Damien paced to and fro in his room, lost in his thoughts.
The lanterns had burned off and he hadn't even notice. Apart from the seams of reflection from the moon that caused him to be able to see the direction he paced to and fro to, he might have known that it was late, but yet he was still awake and thinking.
He couldn't keep his mind nor his thoughts off of her. This was more than the vow he had made to her father and he knew it.
Long ago when Danika was still little and his father had taken him to the Crimson Veil pack, she had saved him. He was a weak boy who was scared of animals, especially reptiles.
That day while playing with the stable keeper's son, he had encountered a scorpion. And their stings were known to be deadly to werewolves.
Genuinely believing that it was the end of him as no one was in sight to help him, he had began to cry while trying his best to kill the scorpion to no avail.
Five year old Danika had come out of the stables then and had killed the scorpion.
He wasn't sure if she could recall, or if she would be able to tell that he was once that weak boy she saved from a scorpion once.
He couldn't let anything happen to her. He had to save her. He had read about her type in his history clases as well.
Since he had grown up as a young boy who hated fighting and wars, but was keen to studying, he had learnt alot of things that normal werewolves didn't.
After she had saved him that day, he had noticed her hair that glowed iridescent violet with flecks of silver.
It was as if he had stared at her refraction from an amethyst crystal but after he told his father and the old man had dismissed his words and observations then, he had forgotten.
Now she was in his arms, in his pack and currently her fate was unknown. He wanted verily to save and help her and make her his but the news of Damon usurping the throne of Crimson Veil came as a surprise news to him.
Not only would he be against that. If he were to go against him, it wouldn't take him much to crush his pack and burn his clan to ashes. They weren't that strong compared to their forces.
But before that would even happen, his cabinet and pack members would rebel against him before he would be able to. Omegas were always considered the weakest and last in the apex of every werewolf pyramid, it would be seen as a bad omen if he were to take one as his chosen mate and Luna.
"Oh Danika" he muttered to himself lowly, worry laced in his voice.
"How will I be able to help and keep you at the same time?" He asked no one in particular.
***
Back in the slave quarters, Danika couldn't sleep.
She rolled from one side of the floor she laid on to the other, sobbing silently to avoid waking Urmaa or her son up.
They had already done enough for her ever since her birth at Crimson Veil. And now they even followed her here and to the slave quarters even though they weren't omegas.
She noticed that they were curled at one end of the corner of the little room.
It barely had space and as they kept their little belongings at one side of the room, they went to the other, giving Danika space to stay in two corners. Hence why she was able to roll so freely.
She wanted to sob but covered her mouth with the palm of her hand immediately. The sacrifices, how would she be able to begin repaying this woman and her son. Right now she was nothing, not even an Alpha father behind her name but they were still with her, suffering for her sake even though they didn't deserve to.
She turned her head to the other side of the wall, facing none of them but the stillness and quietness of the room. Her thoughts drifted to Damon's betrayal. She hadn't expected it. It was so sudden and had come from no where.
"Why would he have done that?" she asked herself. Father had always been kind to him. Some of the cabinet members always complained about him as well. Despite all pack rules he broke, father always let him go free without punishments even though he wasn't his blood or of a royal lineage. As he was he son of a gamma from his mother's previous marriage.
So why? Why did he usurp her father's throne and even kill him in his sleep.
Had her father known? Her erratic thoughts wondered. It didn't look like a coincidence anymore how he was parading her before alpha's and their sons, offering an alliance to their clans if any of them would agree to take her in as their Luna. No wonder he held the ritual that had left her humiliated before everyone.
Had he known that there were people plotting his dethroning? Was that why he had been keen to protect her by offering her to become just any alpha's Luna?
Her eyes burned as she thought of it. She couldn't control it anymore. While others slept, she was here crying and mopping her life. Her life that looks bleak now, with no promise of a better tomorrow.
"Why would Damon do this?.... To me" she questioned herself and this time z tears rolled down freely down her cheeks. They were so uncontrollable that she didn't even bother to wipe them off.
When his mother and sister hated and mistreated her, he had been her friend. Always offering her emotional support. Which was why it had been easy for her to give up her birth right in exchange for his aid.
She offered her position as the heir to the alpha title. It wouldn't be a facade if her father had given her that title to protect her from the malice of the pack as well.
And he had made her give it up to him just so he could soothe him. Just so he could calm him down, but Damon had killed him instead. He had rebelled against him.
Damon had killed her father!
As the chilly breeze blew in the room and cold began to seep to her body through the bare floor she laid on, she felt a hand on her hair.
She knew it was Urmaa's. She ran her fingers on her hair, patting her and trying to calm her down.
Danika couldn't sob anymore or say anything. She kept total silence hoping that Urmaa wouldn't suspect she was still awake or crying.
And as if Urmaa got her cue, she didn't speak. Instead, she continued to run her fingers on Danika's hair until she slept off, overcome by the tranquility she felt from having someone do that to her… for the first time in her life.
"Your father loves you, Danika" Urmaa's words to her the previous day replayed in her head as she was about drifting off to sleep.
Does he?…. Or rather, did he?