Alpha’s Second Choice

It was total chaos in Dark Slayer Pack, the furious Alpha sent for the elders to be summoned from the holy Cathedral Shrine. It would take a couple of days for the elderlies to arrive however as the shrine was located very far away. Jayden would not hear it from anyone, not even the former Alpha. Dante was still locked in the dungeon where all the slaves were usually kept before they were paraded for the annual hunt. ‘Son, let’s not do things with a hot head. How about we release the general and have a proper civil conversation’, the former Alpha tried talking some sense. ‘He will NOT be released. So, what if he is a general from the royal kingdom? Leo was not just the Gamma of this pack but also my childhood friend. So, with all due respect father, he will stay in that dungeon until I say otherwise’, Jayden growled making the former Alpha take a few steps back. *

‘HAHAHA, so much for laying low’, Caleb snickered at his friend who was behind the huge rusting bars. ‘Why did you even let them keep you here? This isn’t like you at all man’. Dante casually shrugged his shoulder, ‘I guess I am becoming you causing trouble wherever I go’. ‘Yeah yeah. But seriously Dante, what’s the deal? Why did you kill their gamma?’, Caleb asked curiously as he wrinkled his nose from the rotting smell in the dungeon. ‘Because he deserved it’, and Caleb instantly knew the Gamma must have probably done something wrong to provoke Dante like that. He was the calmest calculated leader Caleb had ever met and would never do anything in a haste. Despite being an Alpha of his own pack, Caleb only and only surrendered to Dante’s authority, no one else. ‘I see. So, you are going to wait till the elderlies arrive for the trial. Why not just tell them who you are?’, he asked. ‘Well, I wanted to call the elderlies anyways and discuss something with them. So, I will stay put and wait for them to arrive. How’s the investigation going anyways? Any leads?’. Caleb started to reply but stopped, ‘’Man, it stinks in here’. But after Dante gave him a stern look, he continued. ‘So far, no concrete leads. But I have found something interesting’, his voice trailed off, grabbing Dante’s attention more. ‘All the cross marks on the strangled dead bodies so far were written by ink. But the last dead body of the young she-wolf found near this pack’s border was different. Her cross mark on the wrist was drawn by tar coal, the deep blue one’. Dante’s eye grew wide in realisation, ‘Deep blue tar coals are only found in one place’.

‘You are right’, Caleb nodded, ‘Its only found in the Demon’s kingdom’.

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‘I am sorry again girls. I should have never let you both off to wander alone’, Lucy tearfully cried as she slowly helped the two fairies back into their shared accommodation. ‘Its not your fault Lucy, stop it. We wandered off on our own. But I was right about that general, Dante all along. He is our knight in shining armour’, Mina dreamily confessed making Lucy smile weakly.

Daya was quiet the whole time with Jo by her side. Once they got into their tiny, shared room, Lucy left to draw a bath for the two fairies while Jo looked at Daya. ‘You know crying does not make you look weak’, Jo finally broke the silence making the pink haired fairy turn her face in the opposite direction ignoring what Jo had just said.

‘Um, I will go and check on the bath’, Mina excused herself reading the air and tension in the room.

‘So, you want to talk about what happened?’, Jo asked again trying to reach for Mina’s shoulder. ‘DON’T TOUCH ME’, the fairy’s high-pitched sound stopped Jo mid-air. But Jo could hear the pain in her voice and knew she was hurting.

‘Mina, that di. ckhead is dead now. He had that coming for himself. You and Daya did nothing wrong. There are still good werewolves amongst us, like Dante and Lucy’, Jo slowly spoke, her voice almost sounding like a whisper.

‘You don’t understand. The whipping, the cheering of the crowd, the stripping of our clothes, everything brought back bad memories from my past. I thought I was strong enough to forget about my past, but I was so wrong. The terrible memories all came back to me when I was getting whipped and I have never felt so worthless in my life’, Daya admitted through pursed lips, stopping herself from crying.

‘I do understand’. ‘How?’, the fairy angrily retorted back. ‘Because I have been told I should kill myself before’, Jo confessed as she pushed her red hair back and sighed heavily.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

‘Really?’, Mina quietly asked this time. ‘Yes’, Jo paused for a second but continued. ‘I have never had anyone who truly cared about me, no matter how many people I was surrounded by. At first, I took their words to heart and thought something was wrong with me. I even considered killing myself multiple times when I was young, simply because I thought I was worthless. But over time I realised, nothing was wrong with me. Its just the world we live in, Mina. So, cry if you need to, scream even. Get it all out of system but don’t blame yourself for it. Don’t question your worth because of it’. Before Jo could finish, Mina finally broke down as Jo gave the little fairy a shoulder to cry on. ‘Thankkk…you’, the fairy whispered. Suddenly Jo and Mina heard ugly cries from outside. She instantly got up and checked to find Lucy and Daya crying near the door, hugging each other. ‘And I thought you guys were going to draw a bath’, Jo shook her head in front of the two mess who were clearly eavesdropping on the conversation. ‘We needed to hear that too. We love you, Jo’, Daya and Lucy said in unison as the ugly crying only got worse. ‘Oof, what am I going to do with you girls?’, Jo heartily laughed as a tiny trickle of tear escaped her eyes too.