The Alpha's Villainess

Chapter Seven

The basement was cold, damp and dark, the only light source coming from a dying candle on the wall. The kind of place unfit for any living creature to reside.

And yet these cold stones had been the home of a girl for nearly eighteen years.

Aurora was an orphan of a destroyed pack, the previous Easthaven Alpha finding her amongst the ruins after his war had been won. He brought her back to be raised as a slave, the entire pack punishing her out of a deep hatred they held for her family. It was only later discovered in the book that her birth family’s pack was of some old lineage, people once capable of wielding magic. Over the many ages, the craft had been forgotten, and her pack’s original status was diminished. The Alpha of Easthaven took advantage of that fact and started a war to steal their land and riches. Aurora was the first one born in a century who could harness the magic that her pack once had, an accomplishment she attributed to the pain she endured whilst enslaved by Easthaven.

...Despite knowing this fact, knowing just how strong she would become once reaching her emotional limit, I now stood in the depths of her domain, seeking a nearly impossible outcome.

“Aurora...?” I called out softly, walking past the rows of storage boxes to where I could just see a bed tucked away in the corner. “Are you here?”

I’d made a few stops on the way down here, thankful for the night hour causing most of the attendants and other packhouse occupants to have already retired to their rooms. It made navigating the unfamiliar mansion a little easier, especially since I had to do so silently via the little moonlight coming through the windows and a few candles that had been left alight. Whilst this world seemed to have running water – thank God – I unfortunately didn’t get lucky enough to have electricity. Another reason to curse this one specific book for being the very last one I read. Why couldn’t it have been a modern era one?

Shivering in the dim and, truthfully, somewhat ominous room, I regretted coming here still wearing the thin white nightgown I’d woken up in. It was just as freezing down here as Aurora described in the story. So much so that it made me almost drop the huge bundle of items I was carrying.

A thin grey sheet then seemed to stir as I approached, and I took a deep breath in, preparing myself for what was about to go down. If I failed here or angered her further, I was sure my chances of survival were only going to get worse.

“Aurora...?” I called out again.

This time, I watched as the small girl sat up in the bed sleepily... only for the shock of seeing me to quickly overcome her expression. She probably thought she was having a nightmare.

“Woah, it’s okay,” I assured, stopping a few feet away. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Her fear slowly turned into scepticism as she regarded me warily. “What did you need, Scarlett? Does something need cleaning?”

It was the first time I’d heard her speak. She had sounded different in my head, more childlike. Instead, her voice was already fairly mature. I probably should have realised that given the torture she’d experienced. More than likely, she’d already aged a lifetime in the years she’d been enslaved here.

“I, uh... I just wanted to come down here and bring you some things.”

Hesitantly, I walked forward and placed the bundle at the foot of her bed. It was filled with whatever I was able to find – bread, cheese, a leftover chicken leg someone forgot on the kitchen counter. A few other things too, like one of the fifty pillows Scarlett had on her bed, and all of it was wrapped up in a thick duvet blanket from my bedroom.

It was my best effort at creating a care package.

“...Why?” she asked, cautiously studying the items. If I were her, I probably would think this was some kind of trick too.

But there was no going back now. I needed to go through with this.

“Because...,” I sighed, trying my best to look remorseful. “I lost my memories and... I wanted to apologise.”

Please, for the love of God, let this work.

“What?”

Her eyes grew wide for a second, before instantly becoming guarded once more. Clearly, she didn’t believe me.

“After I fell in the lake, I completely forgot who I was,” I lied, trying to make it sound natural. “Everything about my upbringing and history. Even the people I once cared about.”

I then looked up dramatically to the tiny, barred window nearby and stared out of it, as if recalling a deeply sad event. “I was so scared, not knowing who I was. Not even knowing where I was. But then I saw you, Aurora.” I turned and looked back at her confused face. “I saw the fear in your eyes... and I remembered what I’d done to you. How... terribly I treated you. How disgustingly everyone here treated you. And I felt sick to my stomach.”

Despite knowing how cold the rough stones would be, I then fell to my knees before the small girl. “Nothing I do could ever make up for it, I know, but I want to help you nevertheless. I promise I’m not the same person I was before and I want to help you escape, Aurora. To run away from these monsters. I don’t want them to hurt anyone ever again.”

As if reading the action queue directly from a script, I then leaned to the side, casting my eyes to the ground in shame as the skin beneath my hair was unveiled. Showing the finger marks left by my dear mother just an hour before coming here.

Aurora gave a small gasp as she saw it. “...Your neck....”

“I was in denial, placing the blame onto you when I shouldn’t have,” I said softly. “I can clearly see now that the people I thought loved me were just using me. They never cared about me. They only cared about what I could offer them.”

I looked slowly back up to her face, hoping she could feel the sincerity in my words. “I was cruel to you before, tormenting you for years, but... please... give me a chance to free you from this prison.”

If there was one thing I knew about these characters like Aurora, it was that they were always considered heroes. They could do no evil, putting others above themselves even to foolish proportions. And, whether they liked it or not, they were forced to see the good in people until it was too late. That if there was even the slightest possibility of redemption or rehabilitation in someone, and their apologies were meant genuinely, then they had to give them a chance.

This was the exact character trait I was betting my entire hope of survival on. The only way someone as hurt as her could come close to forgiving me. With the worst of Scarlett and Liam’s schemes having not yet occurred, this was my best shot at making it work. Right now. Before her hatred was well and truly cemented so deep that no amount of words or theatrics could ever repair it.

“...How do I know this isn’t just some plan to trick me?” she asked. “How can I trust you, after everything you’ve done?”

I’d thought about this before coming down here. How could I get her to trust me? There was no way Scarlett could ever achieve something like that. But I wasn’t her. Unlike Scarlett, I’d been in Aurora’s head. I’d read her life from her very own perspective, learning about her deepest secrets. Which was how I knew about the one thing she was desperate to keep hidden.

“Because if I really wanted to sabotage you, to ruin your life more than I already had...,” I started, turning my eyes to an oddly positioned box not far away. “Then I would tell Liam about the secret stash of supplies you have hidden behind that wall.”

She seemed to freeze up as I said it, fear spreading across her features. “No... please, don’t. That’s everything I have. That’s—”

“—I know,” I said, waving my hands to calm her. “And I have no interest in taking it from you. In fact, I only want to add to it.”

Her supply stash was made up of things she’d been saving up over the years, ready for the day she would make her big escape. Jars of preserved food, pieces of lost jewellery and a few coins. Not a huge amount, but enough to help get her to the next town and support herself. Losing it would be a huge blow to her plans, especially since she had no idea that she was about to become royalty very soon.

“Use whatever you want from the things I brought you today, but make sure to eat the food that won’t last. I’ll just bring more tomorrow, so there’s no need to starve yourself.”

I grabbed the loaf of bread from the bundle and stood up to hand it to her, but she was clearly still reluctant. Enough so that I took it back and broke it into two, chomping into one of the halves to prove to her it was safe to eat.

“See?” I said between chews. “Not poison. Now eat. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Like what?” she asked, finally accepting my food offering.

But I just gave her a small smile. “Like how we’re going to get your revenge.”