Natalia’s P. O. V

I was undoubtedly busier for the rest of the school year.

Between practicing my ability, fine tuning strategy with Timothy, trying to squeeze in a pack visit on freer weekends, and maintaining my grades at Killdrain and the Syren school, I had less time to just stop and think.

Even though spring break was supposed to be relaxing, I somehow managed to cram four pack visits into the measly nine free days we had. The effects of my overplanning showed in the final visit, when most of us were too tired to put our best foot forward, so the pack rejected our proposition.

Birthdays and meetings and tests and mid-terms passed quickly, and it was already the end of March before I knew it.

I sat across from Kirstin again, my arm draped over the armrest of my chair. We’d already given each other updates on both our ends, and were at the part of the meeting where we tried to compromise on her mate’s fate.

As she shifted in her seat and fidgeted with the paper in her hands, it felt like I was looking down at her again.

After the long silence, it was clear that I wasn’t going to start the topic, so she began.

“I thought about what you told me to.” She began.

I raised a brow and she continued.

“His ego and pride are bigger than the moon. I was thinking that we could humiliate him on such a grand scale that it bursts his inflated ego.”

“How?”

“We could promise Kylie mercy in exchange for spilling his embarrassing moments and expose them. We won’t actually show her mercy though.”

I rested my face on my knuckles, “You want us to embarrass him as a punishment?”

She might as well have suggested we pull his pants down in front of everyone or something equally as juvenile, “Is that all?”

The apprehension on her face sank into dread, and her hands fidgeted more, “N-no. I know you hate Alpha Clark Lightwood too, so I thought of the option of forcing Harry to be the one to maim his father.”

The thought of anyone else honing in on my kill nearly made me snarl. It would be a nice touch, to have what Clark thought would be the carrier of his legacy be the one to torture him, but any poetic justice I was looking for didn’t extend to him.

I wanted to hear his screams of pain and know that I was the cause.

I shook my head, “Clark is mine. Something else.”

“We can make him hurt Kylie.” She sounded a bit more cheerful giving that suggestion.

I chuckled, “It’s not bad, but that’s more of a punishment for Kylie than him.”

She went quiet, her eyes moving back and forth as she searched for more ways to harm someone she cared about. After a few seconds of drawing a blank, I made my suggestion.

“Cut off his tail and one of his balls.”

The blood drained from her face.

Slowly, she dragged her eyes to me and gaped at me with horror, a single word clawing its way out, “What…?”

I rested my cheek back on my knuckles, “It makes sense, doesn’t it? He sleeps with anything with a skirt on. A dog like that would’ve been neutered, so why not him?”

She blinked at me and I shrugged, “It’s just one ball, he’ll still be able to use the other with you if you still want him somewhere down the line. And it’ll be a good way to keep him in line.”

I didn’t need to say the weight cutting off his tail held. A tailless wolf was a usually an outcasted pariah, regarded even less favorably than Rogues. The only exception to the stigma of being tailless was if the tail had been lost to an accident or had been unjustly severed, in which case the pack was bound to support the wolf that had been victim to that. And if the pack was negligent of caring for the wolf, they could file to be under the care of the Royal Werewolves.

And none of them would even remotely qualify for such protection once I was through with them.

Her aversion the suggestion screamed through her silence. I nurtured the silence, allowing her to process the riot that was no doubt taking place in her head.

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“Just one.” She said finally, in a voice that sounded ready to cave in on itself, “We sever just one, either his tail or a ball.”

“Fine.” I shrugged, “I’ll let you choose which one goes when the time comes.”

She balked again, and it took me a second to realize that she thought I expected her to be the one to maim him.

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to hurt a hair on his head yourself.” I chuckled.

Relief gave her breath weight as she exhaled.

Either one she chose was fine with me, as long as she didn’t try to circumvent it altogether somewhere down the line.

May was fast approaching and along with it, finals. Spring was in full swing and we were all gearing up for and stressing out about the pending exams.

It was while Kaesha, Hailey and I were sitting in my library that I got the long-awaited message from Timothy. The words “Our territory is complete” popped up in a notification on my phone. I put the screen off and glanced at Hailey without moving my head.

She was immersed in what she was doing, studying with a look of laser focus on her face. She’d been talking for weeks about wanting to do better in these finals than the first and second ones of the session.

“I’m off to the bathroom.” I said, then got up and left, taking my phone with me,

I went to my room then to my bathroom. Perched on the sink, I texted Timothy.

“When will you be returning?”

“There are still some minor brush ups, so probably at the end of May.”

“I thought you said it was done.”

“The main infrastructure is done. All the buildings, water and drainage system, electricity and whatever. We just need to paint a few things.”

“Okay.”

I looked up from my phone. Finals would be over by the end of May, so that would give Hailey enough time to focus. I flushed the toilet and put the faucet on then continued.

“Thank you for everything. Let me know when you’re ready to come back so I can book a flight for you.”

“Sure, no problem.”

I turned the faucet off and returned to the library.

‘Won’t it be best to let her know so she can prepare herself.’

‘I don’t want her to get distracted.’ I responded to Candy without taking my eyes off the textbook in front of me, ‘She’s been saying how much she really wants to do better in these finals and I don’t want to give her news that’ll upend her. Besides, he’s returning at the end of May and finals end in the third week. That’s a week notice.’

‘If you really think so. I just hope you don’t forget to tell her. I’d hate for her to have to deal with him suddenly returning.’

I glanced at Hailey. She was so focused that she didn’t even notice. I didn’t want to imagine how thrown she’d be if Timothy suddenly reappeared with no warning. Not to mention the cute guy she spent the half of her time that she wasn’t with me studying with.

‘I won’t forget.’

But I did, in fact, forget.

In the middle of the second week of our finals, Timothy told me the date to book his return flight for. I completed that for him and didn’t think about the topic of his return for the rest of the month. The Syren school was offering extra classes after exams for those who wanted to work more on their abilities, so my time was taken by that as soon as all my exams were over.

I returned home after one of the extra classes, groceries in hand, to find Hailey storming out of my house, Timothy right on her heels.

“Get away from me!” She almost screamed, breezing right past me.

“Sunshine, please.” His hand was stretched out to her, his fingers nearly brushing her wrist by a hair’s breadth.

She whipped around and expanded the distance between them, “Don’t ‘sunshine’ me. Don’t ever talk to me about this,” She gestured aggressively between the two of them, “again.”

“Fuck, Hailey!” He ran his hands over his face, “It’s been almost a year, and I can’t get you out of my fucking head. I just wanted to try and clear all this up.”

She let out a sound that sounded like a cross between a groan and a scream, “I can’t do this with you!”

Her face was crumpled in a mixture of angst, anger and anguish, tears flowing freely down her face. But her glare remained venomous as she stared him down.

“You ran off! You told me that we could never be anything! You decided that it’d be better to get yourself on some far-off assignment than be here around me! You did this! You do not get to waltz back in when I’m finally learning how to not think of you. I finally let myself like someone else, and you just had to come and ruin it! And it’s not like you’re even gonna be with me, so I don’t know what the hell you want to clear all this up for.”

With every statement, she’d stalked closer to him, and by the time she was done talking, they were chest to chest. Their deep, ragged breaths heaved their chests as they stared each other down and filled the atmosphere with their errant, electric emotions.

This felt like something my eyes shouldn’t be privy to.

I cleared my throat and their heads jerked to look at me, startled.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you he was coming.” I said softly.

Her expression barely softened, and her response was hard, “It’s fine. I left something at Killdrain. Bye.”

She turned on her heel and sped off, not caring who saw her as she ran. Timothy and I were left staring after her, till she left our view.

Wordlessly, Timothy took the groceries I’d been holding and returned to the house.

I spared another glance in Hailey’s direction.

‘This is bad.’ I could hear the cringe of discomfort and remorse in Candy’s voice.

‘Yeah…’

I should’ve told her.