Offered to the Triplet Alphas

[Xanthea]

I was about to step beyond the university campus, but I took back my step.

My heart raced, breath quickened, filling my lungs with icy breaths. I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug into my palms.

Gritting my teeth, I shut my eyes, hating myself a little more.

I am really a coward-

"Good girl..."

With a sharp inhale, I opened my eyes. I turned around, standing face to face with Raven.

I dared maintain eye contact with him as he stepped closer to me.

"Is a cat who you just met so important that you contemplated leaving the campus, even if it was for a second? You thought of defying me for a useless cat-"

"She is not useless!" I blurted out those words, and I wasn't sorry about it.

Raven's eyes bore into mine, their intensity growing as he closed the distance between us. The fear inside me was screaming at me to avert my eyes and lower my gaze, but there was something else that made me hold his gaze just as profoundly.

"Someone's getting brave."

"Who?" Once again, I had spoken without thinking things through. There was a bubbling rage in my chest.

I knit my brows when Raven smiled. I wasn't expecting this reaction from him.

"That cat sure taught you to sulk better," he chuckled. "So you really wanna help her? But a healer who can't heal is useless according to me and the standards of the Infernal pack."

"And I think she just needs to control her powers, and then she'll be one of the strongest healers. We... we just need a way to teach her, show her how it's done," I said.

His gaze shifted to the forest, eyes scanning the dense foliage.

"Now you have me in a chokehold of curiosity, little omega. Mind enlightening me about how you will 'teach' her to control her powers?"

He had a document rolled in his fist. Crossing his arms across his chest, he studied me as I remained silent. I didn't have an answer... yet.

"Overhealing is the most complicated condition in healers and their healing partners. Rare, but complicated. Most never gain control over their powers. That is why they are considered... useless. Overhealing can be tricky and more dangerous than underhealing. Like you saw, it turns normal cells into tumors, which ultimately leads to the death of those cells once the power source is withdrawn. Such tumors are malignant, which means they spread. If cells die, the organism dies. Simple mathematical biology. And if a healer can't control their powers, no one can make them."

"There's gonna be something we could do. There must be cases where someone controlled overhealing, right?"

"Sure. So what was your brilliant mind thinking? How were you going to 'help' her?"

"The plants... I was thinking..."

"Show me," he said.

I looked at him, confused.

"Go help that cat. I allow you to leave the campus, little omega. Show me what you can do," he said.

"Can I really-wa-uh!"

Raven scooped me off my feet. My hands snaked around his neck while he cradled me against his chest with his one arm under my knees. The next few seconds, Raven ran across the forest at a speed that even his bike couldn't match. The trees transformed into a mosaic of fleeting hues - green, black, and gray.

He put me to my feet. The twigs cracked, and the grass crunched beneath my sneakers.

It didn't take me long to find where Zosha was. A tree and plants close to it had grown considerably larger than the rest.

I followed Zosha's whimpers. Raven just watched from behind, leaning against the bark of a tree.

I trudged closer to Zosha, trying to maintain a safe distance.

I think the reason she came to the forest was because she knew what I was thinking. Using plants to drain out her extra power. But it wasn't working. Electricity still charged out of her with the same intensity it did before. Her hiccups had turned into a cat's cries.

Plants could be a step in helping her when her powers when they go out of control, but not all plants. There has to be a specific plant that could help her. A plant that can grow just as viciously as her powers.

But why do I feel as though this is more of a psychological problem than a physical one?

"Zosha... it's me... the mortal you met earlier..." I said in a calm tone.

There was another hiccup, and electricity spread across the plantations, with Zosha being the focal point. Every living cell in the impact area grew twice their original size.

Taking a deep breath, I licked the dryness off my lips.

"It's scary, isn't it? Life is scary. I know it's scary to live a life that's not under our control. When someone else gets to define who we can be and what we can and cannot do. More than scary, it's painful..."

I cautiously stepped closer to her.

"My mother had a different view. She used to say that life has its ways of unfolding. Ways beyond our comprehension. Something that's scary today can give you immense strength tomorrow..."

My voice quivered. Biting back my tears, I continued.

"She says life is always working in our favor. We just need to put our complete faith in it..."

I always wished for someone to say those exact same words to me. I didn't know life had planned for me to say these words to someone who needed them more than me.

Blinking fast, I took a deep breath and forced a smile.

"Tell me something. What do you feel when you help those hurt rats and birds and lizards? When you take away their pain? Without you, they would have suffered life, their loved ones would have suffered an irreplaceable loss, but because of you, they are together, living happily. So, don't tell me you don't make a difference, that you're not important..."

I swallowed the tightness building in my throat.

"You make a difference. Your life is more important because you have the courage to help others by taking that first step. People like me, on the other hand, are too cowardly to do the same."

The tang of salty tears overwhelmed my tongue as I caught my lower lip between my teeth.

"Me-ow..." she made a weak sound. Maybe she wanted to contradict what I said, but was too scared and weak to do so.

"You are stronger than others, Zosha, so you'll have struggles bigger than the rest. But imagine how many more lives you can change and save with the same powers that you fear today. Your powers aren't bad, they aren't your enemy. They are just young and wild like you, and that's natural. That's how they should be right now..."

I heard Zosha's sobs. She had transformed into her human form.

"You don't even have to use your powers, no. Because your true strength is your conviction to help others. And you'll always find a way. Your powers will find a way, and life will pave that way for you."

I stepped back as another wave of electricity erupted and the plants grew even more.

"Can you please come out, dear? I want to see you."

"I am not worth... watching, meow! Not in this... state! Go away or... you'll be hurt, meow!" Zosha mumbled through her cracking voice.

"If you don't come to me, then I'll come to you... even if that's the last thing I do. And I want you to know that you'll be a great healer one day. Because becoming a healer is a mentality, and you already possess it in its strongest form." Zosha crawled out of the thickets.

"Everyone hates me..." she lifted her tired gaze at me.

"I'll love you..."

"They are all scared of me. My family sold me because of this. My master abandoned me because of this..." she wept.

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Tears stung into my eyes, but I maintained the faint smile on my face.

At that moment, I saw myself in her.

"They have made the biggest mistake of their lives..."

I wiped off my tears on the cuff of my jacket.

I gave up all my caution and trudged closer to her, making my way through the knee-length grass.

She crawled back.

"No. Don't get close! Stay away! Please! Please! Don't come close to me!"

I kneeled before her and stretched out my palm towards her.

"I know how dark you feel inside. I know you want to hide. You are lost, struggling with yourself. Your thoughts want to kill you every day and others validate that darkness. But that darkness isn't you..."

I didn't know to whom I had addressed those words - to her or myself. But I knew both of us were trapped and we had to escape from ourselves before anyone else.

Tears streamed down her eyes as she gasped. The suffocation I felt in my chest was realized in her breaking breaths.

"Take my hand..."

She shook her head.

I reached out and placed my hand on hers. She froze as if expecting something bad to happen.

"I consider myself extremely fortunate to have met you today..." I said, wrapping my arms around her trembling body as I pulled her into my embrace.

She broke into sobs, hugging me back tighter. Caressing her hair, I stroked her back.

After a while, she clenched my jacket tighter.

I could feel the charge build in her hair as I stroked her. She tried to pull herself away from me.

"It's gonna happen again... please go away from me! I am dangerous! Let go!" she sniffled.

"It's alright... I am not going anywhere."

"No..." she groaned. I felt her nails dig into my skin. "I can't..." she made a sound as if she was choking, but she had stopped her hiccup.

I tightened my jaws, managing my breaths. I don't know what I was doing. All I knew was it was the most important thing I would ever do.

I parted from her and smiled as I held her bleary gaze in a warm scrutiny. Wiping her tears, I ignored the subtle electricity that charged through her hair. She was trying to hold herself back.

"Please let go... you'll get hurt..." she begged.

"You're worth the pain..."

"I'm not..."

"You are..."

Closing my eyes, I hugged her once more, bracing myself for another discharge of her powers.

She tore herself away from me, stepping away from me.

As I reached out to her, a sudden burst of light erupted from her body, blinding me.

The blinding whiteness slowly faded away from my eyes. I found myself kneeling on the ground, but I was far away from Zosha, beside Raven.

I glanced at Raven, who was squinting his eyes, trying to look through the electrically charged fog that had built around Zosha.

As the fog faded away, his eyes relaxed.

Following his gaze, I saw Zosha kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily through her mouth. Fumes rose from the frame of her body, her eyes glowing.

Large roots had burst out of the ground around her in a circle.

"The kitty cat directed her power outburst into the ground right on time. Hmm. Interesting. So she isn't a gone case after all," Raven smiled at her before trailing his eyes to me. "If you are thinking you'd have been fine since she directed her energy into the ground, then you are wrong. You would be dead by now, little omega. I love how spectacularly you fail every time."

He rescued me right on time.

I gulped hard, clenching my skirt with my shaking hands.

Zosha glanced at me with horror-filled eyes and then ran back into the forest, taking her cat form.

I tried to get on my legs, but they were weak and trembling from the shock.

"From where do you bring these brilliant ideas? Your foolishness has officially rendered me speechless," Raven said. He squatted before me, lifting my chin.

I lowered my gaze, still in a daze. It took me a while to comprehend...

I covered my mouth with my hand. She controlled her powers. It might not have been perfect, but it was something.

"Why is everyone else in this world more important to you than your life? You preached the cat all about self-worth. But... what about yourself? Are you selfless or just suicidal?"

Keeping the documents aside, Raven took my hand in his. I winced as he ran his fingers from my wrist to my fingertips.

It felt like thousands of needles had pierced into my hands and my chest as though I had been burned, but it was because of the abrupt growth in my skin cells because of Zosha's power. Raven didn't heal those cells. He killed them before they spread further.

I groaned with a wince, inhaling through my clenched teeth as he helped the quick formation of new skin beneath my dead skin cells.

I looked at him. Even though I was hurting, his touch has never been this gentle and warm before.

Silence lingered between us as he tore off my crop top and snapped my bra off my chest, healing my chest the same way he healed my palms.

Shutting my eyes, I grabbed the side of his jacket. He squeezed my breast, checking for lumps.

I held his wrist, breathing heavily.

"I'm fine..." I mumbled, feeling my nipples harden against his touch.

"I'll decide that," he said plainly.

Once he had checked every inch of my skin from my chest to my belly, he spoke again.

"Can I ask you something, little omega?"

I gave a small nod, knitting my brows as he caressed my nipple between his fingers.

"If I give you wings, in what direction will you choose to fly?"

I opened my eyes and peered at him, confused.

"Towards me or away from me?" He asked.

I couldn't decipher the meaning behind his words back then. But it was at that moment, my life decided to take a turn I never saw coming.