Almila
The moment the words left my mouth, my body loosened. I stopped clenching my teeth, stopped furrowing my brows, and swallowed as if I were gulping down all the poison inside me.
Everyone in the room slowly began to recover, as if relief had finally washed over them. Some of those who had fainted were waking with the help of others.
As the tension drained from my own body, the first thing I did was look at my mother. Her eyes were on me, too. Her lips seemed to part as if to speak, yet her gaze remained as hollow as ever.
I swallowed hard and stepped toward her. Everyone I passed instinctively took a few steps back, clearing a path for me.
When I reached my mother, my aunt beside her and my recently awakened aunt stepped back to give me space.
I kneeled down and opened my arms to my mother sitting in the corner of the room.
She lowered her head and looked at me for a moment. I let her, keeping my arms open without pulling them back.
Then, when she slowly leaned into me, I drew her close and rested her head against my chest.
"It's okay. I'll be fine," I murmured, resting my head against hers.
She didn't speak, but the heartbeat I felt against me answered in her place.
After holding her for a while, I pulled back, smoothed her disheveled hair, and stood up. I headed toward the door to leave the room, but froze when my grandfather spoke.
"Thank you for taking responsibility and accepting this duty, Almila."
He was thanking me, but there wasn't a hint of sincerity in his voice. If anything, he sounded pleased, most likely because he stood to benefit from all this.
"They say the future leader of the North is very strong. A child born from the two of you could even bring peace between all the packs…" one of the omegas said. I turned toward her. The moment our eyes met, she immediately looked away. A few others voiced their agreement.
"I think so too. And I'm sure they'll be pleased that we're offering you as their bride."
I couldn't imagine my abductors being pleased when they saw me as their bride. The idea was absurd, especially since I resembled my father so much. They would definitely be anything but happy.
Imagining the uncomfortable look on their faces made me smirk.
"Who said I'm going to have a child with that mutt? I'm going to kill them all."
With my last sentence, everyone froze in place. Some looked as though they didn't even know what to say. As the smile on my face widened, I repeated myself.
"I'm going to kill them all. That way, there won't be any unpaid debt left between us."
They didn't have the chance to process what I said, and I hadn't intended to wait for them to.
A few days after the message from the North arrived, we were told that a car and a few men would come to take the bride.
When my grandfather sent word that the bride would not be Talai's wife, but Talai's daughter, their reaction was surprisingly not negative. Instead of objecting, they simply stated they would come to retrieve me in a few days.
And that day was today.
The day I left my pack behind and went to the enemy pack as their bride.
Once I stepped inside and closed the thick wooden door of my room, it rattled lightly and creaked. The small room was as lifeless as ever; the gray paint on the walls was peeling.
They had given me the smallest and most airless room in the mansion. Since it was in the basement, right next to the garage, it never smelled clean no matter how much I tried to scrub it.
Still, knowing I wouldn't be able to enter this room for a while made me feel strange.
I grabbed the suitcase next to my bed, set it on top of the mattress, and opened my wardrobe. I started taking out random clothes and stuffing them into the suitcase.
Maybe I wouldn't even need any of them, and when I got there, they might just take the suitcase from my hands and throw it aside. Still, I packed the few cardigans, coats, and scarves my mother had given me years ago.
The northern forests were cold, especially if you weren't used to it; until you adapted, you had to dress warmly, they say.
Being there for long is out of the question. But if I get too cold while I was there, maybe I can warm myself with the bones of the dogs I kill.
But I can't act recklessly, and if I want to take them all out cleanly, I need a plan. Maybe I'll get close to them in a way they won't expect, swallow their words, act harmless.
They'll most likely hold a grudge against me anyway, since I killed some of their pack members the night they kidnapped me years ago.
It's not that I'll make any effort to erase that grudge, but if they all stay cautious around me, killing them will get harder. That's why I'll pretend to regret what I did. For now, that's the plan.
But there's a problem, and it's the person I'll marry. If he's meant to become their future leader, he must be strong. If he tries to mark me right after the marriage, I'll have to stop him with some kind of excuse. I just haven't figured out what that excuse will be yet.
I drifted off for a while, lost in my thoughts. Dozens of plans spun in my head, yet none of them made any sense. As I kept packing my suitcase, the sudden sound of my door opening pulled me out of my thoughts.
When I turned around, I saw Theron stepping inside. The moment I saw him, I went back to arranging my suitcase.
"Almila, is what I heard true? Are you really going to the North as a bride?"
His voice was thick with disappointment and sadness, low, muffled, but heavy. Hearing that tone from him made me let out a deep sigh.
Theron had been openly fond of me since we were kids. Back when my father was still the pack's leader and our lives were peaceful, our families were close. So we used to spend nearly every day together, playing until it got dark.
Before anyone knew I was an alpha, he told me a thousand times that if I turned out to be an omega, he'd make me his mate. I never felt anything romantic for him, but I never outright rejected him either.
Because up until today, I have never felt romantic or sexual attraction toward anyone, not even the slightest hint of it.
So the idea of Theron, someone I'd known for so long, someone who made me feel safe, becoming my mate had seemed like a good idea at the time.
When I was kidnapped, Theron had actually come to the North all by himself. Unfortunately, he arrived a little too late, and found me covered in blood.
After killing the ones who took me, I had tried to escape the ones who followed, and he found me hiding in a cave deep in that snow-covered forest.
I asked him how he found me, and he said that no one could ever recognize my pheromones better than he could.
Back then, when I was only twelve, I wanted to feel the same way about him. But his scent only made me feel safe. Nothing more, nothing else.
I tried to feel something for him, because unlike everyone else I'd ever known, his attitude toward me had never changed. Maybe he was the ideal mate for me, but I chose to be honest with him.
I didn't want someone who treated me so well to waste his life with a mate who didn't love him.
"Yes, that's right. They'll come to pick me up in a few hours." I answered his question without looking at him, but my movements slowed as I packed the suitcase.
Since I wasn't looking at him, it was impossible to see what kind of reaction he gave, but I felt his pheromones growing dominant in the room.
"There has to be… some other way."
His voice was hurt, just as I expected. The words rose from his chest in a trembling breath, and he barely managed to get the sentence out.
After placing a few cardigans into the suitcase, I returned to the wardrobe. I pulled the thick pants from the hanger and draped them over my arm. That's when he came up beside me.
"So if I hadn't returned to the pack, I wouldn't even have known that such an agreement was made?"
A week ago, he had left the pack with a few others to go hunting.
Normally, they were supposed to come back later, but since they returned early, they must have heard the news.
"You don't have to worry. I'm not going there to be the Luna of that herd of pigs."
My voice came out rough because my throat was dry and I was a bit thirsty. After I spoke, my throat itched as if from the weight of my own words, and I swallowed hard.
When my suitcase was full and I was about to pull the zipper closed, he grabbed me by the arm and turned me toward him.
"What do you mean? Then why are you going?" he asked.
There was a hopeful look on his face. He must have thought I wasn't going there to get married. As I saw the light in his green eyes, for a moment I didn't want him to know more. But he would find out sooner or later, so I preferred he heard it from me.
"I'm going to avenge my father," I said, my brows furrowed on their own. "I'm going to kill them all."
He looked as if he hadn't expected me to say that. His expression faltered, and then his grip on my arm tightened.
For a moment, I thought I saw the light vanish from his green eyes, but I blamed it on the already-dim light slipping out of the room.
"There has to be another way," he murmured again.
Slowly, he reached out and took hold of my other arm as well, as if I might disappear at any moment. He held me tightly, yet gently.
"I don't have another way," I said.
With movements as slow as his, I freed my arms from his hands, then pulled the zipper of my suitcase closed and lifted it, placing it next to the bed.
He reached for the suitcase and drew it toward himself. I turned back to him.
His brown hair was messy, he must have run to my room. The white t-shirt he wore was thin enough to outline the muscles of his body. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his posture always straight. One edge of his long eyebrows was cut. When he'd fallen from a tree as a child, a deep wound had opened there, that was the mark it left behind.
I used to think anyone who looked at him long enough could fall in love with him. Then I realized that even when I looked at him for a long time, I didn't fall in love, maybe love wasn't an easy thing like that.
Or maybe my expectations of love were simply different.
We stared at each other for a long while, he didn't look away once. When a weight pressed on my chest, I realized I felt sorry for him.
"We can run away together," he said suddenly.
"How?" I asked.
"Right now. You don't need to take anything with you. If you need, I'll create everything from nothing for you."
I gave him a bittersweet smile. "You know we can't do that."
Determination filled his eyes. "If you're worried about your mother, we'll take her with us."
For a moment, running away with Theron sounded like a beautiful idea. I knew I'd be at peace by his side. And if my mother came with us, maybe we really could create a perfect family picture.
But that dream was far too unrealistic.
"I can't ignore what my father went through. And if we break the agreement, they'll attack our pack, then come after us. You wouldn't want the people here to get hurt because of us any more than I do."
Disappointment and helplessness swelled in his eyes, and then I saw the worry he felt for me.
"What will you do if they notice your plan before you can carry it out? These people kidnapped you years ago and tried to kill you, don't you remember? When they see you again… isn't it obvious what could happen?"
I tore my gaze away from him and fixed it on the suitcase in his hand. A sour, metallic taste spread through my mouth.
"If it's revealed that they killed the bride they demanded from a rival pack in the name of peace, their entire bloodline would be cursed. They wouldn't dare do something like that under the Moon Goddess's witness."