October 26th, xxxx
NO ONE HEARS THE scoff. The Captain stands legs apart, arms folded, glaring murder at her. The Alpha has dropped her hand watching the Pack discuss when to throw a welcome party for her and she wonders if this is inappropriate.
She had just said goodbye to Rain some odd hour ago yet she is being the centre of attention, waiting to be celebrated. Maybe that's what the scoff is about.
Maybe he thinks she's a hypocrite. Maybe he thinks the Pack should at least wait a day, should at least pretend that this is the saddest day of their lives. She reasons this until he opens his mouth.
"This is ridiculous."
His voice carries above the noise even though he doesn't raise it. The action stops, confusion on faces like pain. He continues.
"The girl is practically—is a stranger yet we—No, you accept her as a North Star."
Silence like a pin drop. Heads swivel from him to the Alpha and stays there when the latter slowly turn and speaks through gritted teeth.
"I would like to think I heard wrong, Camuel so I'll give you a chance to prove me right."
"The girl shouldn't be a North Star. Like the rest of her ilk, she should be confined, be watched," his voice steadily rising is accompanied by a hand swiping the air. "She could be a spy."
"A spy? She was barely breathing—"
"That's the point. They know you're a sucker for the weak, it's perfect," he swipes both arms in the air like a curtain revealing a stage, "We're keeping the omegas on a leash. What better way to gain information than from a supposed harmless girl?"
Lata recognizes the moment all expression erases from the Alpha's face, hard eyes locked on Cam's defiant ones. The energy in the air shifts, Alpha versus beta, the veins in his neck popping, pink creeping up his neck in anger and in long strides stalks over to him and warns.
"She is a child. A beaten, broken child. Her friend is dead, her Pack is never coming for her and she's dropped in a foreign land," a finger jabs Cam's chest. "If you can't have sympathy, at least watch your tongue."
The Captain doesn't back down, convinced she's a spy.
"We keep accepting his bullshit, that's why he keeps sending those omegas to us! Are we that desperate for more hands we condone anything?"
Firmly, the Alpha squeeze his shoulder. "We didn't accept his bullshit. I was targeted and as the target, I have every right to punish the scoundrels how I see fit."
"Ah, really? Their punishment must be roaming free then. Looks like you haven't learnt your lesson and she will be it."
Lata foresees doom. Snatching her neck in a fist, a cold like she's never known before snakes into her body. She wants to tell them she is no spy but how will she know?
She knows nothing. She is nothing. Mere seconds ago, she was someone worth celebrating, seconds ago she belonged somewhere but no more. Not anymore.
She starts to cry, wracked sobs that drowns their words and fill her ears with whispers, with guilt, with regret. Why is she alive? Why didn't she follow Rain down, down below...
"Oh no, the little bitch cries. Might we pity her."
"Cam! The fuck is wrong with you?"
"Me? I'm not the one keeping our enemy to my bosom! Someone here has to question interlopers. It's like you don't care about your life. Until you have a silver dagger at your throat, maybe then you'll come to your fucking senses."
"That's the Alpha you're talking to. Show some fucking respect."
"Have you gone completely mad?"
"You have to be so fucking stupid to think you have any right..."
The Captain glowers, listening to no one but himself. A smug smirk slices his lips.
"Can't even fight your own battles. Ah, that's right. You're a pacifist."
Lata's cries cut the air sharply when the Alpha swings a punch right on the nose, the force of it breaks bone and stumbles the muscular Captain who doesn't have time to react because the Alpha doesn't stop.
The shock of a blow to the stomach, and another and another until the Captain is a grunting helpless mess on the ground, weakly parrying the blows from his face.
She can not look away when he coughs out a saliva of blood, the Alpha on top him in an instant—bloodied knuckles hitting his nose, chin and ribs like a ragdoll with cotton for bones.
This is all her fault. Why does anything she touch becomes blood? Becomes wicked? Though barely ten days old in the Pack, she has noticed the softness of the Alpha, the kindness of him, so different from the one she knows, so assured in his softness he doesn't need violence to prove a point.
But here he is now, violent, aggressive to his own Pack, to his brother because of her, because he's defending her. He stops when the Captain hands weakly falls to the ground, when he can't defend himself or lift his head.
Grabbing him by the collar, bloodied fist hanging by his side and in a gruff voice spits,
"How's this for pacifist, Cam?"