Ghost of the Alpha

Chapter 28-Rue

I have been dead for many years. A shell of who I once was. Forced to hide and lock all that would reveal who I truly am from my enemies. Downing tonics and filling my body with cup full after cup full to keep it from ruining everything. Everyday herbs and roots designed to keep the most well preserved secret of my family. Making my body weak and frail as a human's. Unable to use what is granted to me by the blood and genes of my ancestors.

Now, with no reason to hide such things, with my one true desire within my reach, I revel in the power I have denied myself. The talents locked away from my reach, the part of me that has been lingering as the snake does outside its nest, waiting for its prey to come within striking distance. Like the snake, I have wrapped my prey round and round in the bindings of leaf and vine. His teary blue eyes gazing at me in denial, in shock, in delicious fearful despair.

"It was all an act," he utters, glancing up from my bloody face down to the tank top covering my stomach. "Not once did you speak the truth. Everything out of your mouth was a lie."

I cock my head with a venomous grin, coaxing the vines to clench around him tighter. His groan of pain fills my ears, the sweet sound as decadent as fluffy cotton candy.

"Perhaps, and perhaps not," I whisper, settling myself comfortably onto the hard concrete. "I didn't have to do much to make you think me harmless. Your own delusions merely gave me the fodder to mold a part of myself into what you desired most."

Varath's head snaps up faster than a bullet. A growl emanates from inside his chest. Angry. Hungry. Feral as the beast that struggles to break through the bonds that tighten even more as he strains against the thick green vines.

"My delusions?" he hisses, eyes darkening from baby blue to oil slick black. "You are the one that is under whatever strange madness that has convinced you to think that I have done anything to warrant what you have done. How? How can you do this? How could someone like you have killed my father? Destroyed hundreds of innocent lives? And for what? To use me as a scapegoat for your father's death? I've never even seen you before I first found you in that slum."

I slap him clear across the face. Nails digging into skin, blood welling up along the five scratch marks clawed deep into his pale cheek. The vines wrench him up on his feet, bare feet struggling to gain purchase as he is jerked by his neck and arms. I languidly rise up to my full height, no longer bowing my head in feigned terror and submission. My mother's blood runs through me, her title at the moment of her death will pass to me. I have no need to cower to another. It is not the way I was born, not the way I was raised. Varath will learn that one way or another. I've had years to plan how I would do it. And will do it in the only way he will understand. Through fury and agony.

"You don't remember?" I sneer, curling a finger round a rouge lock of his golden hair. Yanking it just so as I whisper so sweetly into his ear. My voice slowly rising in volume as the failed repressed memories of his crimes rise to the surface in my brain. "You don't remember breaking into my home? You don't remember slicing my father to ribbons? All while your bastard of a father pulled me from my bed, threw me into the hallway and raped me, over and over again while I was forced to watch you kill my dad!"

The control I've had over my emotions till now, snaps as soon as the rush of words leave my mouth. I release his hair, stepping back a couple feet, grabbing hold of my head as the long ago sound of Dad's head slamming against the floor, the screams of neighbors being butchered, the feel of claws slicing into my flesh, the phantom scent of hot foul breath seeping into my nostrils surrounds me in a cloud of vile horror.

"You are a stupid blind wolf," I push out, looking back at the beast held by my vines. "Cruel and selfish. Only thinking of me as something to be owned! So all encompassing is your delusion that not once have you even realized, that you used to be more than the beast that has destroyed everything!"

"What are you talking about?" Varath questions, his voice strained and confused, acting as if he doesn't know. That what he did doesn't matter. Doesn't mean anything to him. Doesn't make him do anything to pay for what he has done. But, as he struggles to gasp for breath, his left hand wrenching up and pulling the vine just a small amount from around his throat, I see something flash. Bronze and gold. Shiny as a newly minted penny.

An evil smile warps my face. I feel giddiness replace the anger burning within my gut. Washing away the ghostly pain that has haunted me all these years. Memories blossom within my mind, conjuring images of days so happily and brightly vivid that a simple person would mistake them for the remnants of dream. A fairytale. But I know better. I now know why he is so dumb. So forgetful. It seems that fate did the hard work for me. Already laid the trap meant for the poor stupid little Varath.

"I remember a young boy, all blond and blue eyed," I sneer, chuckling with unbridled mirth at the mess he has made for himself without my meddling. "Rosy cheeked. Always constantly getting himself scraped up and dirty. A boy who visited along with his father when there was once hope for peace between our people. A sweet boy, so kind to every animal in the forest. A boy who promised me that he would love me truly forever, and in return for his promise I gave my favorite thing in the whole wide world to him."

I have the vines wrench his left hand away from the vine around his throat. Yanking it into a straight line for me to grasp and admire the gold chain and bronze pendant on his wrist. "A lovely little trinket just like this one," my voice warping into a wistful tone. The dark part of my heart enjoying the wrath on his face twist and contort into irritating confusion.

"Don't be so quick to play the fool darling mate," I croon, stepping close just enough to cup his cheek. The claw marks slowly but surely closing up, the blood still wet and sticky. "You know better than I about what I speak of. Your stories make those of my family out to be monsters, but really you are afraid. Afraid of the truth."

I let a small breath flow past my lips, sickly cloying with the scent of hibiscus and sage. His nose twitches, eyes darkening even more. Pupils dilating enough to almost entirely obscure the white of the jellied orbs. I sense the fury rising within him, skin paling, the scent of the iron in his blood growing stronger as his heart beats faster in unrestrained fear. He remembers now, I know he does. I've allowed him to now that all the pieces have fallen into place for my revenge to be complete.

"Tell me mate," I spit out, grabbing hold of his strong chin, nails turning into cat like claws that pierce the thin covering of flesh and muscle. "Tell me what you were told as a little pup sucking on his mother's tit."

"Beware those born with dryad blood," he begins, relenting for the moment with blood tricking from my claws slicing his chin, "For vows uttered by mortal tongue shall never be undone. Break your promise to love, to protect the dryad born, and you will suffer forever more. Their face and memory removed from your mind, until the day of your death finally arrives."