Chapter 861 – Hidden Desires of the Werewolf King Novel

Filed To Story: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel

Lisa didn’t understand why they let Janine go, but it was not her place to pry into those things. She learned that knowing too much can bring more harm than good. Besides, she was focused on getting out of there, and she didn’t have the capacity to worry about others.

“How come you picked me up? Did you become a warrior?” Lisa asked Zina. Lisa knew that Zina was working in the kitchen as Stephanie’s helper.

“We picked you up because we were shopping nearby,” Zina said and looked at Owen dreamily. “I am not a warrior, but my mate is a General.” Zina tilted her head so that Lisa could see the mark on her neck.

Owen smiled smugly. He loved when Zina was showing off that he was her mate.

Lisa reached for the left side of her neck. When Tristan accepted Lisa’s rejection, it was burning, but Lisa didn’t have time to see what was going on there. Was Tristan’s mark on her neck gone? Lisa hoped that was the case.

”,

“Is he from another pack?” Lisa asked.

Zina confirmed. “Owen was part of the Red Moon pack.”

Lisa heard that the Red Moon pack was gone. “It’s surreal to think that such a big pack just disappeared.”

“We’ve got so many new members!” Zina exclaimed. “The packhouse is packed.” She giggled at her choice of words. “But that’s just temporary while their dwellings are ready. Wherever you look, there is new construction, and we are building a whole new town in our territory. Everyone is excited.”

“I heard that Alpha Edward fell in the Alpha challenge,” Lisa said.

“Yes. It was intense!”

“You were there?”

“Mhm… Owen and I had front-row seats. George defeated Alpha Edward like it was nothing.” Zina turned back to look at Lisa. “George is Dawn’s mate. He is the first commander in the Shadow Fang pack, and he is the Alpha of the Frostcrest pack. I couldn’t believe when Dawn told me that she and George are second chance mates…” Zina’s voice trailed. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about mates, considering what you’ve been through.”

“It’s OK,” Lisa said. “Whatever happened is behind me.”

“That’s the spirit, Lisa,” Zina said. “The shelter in the Blue River pack is a fantastic place. They have all kinds of programs and classes that will help you bounce back. And who knows, maybe you will get a second chance mate. George and Dawn are happy…”

Lisa stared through the window as Zina’s voice faded into the distance. What second chance mate? What happy together? Considering her history of men, it would be best if she stayed single forever.

Lisa hoped that she could leave all this behind her. Even before Tristan, she was not happy. She thought Tony was the one, but it all turned out to be a lie. Even her mother ditched her, and her aunt didn’t reach out since Lisa left the Lightclaw pack. Maybe starting over was not a bad idea, but this time as a single she-wolf.

Eventually, Zina realized that Lisa was not listening, and she stopped her chatter.

Zina looked at Owen, and she regretted that they had to cut their date short for this. They started with brunch in a human city and then went sightseeing and shopping, and they were about to end the day with dinner and a movie, but then Jaeden asked if they could drop Lisa at the shelter in the Blue River pack. As a warrior, Owen couldn’t refuse, but that didn’t mean Zina was not salty about it.

Ever since they recognized each other as mates, Owen and Zina had one obstacle after another, and then disturbances, and so much work, and she was really looking forward to this day off, damn it!

‘We will make up for this,’ Owen’s voice sounded in Zina’s head through the pack link. He noticed that she was pouting. ‘Beta Jaeden said we get the next two days off.’

‘Will George allow it? With me away, Dawn will need to help more in the kitchen.’

‘Beta Jaeden will deal with George. As soon as we drop Lisa off at the Blue River pack, we are free, and the next few days are ours and ours only. I booked a hotel with full room service, so we won’t need to get out.’

He wiggled his eyebrows, and Zina smiled foolishly. Two days stuck in a hotel room with Owen sounded like heaven.

She lowered her seat. ‘Wake me up when we arrive at our destination. I want to sleep through this task which is in the way of me enjoying time with my mate.’

Owen stifled a chuckle. His chamomile-infused mate was fantastic, and he would pull the car to the side of the road and jump on her, only if Lisa was not there.

Stephanie was sitting in her cell in a daze.

She did not remember how she got here. There were hazy memories of her sitting at the lakeshore, but the next memory was of her coming to her senses in the dungeon of the Shadow Fang pack.

Stephanie knew that she waited by the lake with the intention of Talia finding her there, and then Stephanie would tell her to go to the bottom of the lake, just as the instructions said. Stephanie was not sure if she had accomplished her task.

She thought that if Talia didn’t show up, no one would know about her intentions, and she wouldn’t be in the dungeon. On the other hand, if she succeeded and Talia went there, Stephanie would either be punished or released, depending on how Dayson interpreted Stephanie’s actions.

Stephanie didn’t know how many days had passed as there were no windows, and the only time door opened was when warriors brought food and took empty plates and utensils. She asked them what was going on, but no one said a thing. But even without any news, Stephanie guessed that Dayson was fine because if anything happened to him, they would either release her when a new Alpha took over or if the pack fell apart, they would stop bringing food.

The Guardians promised not to harm Dayson, and she was confident that things would be cleared out soon. Dayson might be greaving now, but he will come around and see that this was for the best.

Stephanie raised her head when the door of her cell opened.

Two warriors appeared.

“Alpha wants to see you,” one of them said sternly, and Stephanie pushed herself up.

They didn’t handcuff her or restrict her otherwise, and Stephanie thought that was a good thing.

The moment she stepped outside, Stephanie squinted when daylight assaulted her eyes, and she felt a nudge as one of the warriors pushed her right shoulder.

“Move.”

“Where to?”

”,

“You will see,” he responded and pushed her again.

Stephanie moved in that direction, following a narrow path. After some time, the path was gone, and she walked among bushes and trees, steadily climbing up.

The sound of water churning was clearer as the trees became scarcer.

Stephanie emerged on a clearing speckled with wildflowers such as yellow mahonia, pink hellebores, and purple violas resilient to the cold temperatures of early winter. A river was going through the middle of the colorful clearing, which ended with a waterfall on the opposite end.

“Go on,” a warrior said while gesturing toward the right. There was a lonely oak tree, and she could see Dayson sitting on the grass with Talia on his lap.

She was focused on Dayson and Talia, and only when she was a few steps away she spotted a black rectangle-shaped marble tombstone with a curved top edge. It had engraved, ‘In memory of loving parents, Jacob Blake and Violet Blake.’

This was Stephanie’s first time coming here. Not because Dayson didn’t allow her. When he asked her to come with him about a decade ago, she said that this was for family members, and she didn’t consider herself as family. At that time, Dayson thought Stephanie was modest and grieving, so he didn’t push for it. But now he knew better.

Dayson and Talia didn’t look at Stephanie, and she was not sure what to do.

She turned to the back to see that the warriors were gone, but she could feel their gazes on her back.

Dayson thought he had calmed down by now, but now that Stephanie was in his visual range, he wanted to shout at her, to rip her apart, and to break down and cry; all at once. Luckily, Talia’s proximity calmed his raging emotions, so he was able to suppress the swell of emotions.

Talia could feel Dayson’s internal turmoil, and she let him hold her, knowing it helped. He needed to confirm without a doubt that he was not alone and that she won’t betray him. Talia opened her bond fully so he could feel her love and devotion, and that he was her everything.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Dayson asked Stephanie.

“About?”

“About what you have done.”

Stephanie released a long breath. “Whatever I did, everything I did, was for the sake of this pack.”

“Was it?” Dayson asked. He placed Talia gently to sit on the grass and stood up to face Stephanie.

”,

Talia’s brows came together in worry, but she forced herself to stay on the side and let Dayson handle this. He needed to do it himself. Only like that would his demons be pacified.

“How can you claim that it was for the sake of the pack when you betrayed your Alpha and Luna?” Dayson asked.

Stephanie pressed her lips into a line. “Betrayed? Aren’t you fine?”

“Fine? Is this what you call fine?”

Stephanie’s eyes widened when she realized that Dayson was pointing at the gravestone.

“That was an accident,” Stephanie said with urgency. “Jacob was not supposed to die.”

“An accident? Is that what you call what you did?” Dayson squeezed through his teeth. “My mother trusted you. She thought of you as her sister. I trusted you. This whole pack trusted you!”

“I know you are upset, but Violet wanted to go to them in order to save the pack. She was the Luna, and it was the right thing to do. I didn’t act against her wishes.”

“LIES!” Dayson roared. “My mother loved her mate, and she loved me, and she would never do anything to harm us. By going to the Guardians willingly, she would betray the mate bond, and that stands above everything else, even above duty toward the pack!” Dayson’s chest was heaving angrily. “But you wouldn’t know that because you never sealed the bond with your fated mate.”

“How do you…?” Stephanie’s voice trailed.

“You don’t need to know from where I’ve got my information,” Dayson said to Stephanie dryly. He didn’t want to disclose that Talia looked into her memories.

The fact that Beta Gil was not Stephanie’s fated mate was concealed well.

Jacob wanted a strong Beta, and everyone knew that mated werewolves were stronger than unmated ones. Also, mated werewolves were less prone to distractions like women and drinking, so Jacob announced to his three close friends that no matter what their abilities were, his Beta would need to be mated because everything else could be learned given enough time and practice.

Gil was the best warrior at the time, but without a mate, someone else would become Jacob’s Beta.

Desperate for a quick solution, Gil reached out to Stephanie. They agreed to be chosen mates, so she let him mark her with an excuse of how it was the best thing to do for the pack. Like that, Gil became Beta, and Stephanie was in the packhouse, directly supporting Alpha and Luna, just as she wanted.

Other than that, Talia found out more incriminating information about Stephanie.

Stephanie was working as a spy for the Guardians even before she became Gil’s mate. She was aware that the Guardians would want powerful females for breeding and powerful males for experiments and that even humans were involved. Unfortunately, those memories were more than two decades in the past, and Talia couldn’t get all the details precisely, but she was confident that Stephanie was involved to some degree.

Dayson and Talia hoped to find more evidence in the library of the Guardians, something concrete they could work with. Axel and Cornelia were tasked with finding those, while Dayson and Talia focused on dealing with the present issues.

“You thought what you were doing was right,” Dayson said to Stephanie. “Did you tell yourself the same thing when you drugged me and let the Guardians take me, so I become bait for Talia?”

Stephanie’s eyes darted to Talia, who was standing behind Dayson. “She seems to be fine, and so are you.”

“Do you know why?” Dayson asked, and he continued before Stephanie responded, “The Guardians are dead. My mate and I killed them all.” It was close to the truth.

“Impossible,” Stephanie said under her breath. “They have abilities and are powerful, and…”

“And now they are gone,” Dayson interrupted her. “Did you think I will praise you for the treason you committed? You put me, my mate, and my unborn pup in danger. Combined with what you did to my parents, that’s three generations of Alphas. Because of you, Alpha Jacob and Luna Violet are dead. Just as we defeated the Guardians, my parents could have done the same, but they never had a chance.”

“I did what was best at the time.”

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