Kissed By The Moon

CHAPTER 9: Truth Be Told

They both looked at me shocked. Shame flashed on Tim's face before irritation took over. Charles just looked sad. Burdened. And I knew I had to relieve his burden. Not for my sake, hell, what I have to say may make Tim hate me more, but I had to do it for Charles. I had to help him have a more peaceful relationship, even if it made my situation worse.

"Amari, I didn't see you there," Charles lets out after our brief silence.

"I didn't hear you either, you must have been creeping," added Tim, who earned himself a silent reprimand from Charles. I hold back my irritation, knowing that it won't help, and I'm supposed to be helping.

"Anyway, Timothy, Charles can't tell you the whole truth, like he literally can't. So," I pause to look at Charles who is looking rather confused so I give him a sure smile, "So, I will tell you."

"Ames, you don't have to do that," Charles interjects.

"I know, but I will," I finalise.

"What do you mean he "can't". Did he somehow lose the ability?" Timothy asks, irritation obvious.

"He was instructed by his Alpha, he is physically unable to tell you," I say, confused by his confusion. I see Tim about to protest and I interrupt him with an example.

"Tim," I say, using Eris voice, my eyes glowing silver, to show she was in control, "Pick up that knife," I gesture to the knife on his table next to what I assume was his breakfast sandwich. Tim, hesitantly, with confusion clear on his face, goes to get the knife. "Now kill him," I command, pointing at Charles. Tim looks at me frightened. Almost begging me to stop him but I let him get close enough to Charles for him to fear actually doing it. "Stop." The instruction is given nonchalantly. Eris is having fun. "Now don't tell anyone about this or about anything I'm going to tell you in this room." Tim lets out a whimper and just nods.

"Now do you see how he couldn't tell you. How he couldn't go against an Alpha's command?"

Tim looks at me frightened, but nods. Now this display would have been enough to vindicate Charles. But I wanted to satisfy Tim's curiosity. I wasn't going to tell him everything. I couldn't tell him about the incident; they'd drive me out of this pack, but I could tell him enough to make him understand.

"Anyway," I begin, "Charles couldn't tell you the real reason I had to leave the pack. I didn't abandon it. I didn't go out to gallivant with humans. I needed to leave the pack because of the danger. A hand full of people know this, but as the head warrior, maybe you should know too. From when I was a child until I was a teenager, I got kidnapped and tortured a lot by enemies of this pack, greedy opportunists and other such low lifes. It was bad. The torture. And Charles, as the Beta, was always part of the rescue. 

"They did everything to protect me, but somehow, the bad guys got in. We later discovered that some pack members were involved. More so for the money than anything else, but you can imagine how devastating it was. My father, Alpha Nash, decided to begin my training after the first kidnapping, and even went as far as orchestrating fake kidnappings in order to assess my readiness.

"That's why I'm a top tier fighter. I've been kicking ass since I could barely construct complex sentences. It didn't matter how good our defence was, the bad guys always got in. I'm sure you can imagine the risk that presents to the pack? Imagine the pandemonium and the chaos if regular members of the pack found out that not even the Alpha's home is secure. So, they had to keep it a secret in as much as they could." I pause as Tim raises his hand to ask a question. A weird thing to do, but I guess he's still a little shaken up from earlier.

"I get all that, but why did you have to leave? If you'd been training for so long, you were more than capable of defending yourself and this pack from any threat."