h4Chapter 303: The Female Alpha/h4

    Turned out that Scarlet was indeed correct. The path did lead them to the abandoned pack. Sheltered and away from the town, the territory was hidden deep within a forest. Inez could see a few council guards walking around the old territory and couldn’t help but frown when she noticed the men moving around.

    "Why—"

    "The council doesn’t want thend to go into the hands of the Zealots," replied Scarlet before Inez could even ask what the guards were doing there. She pointed to the only house that looked intact and new and stated, "So they sent a few guards here to live and guard the borders lest the Zealots set this ce on fire again."

    "They have set fire to this pack?" Inez asked with a frown.

    "Yup," Scarlet responded with a pop to the ’p’. "You know how much those lunatics hate shifters. They cannot deal with the shifter territories where shifters live. But that didn’t stop them from setting fires to the territories that had been abandoned and ruined after a pack war or something of the sort. It was a ssic example of fearing the strong and bullying the weak.

    "So can we just walk right into the territory?" Inez questioned again. God, she felt stupid for asking these questions, but with Killian asking her to stay in the pack and not leave without a reason, she could only send Scarlet to investigate the situation and the pack that was once under Alpha Ria, as she couldn’t make so many visits in just a few days with Killian worrying over her like a mama bear.

    "Not exactly." Scarlet nced at the guards before saying to her, "I bribed one of the guards, and he arranged a little leeway for us to sneak inside and take a look around the alpha lodge. But only for a short while. Can’t let anyone catch us, or things might be troublesome for us."

    Inez had never seen or heard of a n where so many things could go wrong at once. However, the burning questions within her made it nearly impossible for her to turn around and leave. She wanted to see the truth for herself. Whether the female alpha, the garage owner and his wife spoke of, was really Maria Siir. The two women walked past the thick cluster of trees and headed down the rocky trail.

    iThis ce smells weird, /isaid Nerina. She had been silent till now, curiously looking around the territory, even though there was nothing to see other than some half-burnt houses and rubble, along with the skeleton remains of a few houses that might have been burnt down to a crisp in the fire set by the zealots.

    iWhat do you mean by ’weird’? /i

    iThere is a lingering magical energy—and it’s not friendly. /i

    Inez frowned upon hearing Nerina’s response, but before she could question her siren about what she meant by ’not so friendly energy’, Scarlet paused in her stride. "We are here," she announced in a low voice.

    Inez raised her head and stared at the dpidated building in front of her. The second her eyes fell on the run-down house, Inez seemed to have returned to the days of her past. A memory, a rather old and buried one, surfaced to the front as she walked closer to the stairs of the mansion.

    **

    iDaddy! /i

    iA man so ethereally beautiful that the air around him seemed to be slowing down turned around and smiled at little Inez. The worry lines on his face smoothed down as he did so. ’My princess.’ The man called back as he scooped the young Inez up from the ground, sending a fit of giggles. /i

    i’Dad, are you awake? Do you feel better? Mom said that you were tired afterst night and fell sick. How can you end up falling sick all the time, Dad?’ the little girl asked.’ She must have been three or four years old because she couldn’t see or understand the severity of the injuries of her father. /i

    iThe man smiled at her and nodded, wincing slightly when the cut on his lips pulled due to his efforts to smile at his daughter. ’I am awake—and I am not sick. Just tired. What about you? Are you hungry? Did you finish your lunch?’ He asked, kissing his daughter on the forehead. /i

    i’I did,’ said Inez as she opened her mouth to speak further, but at that very moment, the sound of heels clicking against the marble echoed in front of her. Her father stiffened as he twisted his waist and looked at the woman who hade down the stairs, and so did Inez. /i

    i**/i

    Her blurry memories turned refined, and Inez sucked in a breath as she recalled the image of the womaning down from the stairs. No matter how much she wished to deny it, she knew and had to admit that it was her mother. She also recalled the fear and terror in the eyes of her father when he realised that her mother stood behind him. So, everything that man and his wife told her was the truth. Her mother was no omega but an alpha female who trapped her father and used him to serve other men or women as per her liking.

    "Inez, are you okay?" She snapped out of her thoughts upon hearing Scarlet’s voice. She turned and looked at her sister, who was staring up at her with a concerned look on her face. "What happened? Did you see something?"

    "I remembered something," Inez spoke in a choking voice. She raised her head and looked in the direction of the mansion, even though the haunting image of her father and his injuries was already blurring, Inez could still feel her heartache. "Mom...she was truly the alpha of this pack."

    "You saw her?" Scarlet asked. Nothing about this ce rang a bell for her because she wasn’t born, but Inez was already there – though young, she had seen and felt the horrors of having a woman like Maria Sinir as her mother.

    Inez nodded, and Scarlet let out a string of curses.