Hidden

Alaya shot her eyes open and looked at her friend who was thankfully still sat right in front of her, not lost in oblivion like her overactive imagination had led her to believe. Lenara didn’t find her gaze in return, instead she was just staring at her hands, her breaths slightly ragged.

“Lenara? Are you ok?” Alaya asked quietly, not wanting to startle her. She was dying to ask what she had read her as but from the dumbfounded look on her best friends face she doubted it was an Omega.

“It still tingles,” Lenara whispered, turning her hands over slowly before finally looking up. “Why does it still tingle?”

“Why does what still tingle?” Alaya asked, confused at where this conversation was going. She resisted the urge to crack a dirty joke about nipples. A joke that at any other time the pair would of found hilariously funny. But not today. None of today was funny.

“My hands. The power flowed through me. I’ve never felt anything like it.” Lenara smiled at Alaya as she finally met her gaze, her eyes glazed as if she was high or something. Alaya fidgeted more under the scrutiny and started to doubt her choice to ask this of her. Something had clearly happened inside of her head when Adolpha had come forward and spoken. But what?

“The power? Guess that means I’m not reading as an Omega anymore,” Alaya sighed, the fear from earlier infecting her and making her just want to run. Run far away from here to Shadow Moon where she belonged. But that would just give her father and Fen something to chase after and endanger those that were like her. So the only plan she had was to ensure Tunika never got the chance to read her again.

“No definitely not. I have no idea what an Amaris is but I’ve never felt power like it. Not even around our Alpha. How have you kept this hidden for so long?” Lenara replied, shaking her head half in astonishment, half in response to Alaya’s question.

Alaya stood up off the bed and started to pace the room. She couldn’t go back to Neve and Noah, not yet. Not till she had an answer, some solution to get them all out of this.

“Alaya?” Lenara asked, finally snapping out of her stupor and pulling Alaya out of her own spiralling panic for a moment.

“I’m screwed Lenara, screwed. Tunika is going to read me and have the exact same reaction as you. My dad will then want to know why I’m the world’s strongest Alpha and then he will work it all out. Amaris, Shadow Moon. All of it,” Alaya rambled, throwing her hands up in the air as she continued to pace. There was no way out of this. If Tunika read her then it would be a death sentence.

“Shadow Moon?” Lenara queried and Alaya stopped for a moment, annoyed at having to explain yet another thing when she didn’t have the time.

“Yes Shadow Moon. It’s a place where there are others like me, like Noah,” Alaya rushed out, her tone short and clipped. She carried on her pacing after she had finished, the urge too deep to quell.

“Well why don’t we all go there now? Instead of to the reading? There, problem sorted,” Lenara reasoned and Alaya chuckled a little at how simple it sounded.

“We can’t. One, Noah and Neve are under house arrest and two, if I left now without a word, my father and Fen would look for me. Think I’d been kidnapped or something equally as stupid. Then they would track me there and that wouldn’t end well,” Alaya explained, her pacing slowing to look at her best friend. There had to be a way to avoid this reading. There just had to be.

“Ok no need to continue, I get it my plan sucked.”

“Don't worry, all of mine have sucked too. I thought about severing the connection to Adolpha but apparently that’s not something that can or ever should be done,” Alaya stated, but even the thought made her feel uneasy.

“No definitely not. If you severed it completely then that can’t be reversed. But maybe-” Lenara trailed off and Alaya raised an eyebrow at the sudden silence.

“Maybe?” Alaya asked, hoping and praying that there was a solution behind that maybe.

“Maybe there’s a way to muffle it? Like...hide your wolf...like before?” Lenara asked to the air, not really answering Alaya. Alaya’s hope died in her chest because she had no idea how she had hidden Adolpha in the first place. Only that Noah had woken her up or their connection had anyway.

“I thought that but I’ve accepted Adolpha now, we are completely at one. Its amazing,” Alaya breathed the last two words out, getting lost in the memory of what it felt like now her and Adolpha were in sync. As natural as breathing.

“But is there a way to unaccept?” The question was one Alaya herself had asked earlier but now, someone else asking it made her unsettled. She didn’t want to unaccept Adolpha, didn’t want to be without her voice in her head. So no, that wasn’t an option for them now. Alaya was too worried she would lose her all together.

“No,” Alaya replied, frown evident on her face, brow furrowed as she heard a low growl in her head that felt like it came from her own chest.

“Ok. Ok. It was just a suggestion. Settle down oh Alpha.”

“Don’t call me that. I’m not an Alpha,” Alaya smiled, even though the title didn’t quite fit.

“No your not. Your something better,” Lenara smirked, excitement glistening in her eyes as she stared at her best friend.

“Not better just different,” Alaya replied, tucking her hair behind her right ear, a clear sign she was embarrassed.

“Well whatever you are, Tunika is going to feel it. I’m surprised she didn’t the first time,” Lenara wondered, her tone showing that she was a little happy that Tunika had failed for once. Not the amazing reader that everyone thought she was, although its not like anyone would ever find that out. Not without every other secret tumbling out.

“I didn’t feel it back then. That’s what’s so different now. It’s like Adolpha is as much me as I am,” Alaya explained, glad she felt so differently now then she did a few days ago. She felt disgusted with her wolf bsck then because she had been scared. Scared to be weak. Scared to be an Omega, to be a failure to her pack. When really she hadn't been any of those things.

“I wonder if mine has a name? Would Adolpha know? Could she ask my wolf?” Lenara asked, excitement twinkling in her eyes like stars again.

“It doesn’t work like that. My bond is different.”

“Oh,” Was all lenara replied, her eyes dulling a little. Alaya reached over and held her hand gently. Lenara seemed to still suddenly and Alaya gave it a small squeeze, trying to pull her back from wherever her mind has wondered to.

“There is only one option and that's to go speak with my father. Convince him that I don't want to go through another reading. Plead with him to save me the embarrassment of hearing those words again,” Alaya continued, knowing it truly was the last option left. She couldn't explain all this to him, couldn't risk him seeing Noah as a threat. Or worse, her own father becoming a threat to a whole new world she hadn't even had the chance to truly be a part of yet.

“But you wont hear those words again,” Lenara reasoned and Alaya stifled the urge to groan. Sometimes she worried about Lenara's lack of common sense and what predicaments she might get herself into without Alaya around to be a voice in her ear.

“But he doesn't know that,” Alaya repeated slowly, watching as the realisation hit home to Lenara. Her eyes glinted playfully, the purple showing a nature she couldn't ever really keep hidden. That's when a different realisation hit Alaya at the same time.

“And he would have to believe me if I had proof. You can be my proof. If I say to him that I asked you to read me, to check and you read me as an Omega too, then he would have no need to ask Tunika to do it aswell,” Alaya explained excitedly, finally feeling like all was not lost.

“Wait you want me to lie? To our Alpha?” Lenara replied, wiping the smile off her face in an instant. Alaya realised what she was asking of her best friend. She also knew what would happen if they were caught in that lie. But this was literally her only hope. A small hope but a hope nonetheless.

“Think of it as an omission of truth. Because you have read me so that's not a lie. Also if you come with me when we leave then you wont have to worry about him ever finding out,” Alaya urged, hoping her best friend would literally put her life on the line for her. Lying to an Alpha wasn't something a pack member just did, especially seeing as their Alpha could make her tell him the truth anyway. If he pushed his wolf onto her, commanded her to tell him, then the truth would come out. And her father wouldn't be able to trust Lenara if she tried to lie to him and she would be exiled for it.

For most that would be a death sentence.

“What if he makes me?” Lenara asked, saying outloud the possibilities that were running through Alaya’s head. Alaya looked her best friend in the eye and told a lie all of her own.

“He wont. I promise.”