The Chosen Alpha (Prequel to The Female Alpha)

Chapter 12: Follow thy Heart

Mikalya's P.O.V

"My name is Kashmira Shaw and I'm from the Dawn Frost pack in Jammu."

It was later in the afternoon, after we had returned to our hotel room with Kashmira and her son and had had our lunch that Kashmira finally decided to tell us about herself. We were sitting on our bed in a circle and sipping on some karak chai (strong tea) as she breastfed her baby, whose name we learned was Kushal.

She had gotten rid of the clothes she was wearing earlier, since they were torn and dirty, and now she had one of Ruksaar's ghagras on and her face was uncovered. Now that I could look at her, I could tell that she was very young. She had dark brown eyes with a slight tilt to the corners and midnight black hair that reached her waist. Her son however, had dark brown eyes similar to his mother but his hair was a lighter brown in color.

"I was born and raised in that pack itself and I found out that my mate was the new Alpha of the pack. We were mated within a few days after we found out we were mates."

"You don't sound particularly thrilled about it." I told her after listening to the disappointment in her voice.

"I'm seventeen years old." She told us much to our surprise. "I was mated at fifteen, without a chance to even experience what life is. And Arsalan Ali, my mate, isn't a very kind person."

I sucked in a deep breath as memories resurfaced. Suddenly, I wasn't sitting in the hotel room in Gujarat, not in the present, but I was transferred a hundred years back into the past, to a pack where women were treated worse than dirt and rape and abuse were just as normal to the men like breathing.

"Did he abuse you?" I asked her through gritted teeth, snapping the doors closed on all the painful memories from a century ago.

"No!" Kashmira shook her head. "He wasn't cruel to me...he just...I didn't really have much choice in anything I did or said. Everything had to be as he commanded."

"Is that why you ran away?" Ruksaar asked her frowning. "Because he was suffocating you?"

"No..." This time, there was reluctance to her voice that led me to believe that she didn't find it easy to share her secrets with strangers.

"It's fine if you don't want to tell us why you left," I told her. "It's of no business to us anyway. However, have you decided what you are going to do next? You have a baby with you that needs constant caring and by the looks of it; you have no money and nowhere to go."

"I know that!" She snapped at us before biting her lips and lowering her head. "I'm sorry."

"You're not ready to share," Ruksaar told her. "We understand that and since you have nowhere to go, you can stay here with us. But you have to understand that we are guests here ourselves. We won't be staying here long, another week at most. You'll need to do something for yourself in the meantime."

Kashmira didn't say anything for the longest time. She just hung her head and cradled her son close to her chest like he was her lifeline. So we left her alone.

Ruksaar booked another single room for her right across from us and we helped her shift there and also gave her a few of our clothes. After ordering our dinner to our rooms and after having some privacy with no Kashmira around, Ruksaar came over to where I sat on the bed and plopped down next to me.

"So..." she smirked up at me. "Abhay's really cute."

"And?"

"And I'm thinking about keeping him."

"He's not your mate!" I snapped at Ruksaar through gritted teeth and realized my mistake a little too late. Damn the sneaky woman.

"No. But he's yours, isn't he?" Ruksaar exclaimed gleefully. "I knew there was something going on since yesterday! Your mood has been off ever since we came back from lunch. You realized it in that dhaba didn't you? That he's your m-"

"He's human." I told her pointedly.

"So?" She frowned at me. "That doesn't change the fact that he's your mate! Not everyone is as lucky, Mink. To find your mate, here of all places-"

"Exactly my point." I grated. "Here of all places."

Ruksaar looked at me like I've grown two heads. "Really? That's your excuse? I thought we were here so you could put your demons to rest. But from what I can see, your demons are still alive and eating you up from within."

I sighed, putting the chaos and the screams to the back of my mind. "It's not that easy to forget, Ruksaar. You were an infant when I burned that village down; when I promised your dying mother that I'd take care of you. You didn't see the condition she was in wh-"

"She was left in the desert with her

stomach slit open after they had removed me from her womb." Ruksaar cut me off. "You've told me that horrifying story plenty of times and I can understand why the things you did still haunt you to this day. You think you murdered several innocent souls, but in reality, you

liberated them from their prison."

"I could've saved them instead." I told her now, my hands clenched on my lap.

"How? By going against all of Rafael's men and Rafael himself on your own?" Ruksaar snapped. "You were fourteen for God's sake! They would've killed you instantly or done much worse. No one else would have come to rescue you! You did a favor eradicating the entire village and you're the only one who refuses to believe that."

"Can we not talk about this?" I told her instead. "My demons are mine to face Ruksaar and I'll face them in my own time."

"You mean you'll just keep blaming yourself for something that you had no control over for the rest of your life!" Ruksaar stood up from the bed and walked over to the door.

l.ne

"Seriously, Mink, I really don't get you sometimes! I'm going out to get some air. Don't wait up for me." With that she went out of our hotel room and slammed the door shut on my face.

Ruksaar was young, not that much younger than me but she was young. In her spirit and in her heart, She didn't have the shadows in her eyes that haunted mine. She didn't hear the screams in her ears when she slept at night. She didn't see the red and gold haze of the fire as it seared through the soft and tender flesh and gnawed at their bones.

It had been a nightmare come to life watching the entire village burn and knowing that I was the one who did that. I knew what my mother's last wish had been, and I understood that every other woman in that village had wanted the same freedom. But that freedom had come accompanied with vicious pain. And I had been the cause of it.