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Despite my wounds and the deep gash in my upper left thigh, I had plenty of endurance and stamina left in me. My old man, on the other hand, was struggling to heal, which was finally dawning on him as he arched an eyebrow in question my way.
“What have you done?” he snarled, his once cocky composure beginning to falter as he realized just how slowly his body was healing.
“You enter MY valley, the world I was blessed with after everyone marked it as cursed lands, and believe you’d actually win?” I tossed at him, and it was my turn to laugh as I slowly shook my head. “You belittled me as a child. Labeled me weak, soft, a boy not worthy to take the lead of a pack as powerful as ours. You compared me to Baker any chance you got, and no matter the various experiments of utter torture you forced me to participate in, nothing could please you. Absolutely nothing. I was but a bane to your existence. A thorn in your side that you wished to be rid of. You did anything you could to destroy me. Not because you wanted the curse to remain in our family line. No. That was another excuse. You wanted to keep the power in your grasp for as long as possible. In fact, if you could become eternal like I am in this world, you’d be the Alpha of Shade Pack for the rest of our world’s existence, wouldn’t you?”
His eyes narrowed at my words, and I simply copied him by narrowing mine.
“You say you wished for a heir, but if that was so, you never would have killed Lexianne. Never would have tortured her to the extreme because that would ruin your chances of possibly getting her pregnant with all the torture and immense stress put on her body. You’d fuck her…yes. If you were truly able to, you would have stolen her purity from her for your own selfish pleasure, but you didn’t have the intentions of impregnating her,” I voiced. “But Baker did. Baker wanted Lexianne just as badly as you did, and that’s what put that fascinating obsession of yours in your mind. The possibility of making an heir just so you did it before Baker could. So you’d be able to claim yet another possession of worth from the very boy you always praised for being better than me.”
He didn’t dare speak as I finally figured out his hidden motive.
His hidden need to be better than the con artist he’d trained from the moment her could walk.
“I was simply a hindrance for you to put your frustration and anger on, but the one you truly wished to have control over was Baker, wasn’t it?” I instigated and watched that mask of triumph begin to falter at my accusation. “You didn’t care about me taking your Alpha position. In fact, you didn’t believe I’d ever be capable of claiming your role for you’ve painted me as nothing but a weakling to the pack for years. They wouldn’t allow me to take your place unless it was deemed temporary. Which was why when you were in ‘coma,’ I didn’t get hit with as much backlash. It wasn’t something permanent.”
He tried to hide his surprise as I revealed how observant my maleficent astra had been all this while, but this man’s eyes always gave him up.
Their widened gaze only proved he didn’t expect me to know so much.
“But you feared Baker. Feared his drive and passion to achieve whatever he put his mind on. You were grateful that his deep desire to be reunited with his Coven took a good chunk of his devotion, but there was always that ‘what if’ that nagged you in the back of your mind. What if he wishes to take over my pack? What if he yearns to steal what I’ve claimed all this while? What if he surpasses me to the point that my own pack members wish to have him as an Alpha and not me? What if the world seeks the greater con artist in this world where a few power moves can change the shifter dynamic by the masses?”
I was hitting the nail on the head because he could no longer hide how my questions irritated his very soul. Lines of frustration began to form along his forehead, while his aura rose in opposition.
“Despite it all, you gave him the benefit of the doubt, for he was your favorite. Your prodigy. And you expected that no matter whether you both had hidden intentions for one another, you could come to an agreement that making my life utterly miserable is but a form of entertainment you could enjoy and bond over,” I offered as my eyes darkened and my lips dared to creep up at the corners. “Until the bomb incident.”
“Your assumptions are just that,” he muttered. “No conviction in them.”
“If they were just assumptions, you wouldn’t waste the energy to point it out,” I countered as I cracked my neck. “You didn’t take the risk of coming into my domain to aid Baker.” I got straight to the point. “You want to overpower him. To get rid of what will be more beneficial to him and claim what would be most beneficial to you. In this case, Lexianne’s survival wouldn’t benefit you, but Baker, for he needs an heir to be granted immunity by his Coven, which would eventually give him access to more power. As for the crown, that would benefit you in gaining power over the valley and my pack that I’m sure you’re aware can respawn.”
He let out a huff as he tilted his head to one side out of pure curiosity.
“So you’re suddenly a problem solver, huh?” he tossed at me as he lifted his arms in the air and shook his hands as if trying to act as though he was afraid. “Am I supposed to apologize? No. Praise you for figuring shit out? You put a few pieces together to figure out my objective and now think you’re going to ruin my ultimate plan. You despise me and yet it’s clear you’ve taken some of my cockiness for here you are, showing all your cards in hopes I’ll submit and crumble, is that right?”
I didn’t speak as I simply stared back at him, which encouraged him to laugh at me once more.
“Fine. Let me enlighten you while your heart is still beating,” he declared as he pointed to his chest. “You’re right. I wish to secure my Alpha position from my own prodigy. I trained him so well that he got too good for his old man. Do I care that he took my title of con artist in Hollow City? Yes, for it made me lose quite a bit of deals. But one thing I’ll never allow is for my position as Alpha of the strongest pack in these lands to be stripped from my grasp. I DESERVE to be here. I earned this grand rank, like a king who’s earned his crown, and I won’t let anyone take that away from me. Not even my own blood.”
“You have no shame,” I muttered, and he all but laughed back at me.
“Shame? I should carry an ounce of shame for wanting to keep this position I earned and upheld for years? Vampires, Purebloods to be exact, get to be the Heads of their Covens for decades if not centuries, but God forbid an Alpha as powerful and ruthless as I wish to remain on my throne of power for a few decades, and it's deemed a sin in your eyes.”
“You and I know I don’t give a bloody shit about your pack position. You made it my business by assuming I wanted your fucking pack that despised me for being open-minded and seeking a world that didn’t require us to be senselessly sacrificed and abused because we didn’t fit the standards of what you deem as ‘powerful,’” I argued back. “You ruined my life for the sake of protecting your legacy and the curse that plagues our family, and now you’re here to claim what I’ve worked hard to create out of absolutely nothing.”
It was beyond insulting to vocally acknowledge it.
“Pretty hypocritical, don’t you think? It's okay for you to rule and remain upon a throne of power and domination, but you can come into my world, my land, my valley’s core and steal what you didn’t earn. The land that you didn’t shed blood, sweat, and tears for, because in your eyes, I’m not deserving of this powerful realm that I’ve single-handedly manifested until recently, and you wouldn’t dare let Baker sneak in here and take it for his own benefit. The moment he claims such assets, you’ll be next on the chopping block.”
It was his turn to be rendered speechless, and I decided this conversation wouldn’t lead us anywhere.
His decision to destroy me was already made. Nothing I said would change that.
“You’re no longer a king of this realm. It shouldn’t matter that I wish to claim the throne and all those useless disciples,” he argued. His revelation intrigued me, for he shouldn’t have known about that fact. “You came into my sacred lagoon thinking I wouldn’t know about it?”
His revelation simply made me yearn to destroy him, but I had to be patient.
A little longer.
“Your sacrifice is all in vain, isn’t it?” he offered and leaned forward as if he was mere inches away from me and could whisper in my ear. “Sacrificed your role as king to let her conceive, and where did that get you? A king without a crown, an Alpha without a mate, and a man stripped of everything he once deemed vital to his existence. In the end, you really don’t have anything to fight for, which makes me wonder why you’ll play a game you’re destined to lose?”
