ZINA
Everything happened so fast. The Alpha King decided to send Daemon to the borders to quell the uprising of the Arising Rogues as Zina suggested. The king probably figured that death would meet Daemon one way or the other.
The Epsilon from the DireWolf pack was killed, and his body was hung on the city walls for all to see.
Zina was assigned a room in the castle. And as she slumped against the hard floor, cradling her face in her hand, she could imagine how many people wanted to have her head. Especially the one they called Yaren. For all of Daemon's lack of reaction, that Yaren made up for all of it.
A knock sounded on her door, but Zina totally ignored it, still cradling her face that was buried between her knees. Without waiting for an invitation, the person came into the room.
"I have brought your meals, Great Seer." The voice said, setting out wares against a stool.
If Zina was called Great Seer one more time, she would be forced to take her own life. Although she supposed she need not to bother, the so-called meal that was brought to her might take her life alright.
But, until she was sure of the safety of her Pack, she wasn't dying anytime soon.
"He said you did excellently well, but asks why you attempted to avoid his death tonight." The male servant said, causing Zina to stiffen.
In a voice laden with hatred, Zina said to him, "who am I to go against the wishes of the gods?"
"He wants you to know that your pack members are safe. Your brother conveys the words 'Pistles', and Alpha Modrich is at the capital to see you to confirm the same."
Pistles was a word that existed as a common joke between her and Pia. It was usually used in their hide and seek game where Zina tried to honed her smell by finding her brother. When it became hard for her to move any further, she would scream 'Pistles' indicating that the game was over and she had lost.
But what she didn't understand was the word Alpha Modrich. Modrich was the name of their Alpha's son.
"Alpha Modrich?"
"Alpha Belmore passed away seven days ago. Alpha Modrich has successfully shifted into the role."
Zina stiffened. Alpha Belmore was not young anymore, but he still had some vigour left about him. How did he come to pass away so suddenly.
It didn't matter to her anymore. Modrich might be a bit obnoxious at times, but he cared for their small pack. She was afraid that her heavy shame would not allow her to see him so she started shoving the food down her throat, hoping it really contained poison.
Twenty minutes later, she was still alive and the male servant entered her room again. This time, he was in the company of someone else.
"Alpha Modrich is here," he announced.
While Zina had not been able to feel the bond of their WolfKnight pack despite the fact that she carried the name, her senses were still keen so she of course, sensed Modrich WolfKnight.
However, something was wrong. Just how high were her captors that they could smuggle in an alpha from a very insignificant pack.
Zina reasoned that they must be high enough to have an interest in the lie she told. Although she had not heard the voice of her captors at the banquet. Besides, the man seemed like an Alpha, and not just any ordinary shifter.
"You've done well." Modrich said coolly, and Zina felt his eyes observing her.
Even if she were to break down, she wouldn't do it before him.
Zina forced a smile and stood from the ground where she was huddled with the help of her staff. "How is everyone? And Pia?"
"They're all fine. Pia has been returned. They send their kind regards"
"That's good to hear." Zina said, a relief like no other engulfing her. However after that relief, she felt her back stiffen.
Something else that was amiss. Even in Wolf form, it should have taken Modrich at the very least, ten days of a no-rest travel to reach the Arctic North from the Greenlands East. And yet, there he was right before her.
"How did you get here?"
"Ahh… I left immediately after you left."
Zina frowned. Even though it had only been Pia that had been taken away from her pack, she didn't believe any of them would have been able to make a long journey in their state of worry.
"I wasn't aware you knew of the terrain to the Arctic North so well." She asked, and immediately cringed the moment the question left her lips. At that moment, she must have looked like an ungrateful thing.
"We were worried about you!" Modrich lashed out immediately, sounding highly offended. "Why do you question me so crudely?"
Zina's straight shoulders collapsed in the face of his indignation. "I am sorry." She apologised, internally berating herself.
Almost immediately the apology left her lips, another wrongness slammed through her. If he had left immediately, then how was he already alpha? The servant had said that Alpha Belmore passed away seven days ago, did he not?
"If you left immediately, how are you already Alpha?" She said tentatively, unwilling to both spook him and let go of her suspicions. "The male servant said that Alpha Belmore passed away seven days ago? It's been nineteen days since I left?"
At that point, she was voicing her thoughts and internal thought processes. She heard him sigh heavily like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The exasperation in his sigh caused her to flinch.
"The gods!" He groaned in frustration, "this is tiring!"
"What is tiring…?"
"Shut up! How dare you question me; your Alpha and superior! I know you're an aberrant! But seriously how dare you!!"
Zina staggered back under the weight of his words until she bumped into her tray of food that the male servant hadn't bothered clearing. She fell into the leftovers, and her staff rolled away from her.
She scampered for it, her shaking hands feeling the floor for it.
Modrich approached her, took her hands and shoved the staff to her. In a low, grimy, voice he spoke,
"Are you really that stupid? Surely, you cannot be this stupid!"
Zina flinched, her heart racing crazily.
"I thought you have a superior sense of smell, surely, you can smell the fact that I am a Blood Alpha!"
Zina let out a whimper as a terrible headache came over her. Blood Alpha? Indeed, she had smelled a lot of blood on him, but she was too far in her head to question what it was.
"Yo…you kil…killed Alpha Bel…more?"
"Of course I did you stupid thing!"
Zina gasped. So he had not shifted into the Alpha role like the male servant had alleged, no, Modrich had acquired his title by blood.
"Wh…wh…wh…why?!" She stuttered badly, her intended frustrated scream coming out as a mere, scattered whimper.
"Forget the fact that my fathers ways are old at best, believe me when I say you do not want to pity the man."
"W…what d…do y…you m…mean?"
Modrich sighed loudly again like speaking to Zina was the most laborious task he had ever encountered.
"Our pack did pick you and your hideous staff from a forest, but surely, you didn't think that was just it?"
"W…what d…do y…you m…mean?"
"For goodness sake stop stuttering! There was some letter," he said bitterly, "whoever claims you and raises you will get a hundred bram of coins every month regardless of whether you were raised well or not. And true to the letter the money was delivered."
"Wh…what?"
A hundred bram of coins? Zina could not imagine that kind of money. They had been living a mediocre life, at least that was what Zina thought, so where did that kind of money go?
The money didn't matter to her, having a better rein at her stuttering tongue, she asked, "My real parents, the same people that sent the money, did you see them?"
"No we didn't." He answered grimly. "The money appeared at our doorstep mysteriously."
Zina forced a smile. It didn't matter to her, a hundred bram of coins multiplied by the months she had lived wasn't worth her life.
"It is fine… it is just money right?" She asked, clutching her staff tighter for some foreboding reason.
She felt a chilling smile ghost against her skin.
"Surely, you do not think that is the only thing? I mean, how did those men come to know that you're a seer? Have you not thought about it?"