The Epic Revenge of Lavender Sinek (and her brothers)

20. Family

Lavender

The twenty third man was as loyal as the first. I could feel my wolf shift uneasily on the surface. At that point everyone was so riled up that even a foot out of line would have made them snap. Oddly though, as one by one wolves with cut palms joined a steadily growing group, I felt more and more secure.

These were my people. My pack. It's difficult to explain it to someone who hadn't had a pack. It was like having a large extended family. Except there were no evil third cousins everyone secretly hated, everyone was genuinely cared and loved for.

It was what kept wolves going as a fundamental principle. Our loyalty. Our love. Our teamwork. Every last wolf in a pack was as important as the next, and the dynamics would fail without each other.

The girl who was with Sally the night Leo and I broke into the pack house stepped onto the podium. I glanced at her green grey eyes and smiled. Another sister, another one to protect, to love.

I felt a part of me tear when Damien growled viciously the moment their hands touched. It was like opening your arms for a hug and getting a cold shoulder - only much much worse. She ripped away from the podium, and I saw her mate catch her midair before they both shifted.

The mind link wasn't just like a group chat where we could speak to each other. It ran deeper than that. It was ancient, prophesied magic. So every single one of us moved as one, and Anika Brown and Hale Gardinger were in armlocks within several seconds, forced to shift back.

Anika fought viciously, tearing arms and legs out of her way as a wolf I didn't know stepped forward with cuffs. Silver cuffs. I looked away, I knew how painful those were.

And locked eyes with Sally. Sweet silent Sally who had tears streaming down her face. Anika was her best friend. She lost a sister she had already had. I lost a sister I thought I would. I didn't know what hurt more.

"Stop hurting him!" A voice rang through the crowd and a pretty blonde female stepped forward. I knew her type instantly, she was the standard females died to become. I noticed the cut on her hand as black tears streamed down her face.

"It's her! Not him. Please Alpha." She turned to my mate. "I demand a fair trial."

"Very well." Damien was stoic as he held the knife out for a struggling Hale. He snarled.

"Take the bitch away from me. I stand with my mate. Fuck you." Sally, Sally of all the people I'd imagined to step up, stepped up and pulled he girl away.

"Andrea. I'm sorry." Andrea turned away from them and onto Sally's shoulder. I felt my gut tighten as Sally held out her palm solemnly.

I felt her enter the link moments later.

Ignoring Damien, my brothers and everyone else, I walked to them and hugged them both. They had lost today, they had lost family and although the most rational part of me knew it wasn't my fault it didn't stop me from being guilty.

The next forty or so wolves were uneventful, and every fresh soul healed the breaking the previous two had done.

I watched as a woman stepped onto the podium, she was stout with dark skin and dark hair, and I realized when my eyes met hers, dark eyes. She held herself proudly, and fearlessly as a warrior would, but as they say - eyes are the gateway to the soul.

I was on her before she could pull the gun out of the waistband of her jeans. You know how society shames chubby girls and big boned girls? You know how it's better if we're twigs? I call bullshit on that.

I knew that it was my weight, above everything else that kept her from being able to buck me off of her. She tried, in vain as I pushed the gun from her skimping fingers onto the woodeno floor below us.

The shackles appeared above me and I dove for them, putting her hands in before men came over to escort her away.

"She was my father's secretary for the longest time." Damien told me and my brothers. "I should have known."

We were dwindling down to the last few when Jim's tearstained wife stepped up. She held a baby on her hip and one on her arm. She didn't look at any one of us as she extended her palm. The moment we felt her enter, we knew she was innocent and so was Damien's beta.

Jim.

Jim who had strangled me for an experiment.

-
I was drifting between sleep and wakefulness when I heard the metal clink of the opening of gates, followed by protests from my brothers. I felt someone shake me awake, and met Jim's bearded face.

"My alpha does not trust me." It was a weird thing to say to a prisoner. I wasn't the in house counselor the last I checked?

"And it's because of him. He's been setting me up for the past year."

"Who?" I asked, sitting up on the couch (yes I finally decided to utilize it).

"I can't tell you." We heard the doors clank open above followed by footsteps and voices. The next thing I knew, I was up in the air, in a chokehold.

-
The bruises on my neck had healed to sickly green blobs when Sally finally took a look at them. She gave me a tub of sweet smelling cream and told me to apply it on my neck before leaving me alone with Damien.

It was night time when every wolf's loyalty had been tested, except for the two who were in the hospital. They were both heavily sedated and guarded, wife or not, Jim hadn't officially oathed yet.

"Are you tired?" It was a question he knew the answer to, and as much as I wanted to stop doing this, stop falling for him, I couldn't help but collapse into his waiting arms.

"I need a long shower and a giant meal." He nodded, I felt him linking several people as I stepped away from him. He lead me to what I assumed was a guest bedroom and showed me to the shower before turning to leave.

"You didn't let me finish, Damien." He turned around, eyebrows drawn. "I need a nice long cuddle too." Never thought I'd be the one to blush, but I felt the unfamiliar phenomenon of my cheeks heating up.

He kissed my forehead, between my eyebrows and gave me a rare soft smile. A smile reserved just for me.

"I'll be here when you come back, Lavender." I smiled and stepped into the washroom, seeing him turn to leave with a smile on his face as well.

"And Damien?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you."

Andrea was the girl Sally complained to Nikki about all the way in chapter 8. The Knight Pack.
The Sally-Anika-Hale-Andrea dynamic will be addressed in later chapters, because in chapter 8 Sally had a crush on Hale, remember?
Thank you soooo much for the reads and the votes guys, I should be studying rn but I'm updating cause I love y'all ❤❤
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