Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
As much as my room is lovely, staying trapped between its four walls is just not for me.
I was a little surprised that there were no guards or anyone there to stop me when I walked out, down the willowy glass corridors of Mother Palace.
Mother Palace seems like an interconnected network of glass structures pressed against trees into one huge dome in the middle.
It didn’t take me long to wander outside, feeling eyes on me every step of the way.
No one approaches me though, and most walk in the other direction when they see me. Fine by me.
The amount of green in this place is so strange to see, so different from my upbringing where coloured clothes were rarely anything but red, thanks to the scraps sent over from the Crone Pack.
I stop and look around at the fields of grass, the flowers everywhere in so many colours, and I feel the overwhelming warmth of light pouring in.
It would be difficult to believe anything bad could ever happen in a place like this, if it weren’t for the human slaves walking around, most following their masters.
Devoid of life, love or anything that made them human in the first place.
It stings to see them and how normal it seems a master to have two to three human slaves in this place.
It reminds me that Orion grew up disliking humans and likely only met ones like this. Empty shells.
There’s one building next to the throne room, set slightly into the wall, and most importantly, hardly anyone is standing around it.
I quickly make my way over, pushing one of the large doors open and stepping into what feels like a museum of sorts.
The walls are all dark, a deep, rich black, and there are huge paintings—of the royal family, I presume from the crowns—stretching down the walls one by one.
My boots click on the tiles as I walk past them, staring into the older faces of Orion’s ancestors. Dammit, he comes from a pretty family.
There must be eight paintings, if not more.
I can’t quite see. I get to the one that shows Orion’s family, in the middle of the room, slightly bigger than any other.
His mother Gaia is in the centre, with a man I assume must have been his father.
His hair is greying but still dark in places—still reminds me of Orion, almost. Next to him are three brothers.
All of them wear crowns of ivy and green nestled in their hair.
I remember being told that Orion had brothers, but I don’t think they’re alive anymore.
None of them look like Orion at all, actually.
They all look exactly like their mother—stern faces, not half as striking or different as Orion.
Orion looks more like his father, and to no one’s surprise, Elizabeth is not in this painting.
I doubt anyone who wasn’t royal-born would be, even if she is the daughter of the old alpha.
I stare at the painting for a long while before I sense someone watching me.
I stay still, readying my shadows just in case, when she steps out.
I’m not sure which door she came through, but Alpha Gaia walks across the room, her long green gown brushing the floor.
Her hair is in a bun with several braids wrapped around it tightly, different than earlier.
“Do not worry. You are allowed to see anything, including the royal rooms. The guards would have stopped you otherwise.” She holds up a hand and guards I did not see, step back into the walls and literally merge into the stone.
She smiles before joining me at my side.
I don’t like being alone with her, but running off wouldn’t be a good start to an alliance.
My brother, my only family left, needs me to help stop the Wrath, and I will need this alpha to at least not hate me for that to work.
This is my mother’s work, her plan and I am going to do my best to finish it.
“I didn’t see any guards,” I murmur, staring at the painting instead of her.
“They’re underground or in the walls. They wait in the earth to attack.
” She sounds amused. “Guards are no use if they’re plainly visible at all times.
” I realise that makes a lot of sense, and it is like my brother, who keeps his guards in the shadows.
“I was not born into the royal family; I was married in, and therefore, you won’t see my family on these walls.
I wasn’t even noble. I don’t know if Orion’s told you that about me. ”
“No. He hasn’t told me too much about his family,” I admit, because it’s the truth.
“Maybe it’s better that way, because his sins ruined our family, and since then, I have been picking up the pieces.
” I look at her, seeing her staring up at the painting—at the sons and husband she lost. “I was fourteen when the king visited the cavern regions to the north of our lands. It’s where I grew up.
Only my mother and I were left. My father died when I was very young, and she never married again.
Never wanted anyone. She was adamant that my father was her true mate.
Yet they never shared the true mate mark.
They shared the marriage and mate marks instead, like many do.
” She pauses. “In truth, I’ve never actually met anyone who has had a true mate mark before. ”
“Apparently, it’s rare.” I remember that much at least.
“Indeed, it is. The king took one look at me and told me that I would be his wife. There was no discussion, no act of love or even romance. The crown does not need these things. He took me from my mother, and I never saw her again. I was pregnant within a year, and I had to give birth to a son before he would officially give me the marks. He said no one was useful until they had proven their ability to bear a son for the crown.”
My stomach rolls. If she was fourteen, how old was he? How much pain she must have gone through to give birth at such an age. I want to tell her I’m sorry, but I feel like she wouldn’t allow me to say it, or like it. And so I don’t. I continue staring up at the painting and let her continue.
“Of course, I had more sons after that. I thought I was done bearing sons, in all honesty, and that I had done my royal duty when the third was born. My sweet princes. Ten years later, I found out I was surprisingly pregnant with Orion. It was not an easy pregnancy. The childbirth was worse. I bled into the ground as he came into the world and the earth died.” She takes a step closer to me.
“Never in the history of a royal child has the earth not blossomed in flowers and a tree not appeared until him. Orion’s birth left an acre of woodland in dust and black grass, and one single, grey ash tree standing.
That tree is still all that lives in that place.
In some ways, I think it was a warning of what had just come into the world. ”
I frown at her. That wasn’t Orion’s fault; he was only a baby. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Personal family history can be a lesson and a warning. You seem very interested in my family, Meredith, even if you claim to only want an allegiance and a soldier for your king.” She looks right at me, her eyes like Orion’s.
“You turn up very close to the only heir the Mother Pack has left. I presume you grew close to him in the Folkland, yet you are married to the heir of the Crone Pack, and the Maiden Pack’s youngest heir is obsessed with you.
” She tilts her head. “I understand the appeal of Blackfire and Orion—they have very few contenders to their thrones and not many who could beat them in battle, so it makes sense for you to chase them. But Reed—he would have to lose a great deal to be able to take his throne.”
“I never saw them as heirs to thrones. I saw them as wolf shifters—terrifying men—who I somehow realised weren’t all that terrifying in the end.
I might have been human and they shifters, but at the end of the day, we’re all people,” I offer her.
I can understand how I must look like a pack gold digger.
Damn, I would be terrible at that. “You have marked humans here.”
“Yes.” She sighs. “I know you have empathy for the humans you grew up with and dislike the runes we give to control them. The humans are, well, inherited. I don’t particularly like any woman being stripped of everything she is, to become a slave.
Or a man either. But it is what it is. It will not be my generation that changes things for humans.
” She looks at me. “I told you about his birth because I’m warning you about Orion.
” I tense a little. “I would not be a good alpha if I did not warn you about the most dangerous wolf in my entire pack. Orion was born wrong, and the earth rejected him, as should you. Do not let this go too far; let him get you pregnant and stuck at his side. He is the one who is now heir because of his own actions, which ended his brothers’ lives. He has no siblings—”
“No, he does. He has a sibling, and her name is Elizabeth, and I never once saw an ounce of evil in her. Not really. I know everyone has a bit of each, good and evil, but I do not believe she would have killed someone—her own father—for no good reason.” I stop her.
“Believe what you want.” She steps in front of me.
“But I will not have whatever you are become Orion’s wife.
I will force him to choose, and make him have children with whoever I choose, and raise them to be better than he is.
A better heir. I never officially gave Orion the title.
There was no ceremony, nothing, and I never will. He is a coward. A pathetic man.”
“No, he’s not,” I snap before I can stop myself, and shadows run along my hand. Before I can blink, she slaps me hard enough that I stumble back a few steps, tasting blood in my mouth. I hold my cheek, squaring my shoulders. Bitch.