Rejection on the Alpha #1

CHAPTER 36: Blood Of A Butterfly

Two weeks of learning the ins and outs of a school I knew getting into would be hard, especially at the rate of something I was learning now, when these kinds of students were born learning their skills, their abilities with elementals and faerie, the difference between Seelie and Unseelie. And the kingdoms that surrounded their homes like crowns in a large maze. A maze built by many, and had more twists and turns than anything I’ve seen before.

I breathe heavy, sweating straight to my toes as the horrendously humid room chokes me the harder I try and aim a fireball directly at the target twenty metres from me. We started with five and have gone up in distance since. I’d done everything I could to ignore the three men that were now open and exposed. Martin now knew there were three other mates. He learned it that day when Alastair had his eyes on me, when Elias couldn’t stay away, even in his cowardice tendencies.

With Martin situated on the throne, he had more kingly meetings than I ever needed to know about and the rest of his kin, I have not seen since the night we arrived at this forsaken kingdom. I have been a bystander, and I have also been the one beaten down.

Feeling it brimming against me.

My blood fucking calls to it.

It rivals in it and once again, it crawls. Starting off small at my fingertips like ten small candles. My fingers were not waxed candles melting at the power of the flame, but they were the sun’s droplets that I could control, that I finally had power over. I wasn’t using my words this time, I was making the name, I was doing something instead of saying it, instead of screaming it.

I hit the target.

Again.

And again.

And again.

She watches in the corner, a fan in between her fingers, ordering me to portray something more than just a fireball, “Projecting a round, capable objet is one thing. You need to show me something!” The harsh hiss of her voice forces me to follow her movements, her hands, every single thing she does, I touch every detail of it. I work harder, mentally and physically, I push to the absolute greatest of every blood cell, every organ, every fucking thing I did and she snaps her fingers, I slam on my knees.

I felt that pain.

Like watching every happy, good thing in my life and it shatters.

I hold my head, sniffling.

She slowly lowers down in front of me, “You are ready.” She whispers.

******

She had set plans in motion, she studied every detail as I sit upon the throne next to Martin. The council had meetings and tasks to set into place. Arthur and his wife were forced to watch, where they sat listening as Martin got everything he wanted. Everything but me. The elders were banished from the grounds. Martin had the numbers with him and the second he found out Alastair was here, he didn’t turn face, he didn’t turn a blind eye to it. The selected government officials in front of me now were the ones I had humiliated before.

They were the throats I ripped into with my words alone.

Words Athena told me held no power at the deleted academy she knew would challenge me, but make me stronger, and would get me away from what would likely kill me for real, in the end. She said the disappearing was the second act, the first was setting up the best scene.

The best lie.

That night, I lower down on the floor, the blood matched mine in the library, with the dagger to the side. At first I thought there was too much blood. Athena had set the scene up perfectly, “Hold you head like this, the serum will lower your pulse, he’ll be too upset to know it’s not truly gone.” She adds, the blood recreated from her was a story to tell.

It framed around me like water, it’s metallic scent reeked of iron and remnants of copied tissue. She really thought of everything. This was a final straw. Ruling it as a suicide with one of Martin’s Crown Jewels, one of his daggers. And a note in my writing, that was all it needed.

Handwritten.

Confession.

And the doors slammed open about half a minute after Athena had left. My eyes plastered open and facing away, “No. No. No.” My body showed it’s dark end to a man who wouldn’t listen. When Athena told me what he’d have planned in order to get rid of the nanobots in his system, scared to death that it would release a response inducing a cancerous substance of some kind, he fought tooth and nail. His plans to lock me in another cage, hide me from the throne, from the world and from the rest of his plans was no surprise to me.

But what was a sweet surprise, was him sliding down the wall of the dark library and crying out. It was a raw, wretched sob, a wail of a dog losing the only thing it knew. The council members surrounded the doors, shocked because their plans were already ruined by me. By my choices.

See, I thought, in the back of my mind, that it was too soon, that we needed more time.

Nope.

This was good.

Martin crawls closer, it manifested as he gripped me in tight, scared little hands, like a boy crying out, he shakes his head, gripping my face, “This isn’t real. THIS ISN’T REAL!” He roars, howling to the moon goddess for being so cruel.

Like this was her fault.

He shakes me, “NO! NO! DON’T DO THIS! Celestine, please. I beg of you, please. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to do this, please, you have to come back! You have to wake up. This isn’t happening. One of you...get a healer! Now, please! Get a healer. We have to—I have to—NO! WAKE THE HELL UP! WAKE UP, CELESTINE! Don’t do this to us, please. I’ll be better. I’ll be good, everything I’ve ever done to hurt you...I take it back. Forgive me. Baby, FORGIVE ME!” He pulls his lips apart and roars.

It’s deafening.

And it’s also more pathetic than I’ll ever have to live through again.

See, Athena’s plan was limited, first to the timing Nocturne would be open, and then to every detail of getting me in there, but this—watching it, play by play like a movie.

It was...breathtaking.

Pun intended, my breath was definitely taken as maids, guards, Arthur, Athena...witnesses alike see a broken Alpha screamin for healers in his dumb, hysterical form. Stubborn enough to shake me hard, to splatter my blood around with my hair as he holds pressure on a wound that was long lost anyway. Athena gasps, playing her part like an Oscar winning actress. Colour drained from the air.

Martin sobs, kissing me on my lips, “Please forgive me. No. Wake up, Celestine. I promise I will be better. I will do anything, JUST FUCKING WAKE UP!”

“Alpha King...she’s gone...I’m so sorry...”

His world shattered in one night, the night he thought he could cage me again, the thing about prettying up a butterfly and holding it in a solid cage to admire, is that that butterfly will soon run out of air.

It was poetic, a library of all things. Books were a witness of a lie, and Martin, a dumb Lycanthrope was the witness of...well...the dark truth his actions bestowed.

Bodies shoved through and my luck charmed the two other males who thought they could hurt me.

Elias falls to his knees, shoulders curling around his entire, old to ancient form. Crunching him in like a kid in a box.

But Alastair...he froze the fucking world and tore it in half.

Martin and Elias did nothing to stop him.

They could do nothing because while nothing was done...I did something.

The blood made it completely useless to live from.

Athena did good.

Really good.

See, that’s the manipulative deal a Queen can make. A Queen that doesn’t and has never felt right on a wolf’s throne. Darkling was not home. London was not home.

No person I’d ever met was considered ‘home’.

But there were worlds and realms out there that I needed.

For this butterfly is breaking free.

Just not the usual way.

Call me reckless.

Call me selfish.

Call me blind.

Call me...well...let’s face facts...

Death is only the beginning, and it needed to be witnessed to be real.

So, readers of my world, let’s be fucking real because you too, are my witness.