The Alpha's Villainess

Chapter Six

“Scarlett! I heard you’re awake!” a woman yelled, walking through the bedroom door without waiting for an invitation. I wasn’t sure who had the audacity to intrude on the Alpha like this, but I certainly wasn’t about to question it.

Milliseconds before Liam’s lips were about to touch mine, she had managed to interrupt the moment, saving me from a deed that I definitely didn’t want to do. I wasn’t sure that I could happily act my way out of that one. The urge to slap him away had been visceral.

Both of us immediately turned to look up at the lady who entered, of who stopped dead in her tracks the second she spotted us together in the intimate positions we were in.

“Oh, Goddess... I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t know you were here, Alpha.”

With a hand over her chest, she gave a small but respectful bow to Liam. A formal greeting, it seemed. I took a mental note to remember that, each of these books having different ways of showing respect.

To my immense relief, Liam then moved away and waved off her formalities. “Lila. You’re fine, I was just leaving anyway. Scarlett needs some more rest.”

Lila...? Who the hell was Lila?

I racked my brain, trying to see if I could remember who that was, but I came up blank.

I genuinely had no clue who this woman was.

She was older, maybe in her fifties, with greying blond hair and blue eyes. Her fancy-looking red dress, matching perfectly with the historical palace vibes of the mansion, looked as expensive as everything else around me. Clearly, she was someone with high status in the pack. And yet I couldn’t remember her being mentioned even once.

“You’re so kind, as always,” Lila basically purred. “We’re so grateful that you look after our Scarlett so well.”

‘Our’ Scarlett?

“I’m sure Scarlett is more appreciative of having a sincerely caring mother, such as yourself.”

Oh. Right. Scarlett’s mother. She wasn’t mentioned in the story, but it did make sense that Scarlett had one. It gave me some hope that the world wasn’t going to be as poorly written as the book. If an important character that was never mentioned from Aurora’s POV could still exist, then perhaps there were more examples of added plots to fill in the gaps.

Liam stood up and straightened the white buttoned-up shirt under his waistcoat, before looking back towards me one last time. “I’ll see you soon,” he said with a small smile.

And, oh, boy. I could not wait.

But I didn’t vocalise my distaste, instead forcing a smile on my lips in reply as he departed.

The minute he was gone, I turned back to the older lady, wondering what sort of relationship Scarlett had with her mother. However, I didn’t need to wait long to find out.

She walked towards me and, without even a second of hesitation, her hand slapped me across the face. Hard.

I cried out, touching my cheek gently as tears stung in my eyes from the pain.

“What the...?”

“You stupid girl,” she snapped, grabbing my chin roughly before I could recoil. She forced me to look up at her, though my eyes were still blurry from the tears threatening to fall. “Are you truly so weak that you almost drowned? Do you have any idea what kind of position that would have left us in?”

I blinked several times and tried to pull away, but her grip only tightened, moving from my chin to my neck.

“Useless. Utterly useless,” she continued. “An entire year has gone by and you still haven’t convinced Liam to mark you. Now you almost get yourself killed. Are you so selfish that you didn’t consider how this would make your father and I look?”

‘Like monsters?’ I thought internally, resisting the overwhelming impulse to lash out and hit her.

It was no wonder Scarlett turned out the way she did. She was being used for status by a vicious family. I didn’t know if that excused all of her actions, probably not at all, but it at least gave me some insight into why she could hurt others so easily. She had been raised by violence herself.

It made me think back to my own family. Whilst not the same as Scarlett’s, I could still empathise with having a difficult family life. Mine had basically forgotten about my existence after my older sister died a few years ago in a car accident. My mother fell into a depression, which caused my father to divorce her soon after. Whilst she stopped caring about anyone else around her, he moved on instead, starting a new family with some other lady. I’d seen the pictures of his happy life on social media, the way he lovingly held his new baby. I wondered how long it would take for them to both find out that I’d died. Weeks? Months?

...Would they even notice?

“Everything we’ve managed to accomplish would have been taken away had you died. Your brother is currently being trialled for the Beta position, something that would have been impossible for our family without the Alpha’s favour. Did you think about his future when you decided to nearly die? Did you even consider your father’s upcoming promotion at the guard tower? No?”

Her hand tightened around my throat and I felt myself struggling to breathe. But, despite how messed up the situation was, suddenly my brain managed to think of something.

...I had an idea.

“...Mother,” I choked out, grabbing her hand. “Please....”

Her fingers only dug deeper at hearing my cries, watching me intensely as if finding enjoyment in my suffering. It was only after a few more seconds had passed that she finally let me go.

I heaved at the air, grateful for the oxygen once more. Though painful, I just had to hope it was worth it.

“Please...,” I managed to croak out. “I did it for you.”

“What...?”

I shakily looked back up at her, finding her eyes wide in surprise.

“To make Liam scared of losing me,” I lied. “I jumped into the lake and faked a coma for several days. Now Liam is more devoted to me than ever before.”

It was a bold lie, but I was pretty sure she had no way to prove otherwise. I was mostly betting on the medical knowledge being below average. I doubted that doctors inside a historical fantasy setting book would have equipment or knowledge that even remotely compared to hospitals in the modern era where I was from. That, and the fact Scarlett’s mother probably hadn’t even bothered to visit much during the time I was unconscious.

“You did it for us...?” she asked, still appearing shocked. “Then why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I had to make it believable. The more people that knew, the more likely it would be that Liam would figure it out.”

Her lips pursed in thought as she contemplated what I was telling her.

“You saw it for yourself – Liam was all over me. If I didn’t need to keep up the appearance of recovering, he would have stayed the night with me too. He’s completely under my thumb, I assure you.”

Come on, woman... please.

And to my relief, she then sighed and nodded her head.

“Fine, fine...,” she conceded. “But make sure to tell me next time. Had I known, we could have played it up to garner a lot more sympathy from the pack.”

Right, because if I actually were dying, they wouldn’t bother to put the extra effort into looking sad.

“...Apologies,” I said with a forced smile, my teeth clenched tightly together.

She took one last look at me, from top to bottom, then flicked her hand dismissively. “Get some sleep then. I’ll talk to you later.”

I bowed my head as she left, doing my best to calm myself inside. Nothing good was going to happen if I fought against her now. It was a situation where the less she paid attention to me, the better. Soon, I would be finding a way to leave this place anyway, hopefully under the protection of a magical wolf girl.

I just needed to make sure that happened.

As I carefully touched the tender finger marks left on my neck, wincing from the pain, I knew there was still one more part of the plan I needed to act on immediately. Before the bruises around my throat disappeared from accelerated healing.

Hopefully, I wasn’t caught on the way there.