Chaos erupted.

Everyone was in utter disbelief at River’s shocking display. The wolf had made it clear; regardless of hostage negotiations or peace talks, he was gonna do what he wanted.

The attack was a nice welcome-to-town gift no one had expected, including me, as I screamed loudly at him to stop.

Panicked, everyone scattered. Some people ran to get out of the way, while others tried to stop the wolf. The two Alphas had about lost all reason, chasing after River in his hasty departure from their side. Both of them were desperate to stop his attempt at murdering the stranger. River destroyed seats and pressed craters into the walls, his rampage blinding him to the council members who ran for their lives. No one thought they would see the day when River would become the uncontrollable one. I expected Barron to behave like this—not my own wolf.

“Let me at him! I'm gonna kill him!” River bared his teeth, thrashing around to be released.

“River—stop.” Theo managed to clamp his arms around me, and lock his body to mine. The Alpha felt like a boulder pressing me firmly to the ground, and he was the only thing keeping River from launching into another belligerent strike.

‘Dude! Calm down! What are you even doing?’ I couldn’t get an explanation out of him. He was completely removed from reality as hysteria consumed him. All he could see was red, his anger blindly driving him to lash out.

Nate stood in front of us, doing his best to talk River off the edge. “River, please you need to calm down. I’m begging you.”

“You should listen to your mates, River,” the man spoke with a deep voice, his country accent spread thick on each syllable. All eyes in the room suddenly turned their attention to the mysterious man.

River wasn’t listening to anyone, ignoring Nate, still trying to get to the other side of the room.

The man just chuckled at the whole scene, with Vince laughing as well. The two found this to be amusing somehow.

“Fuck you!” River cursed. With all the pent-up rage surging through his veins, I found another emotion lingering just behind the surface—fear.

The laughter soon stopped. The man never broke his gaze from us. His hollow eyes watching over us. “That Omega has always been difficult to control, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from my nephew.”

The room was filled with a loud gasp. Everyone was immediately stunned by the bizarre revelation. I, along with the Alphas, was immediately put on edge. Only River kept steady, his fierce lavender eyes never wavering for even a second.

Gripped by this sudden feeling of absolute fear, I didn’t know what or how to even process this information. I thought I didn't have any family left. I thought I was orphaned. But my mind immediately turned its attention to my wolf…River knew, this whole time, we had family alive. So why?

Why did he lie to me?

My ‌sense of anger soon reared its ugly head. I subdued my wolf, finally regaining control over my body. With River banished, swept up in the deepest parts of my mind, I could get a hold of myself. But it wouldn’t be too long before my wolf found a way out of his temporary bondage.

After things calmed down, we all gathered back in the great hall. If my anxiety wasn’t already through the roof, I couldn’t help but feel this whole situation was fucked up. I tried to keep from staring too much at my supposed “uncle.” The Alpha had fair skin with blonde, wispy hair, a broad nose, and a squared jawline. Looking down at my dark complexion, I had to do a double-take. I didn't want to sound racist or anything but I found it hard to believe I was even related to him. There wasn't any sort of family resemblance between us.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I watched as my uncle casually talked to Vince, with Tyrus close by. It was strange to think that Tyrus was a hostage in this situation. He didn’t appear to be under any distress. It made it a hard sell to me that ‌he was in any sort of real trouble.

“Ahem,” Eldra Rose brought the room back to focus. “As we were discussing before the ‘incident’ occurred.” She didn’t even look in my direction, but I could tell she was disappointed with me more than my wolf.

“We were discussing the terms of this dispute. Now then, I would like to introduce you to our junior Alphas, Nathan and Theo. And our Luna, Remy. But I’m sure you already knew who he was.” A slight reserved chuckle was exchanged between them.

“Hello. I am Ares, Alpha of the Timber Creek pack. This is Vince, the Beta of my pack. It’s nice to finally meet you two. I’ve heard wonderful things about you boys from Tyrus.” He turned his head so our eyes met once more.

‘It’s nice seeing you again, Remy. It’s been so long.’ His voice startled me as it lingered in my head. An icy shiver went down my spine. Even though River was gone for the moment, I could still feel the urge to attack.

With polite greetings out of the way, I found myself playing catch-up on the issue at hand. Eldra Rose wanted to settle things quickly, for everyone’s sake, and find out more about our new visitors.

Tyrus had been captured during his secret mission to track down Vince. In order to spare his life, he revealed who he was and struck up a deal with my uncle.

No surprise there.

I wasn’t even sure where to begin with how I should process this news. It felt like a part of me, something I didn’t know was missing, had been returned. Whether I wanted it to be returned was a different story. What wasn’t clear was what Ares stood to truly gain from these discussions. Of course, other than the main obvious objective—money.

“We have brought Tyrus to your pack unharmed. Council members, you must understand how generous that was for me to do. I had the full right to kill him for trespassing into my territory. I even have the license to attack your pack for retaliation. It’s by the creed we wolves choose to live by, article 56 of Lycan law.” Ares made sure to emphasize his agenda, speaking on some strange authority he clearly thought he had here.

“It is also by the law that you have taken Remy as your own and failed to return him to us once he was discovered. Now I can’t say this whole “two mate thing” had to be a coincidence, but I think it’s fair enough to ask you for a little compensation for my losses here.” Ares laid out the terms. In exchange for Tyrus' freedom and me, he was to gain some financial compensation.

“I understand your concerns here, but there was no coercion in the matter of their mate bond,” Eldra Rose spoke firmly, laying down who had the proper authority here. “The moon goddess was most gracious to bless us with the opportunity to unite our packs. Remy is a valuable and dearly loved member of our family. But you must understand we didn’t even know he was a werewolf, let alone part of your pack.”

“Regardless, if you intentionally knew or not, you violated the law and broke the codes we live by. If you actually checked the international boards, we had a missing notice there.” Ares drove his point home.

“Excuse me, Ares, I just find it hard to believe we even have to compensate you for our Luna,” Dr. Louis inserted herself on my behalf. “I have records that date back a decade that show the police had taken him away when he was younger. This can’t be—”

“Absurd! That was a mere misunderstanding,” Ares interrupted. “Humans have no say in werewolf matters. If we started listening to their laws long ago, we would all have been extinct by now. Anything you have from them is irrelevant.” Ares waved his hand like he was swatting a pesky little fly.

Dr. Louis could only hold her tongue, but I didn’t understand why. She had made a good point here. It made sense–why, after all these years, did he want something now? But I was new to this whole political game. So much was going on as the conversation flowed, but I was starting to grasp that my life, or my opinions, for that matter, weren't being fully considered here. In a room full of adults, I watched as everyone else spoke up for me. Not that I knew what I wanted to say, it was just hard to process everything.

My eyes soon turned to meet Theo, who wouldn’t stop staring at Tyrus. This must’ve been torture for him, having to sit through all of this. I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around the complexity of sitting in the same room as my mother’s accused murderer. The Alpha took deep breaths to steady himself, nervously tapping his foot against the ground to distract himself from his drive to taste revenge. He always pretended to not have emotion, hiding behind his cold exterior, but I knew he felt everything. I held on to his hand, squeezing it tightly to show him I was still here. I knew how hard this was for him. He didn’t break his gaze, but he squeezed my hand back.

I did this for Nate too. The Alpha was a bit better at holding in his anger, but his eyes were locked onto Vince. Staring daggers, the Alphas had their targets' in sight, both wanting to end the threats that sat just a very few feet away from them. But they couldn’t. All this apprehension and worry was piled onto my nerves as I silently prayed to the moon goddess or whatever deity was available to hear me, that we just make it through this meeting.  At least, with no more injuries.

Alpha Yuna raised her voice, beckoning me back to the fold of the conversation.

“This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t have to pay you anything for Remy! He was brought here by his human parents. It’s not like we kidnapped him, unlike some people.” She eyed Vince.

“What the moon goddess chose to do isn’t our concern. You need to leave him out of these negotiations.” Flabbergasted, the woman's stern voice made it abundantly clear she wasn’t here for Ares’ shit.

“Honestly, I shouldn’t have to pay the person who tried to kidnap our Luna,” Alpha Yuna added bitterly. She seemed to be the voice of reason, second to Dr. Louis, bringing up a valid argument.

Yeah, why should we have to do anything for this man?

For all I cared, he could have killed Tyrus. That would solve everyone’s problems at this point.

“So says the Alpha who sent her people to my neck of the woods to kidnap my pack brethren. That’s calling the kettle black, my dear.”

“Yuna, please try to hold better recourse here,” Eldra Rose warned.

“So how much then?” Nate spoke up, his voice laced with spitefulness. “What’s it gonna cost us?”

“Aye, straight to the point I see. A man after my own heart,” Ares chuckled some more. “I believe a cool half a million is reasonable enough.”

Shock was slapped across all of our faces, the room livid at Ares's demands. No one could keep their cool anymore. The room erupted with boisterous arguments.

“This is exactly what I mean.” Yuna slammed her fists on the table. “I’ve never heard of a ransom pay being so much, let alone a bride price. What do you take us for? Fools? Idiots that can’t see how much of a scam this is?!”

“Alpha Yuna, maybe we should consider this?” Mayor Frank felt compelled to share his personal thoughts on the matter. “We already have a lingering quarrel with this matter. Maybe there’s a way we could —”

“Oh, shut it, Frank.” Yuna shot a mean glare in the human’s direction.

“I think it’s a fair price,” Ares interjected his unwanted opinion once more. “Seeing that your Beta is alive and my nephew has proven to be a viable Omega to produce an heir, so I don’t—”

“Hold up, wait a goddamn minute. What do you mean proven?” Alpha Yuna question. “Proven?” She turned to stare at us, looking for any answers Ares could be wrong.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I couldn’t hide the immediate shock on my face. My blood pressure spiked as everyone turned to face us in the room.

How did he know?

Edited by ArcisOne & Patroklos

A/N Part 2 tomorrow! Be ready! ψ(｀∇´)ψ

Otaku_rose🥀