b***h.
“Oh, please. I’m not going to sneak around,” Bella sneers, rolling her eyes. “Yes, Addison. It’s exactly what you think.”
“Marcus is a promising warrior, and he’s going to be my brother’s Beta. Why should he be with a dirty Omega like yourself when he can be the Alpha’s brother-in-law?”
I exhale slowly, smelling Addison’s heartbreak all the way from the courtyard.
I grip my phone so tightly the screen splinters under my thumb. It takes every ounce of restraint I possess not to kick the door off its hinges and rip his throat out with my bare teeth.
No. It has to be this way.
I still have a year before my father summons my half-brothers and me back to New Shire.
Until then, I have no official authority to openly attack a pack warrior in broad daylight with witnesses watching.
More importantly… she has to see the truth for herself.
“I don’t understand,” Addison’s voice comes out shaky, her eyes turning red as tears spill over. “If you’ve always been together, does that mean you’ve been playing me? You had no intention of… is that why you’ve…”
“Oh, don’t start the crying. What did you expect?” Marcus scoffed, crossing his arms. “I’m going to be Beta, did you really think I’d settle for a useless Omega?”
“If you weren’t so resourceful and quick at getting me everything I asked for, I would’ve dumped you a long time ago.”
Addison shudders, stumbling backward like she's been physically struck.
I inhale deeply, the scent of her devastation coating my lungs, and I follow after her as she turns and runs.
She doesn't run back to the diner. She blindly flees toward the edge of the territory, her erratic footsteps leading her to the one place she fears most—the collapsed bridge where her parents died.
I suppress my scent as I approach, watching her from the tree line.
She is on her knees in the mud, staring down at the jagged rocks below, her spirit completely shattered.
"Addison," I murmur, stepping out of the dark.
She flinches, turning her tear-streaked face to me.
She doesn't ask how I found her. She just collapses against my chest.
I drop to my knees and wrap my arms around her. My wolf purred with possessive satisfaction as she sought comfort exactly where she belonged.
In my arms.
"He took everything, Rhys," she whispers brokenly into my shirt. "I transferred the four thousand dollars to his account while I was walking to his door. I have nothing left."
"Not everything," I smile, threading my fingers through her hair. I reach into my pocket, pulling out my cracked phone, and turn the screen toward her. "When I saw you running out of his room, I hacked the pack banking portal and canceled the transfer."
Addison gasps, her tear-filled eyes widening in both confusion and relief.
But before she can ask how i managed to bypass the pack’s financial security walls, a furious, blood-curdling roar echoes through the woods behind us.
"Addison! What the hell did you do to my bank account?!"
I smile and slowly rise to my feet.
Far from the pack, away from civilization and alone in the woods.
Finally.
Today, I kill Marcus Spade.
- Writer
