CHAPTER 14

“Prince Kai!” Donghae roar resonated in the humongous Palace, shaking its walls.

Kai, who had just entered his room to find a restless Sehun pacing around, had hardly the time to dart a goofy smile in his crush direction when his elder brother’s loud shout shattered the stillness of the Castle. Kai whirled around to head outside but the door of his chamber was thrown opened before he could reach it. A furious looking Donghae stood in the door way.

“Prince Kai?” Sehun’s confused voice drifted from behind but Kai was a bit busy staring at the vein dangerously popping in Donghae’s forehead to entertain his love interest.

“If this is some sort of sick joke of yours then please stop,” Donghae let out through gritted teeth. “I do not have patience to deal with any nonsense at the moment… so please tell, where is the Zeta?”

“What are you talking about?” Kai blinked in bafflement. “I myself escorted Zeta to your room from the west wing tower.”

Donghae growled, clutching and unclutching his fist as he tried to calm himself down a bit.

“You call her, the Zeta?” The Silver Alpha demanded, gesturing toward the general direction of his chamber.

“Her? Who her?” The beta could only incline his head in befuddlement but before the Alpha could start throwing curses at his younger brother Sehun’s sharp intake of breath alerted Kai that something was wrong… and that something answered on her own.

“He means me,” A gorgeous girl, her V-shape face framed by her thick luxurious hairs spoke, calmly leaning against the door-frame of Kai’s room. Kai instantly recognized her as Go Ara; a certain impressive member of Guardians, he had the pleasure to meet a couple of times.

“Umm… how did you got here?” questioned Kai, honest curiosity transparent on his handsome features.

“If you are here…” Sehun, who had crossed the length of the room to come stand right in front of the girl, started in a mysterious manner. “Does that mean Hyukjae is…?”

Ara nodded grimly, “I wasn’t about to let that scum Jaejoong talk us all into letting the Zeta stay back without a back-up plan… I had a hunch Hyukjae might be in trouble if we all left and see I was right.”

“No, you were wrong!” Donghae said while gritting his teeth in annoyance. “If there is any place on Wolvotaria where Hyukjae would have been safe, it’s here, with me.”

Ara and Sehun shared a discreet look before the former let out in a rather sarcastic tone, “Yeah right!”

“You have no idea what you have done,” Donghae accused, shoulders slumping down a bit. “I had no intention of hurting the Zeta… neither now or five years ago.”

Ara, who prided herself in being able to read a person’s face, was shocked to find a hint of sincerity in Silver Alpha’s face. It was almost baffling how Donghae, which Ara dully recalled meeting as Aiden before, looked honestly worried beyond belief.

“But you marked Hyukjae against his will!” Ara bellowed as in to convince herself that Donghae was not the victim here, he was the bad guy. “Clearly you were after his powers.”

“I was only trying to out the venom of his attacker from his neck, that night,” Donghae replied in an equally raging tone. “I had no idea I would end up pouring my own essence in him, thus marking him unintentionally… I was only sixteen back then… I didn’t even know he was the Zeta! How could I, when he still had a couple of days to kill before his sixteenth birthday? It was only when my own neck started to prickle, gnawing in need for a mate, and Hyukjae disappeared into thin air moreover the rumors of Zeta fleeing started to revolve around Wolvotaria that I put two and two together. That’s when I realized someone already knew Hyukjae would be the Zeta, the reason why he was attacked and they won’t rest until they have him… I did everything in my power to keep him safe. Saeun took Hyukjae out of here on Vinz’s order, but I approached her on planet Earth and tried to earn her trust… it took some time but she started to trust me. I would inform her whenever Siwon would send his men to search the Earth’s land and Saeun would take the Lee’s family to an underground safe house… I would never have even dream of hurting Hyukjae.”

“But you sent Kai and others to hunt for Hyukjae,” Sehun reminded him. “That was why Kyuhyun and I went to search for Hyukjae before your men could find him.”

“No, no,” Donghae shook his head impatiently. “The Golden Alpha started to pest me to find a suitable mate once he had introduced me as Silver Alpha to whole Wolvotaria. But I couldn’t mate anyone when I knew my mate was roaming the grounds of planet Earth, now could I?”

“But if you ended up marking Hyukjae by mistake then shouldn’t you be glad he was out of your way?” Sehun pointed out. “Wouldn’t you rather he reject your mark and let you be the free man?”

“Actually, there’s more to the story than that certain night where Hyukjae was attacked,” Donghae mumbled, looking a bit worried as in what to tell and what to hide.

“Okay, before we all indulge ourselves in story telling time,” Kai interrupted loudly. “Can someone please tell me how Ara came here?”

“Because she is an Omicron,” A voice that belonged to no one currently standing in Kai’s chamber said quite somberly. Everyone turn to see a tall werewolf, Kang Minhyuk, enter and shut the door behind him. “Mind keeping your voices low? Everyone can hear you all.”

“Oh,” Kai exclaimed. “Then does she have the powers to teleport to whatever place, no matter how heavily protected?”

Everyone turned to stare at Kai like he had lost his mind.

“No dumb head,” Sehun sneered. “She has the powers to change her appearance at will to any person she wants while naturally the other person would attain her face for the time being.”

“So you mean you say; she was pretending to be the Zeta when we abducted her?” Kai blinked blankly as in to process the words that came out of his own mouth. “No wonder she came with us without any struggle. I should have noticed something was dodgy.”

“Yeah but you might have needed a brain for that,” Sehun said sarcastically earning a tongue poke from Kai.

“But how can your powers work from such a large distance?” Kai inquired curiously but yet again it was Minhyuk who answered instead of Ara.

“An Omicron has only one power to show their uniqueness,” Minhyuk started while gesturing everyone to take a seat; if they were gonna talk they might as well get comfortable. Ara and Sehun shared another look before cramping themselves in a single wide sofa chair, a good distance away from others. “But a Zeta is someone who would be born with all of those powers residing inside him. Clearly, Ara and Hyukjae both have power of disguise thus they could use it at long distance as well, right?”

“Ahh… well, to be honest, we didn’t think about that,” Ara admitted sheepishly before fumbling with the front of her shirt and brought out a necklace holding a black gem.

“The Obsidian gem… of course,” Minhyuk nodded in understanding.

“My mother gave a pair of them to me when I turned sixteen,” The female Omicron explained. “I gave one to Hyukjae so my powers would work on him no matter how far he is.”

“Wow, sometime I imagine how awesome would it have been if I was an Omicron as well,” Kai wonders out loud.

“Wouldn’t change a thing, you would still have been an idiot,” Sehun snarled quietly but naturally everyone heard him.

“Would you please shut your pretty mouth before I do it for you,” Kai retorted, slanting his eyes at the Kappa.

“I would like to see you try,” Sehun challenged. Kai readily got out of his seat but was held back by Donghae and Minhyuk.

“These two would be one fierce pair of mates,” Minhyuk observed with his eyes twinkling in amusement.

“I agree,” Ara seconded the elder Omicron’s words.

“Ara!” Sehun cried indignantly, eyes growing comically large at the betrayal.

“What?” Ara tried looking innocent. “I think it’s about time you start admitting the reality as well.”

“I would never mate a murderer,” Sehun shouted in all seriousness, making any humor to evaporate from Ara and Minhyuk’s face as well. Kai looks like he had been kicked in the guts.

“Seth is alive,” Donghae stated like he was merely commenting on the condition of weather today. “Kai did everything in his power to save Seth from a terrible fate by begging our father to let him live. Seth was only banished to Aimder Planet for six years and I dare say, my informant told me just this morning that Seth is rather enjoying the attention of all those pretty fairies.”

Sehun looked like words had lost him for a moment before he coughed awkwardly and inquired, “Our father?”

“Kai and I are brothers,” Donghae shrugged carelessly. “Our father had always been ashamed of us thus never told the world about our existence that is until the Four Moons choose me as Silver Alpha and he finally started to see some use of me.”

Ara watched closely and noticed the shadow of bitterness on his face that laced the Silver Alpha’s words as well, like he was fed-up of his life… like he was tired of being a puppet for someone else. Sehun was staring at Kai with his mouth gapping open.

“You never told me you were a prince as well,” Sehun mumbled feeling a bit betrayed. “You said your father was dead.”

“How could I call a person who ignored my entire existence as my father when he himself refused to acknowledge me since I was a product of his affair behind his pregnant mate’s back?” Kai questioned as a matter of fact, no real emotion shown on his face.

Donghae gripped Kai’s shoulder in silent support.

“Why do I get the feeling that all the things we have heard about you two are all a lie?” Ara finally let out her thoughts. This would be the first time Ara had gotten the chance to sit down and carefully look at the faces of her cousins- the cousins who she was not even sure knew they were related and in all honesty, Ara herself first time came to know the Golden Alpha had two sons, her mother had always mentioned only one of them.

“That’s because they really were a lie,” Donghae replied earnestly. “Please believe me… I am nothing like my father. I don’t wish to kill him… I don’t wish to hurt a single hair of Hyukjae’s precious hairs.”

“How did you come to know about Hyukjae then?” Ara asked, leaning a bit forward in curiosity. “I mean… we have mentioned your name in front of Hyukjae a lot but he never showed any sign of knowing you… so how did you met Hyukjae?”

“That’s because Hyukjae only knows me by the name Aiden.”

“That’s the name you used once when you came to run an errand for Vinz, isn’t it?” Sehun exclaimed. “I never would have thought you would be the Silver Alpha until Golden Alpha introduced you as one a few years back.”

“Vinz is my mentor,” Donghae admitted. “He is the one who gave me that name and in order to keep my identity hidden I used that name at most places. I even enrolled in Wolveemo under that name. Hyukjae and I were of same age and using a bit of my connections I made sure to share as many classes with him as I could. But I kept mostly to myself, I doubt Hyukjae ever noticed me, only admiring Hyukjae from a far… he was kind, sweet and a bit head strong. He was stubborn regarding anything that he might feel was wrong in moral. I would admit, I was attracted to Hyukjae thus my reason to be a bit nearer to him but then I came to learn more about him and started to fall for his great personality. I was worried what kind of wolf spirit he might hold… because in my heart I started to see him as my potential mate and since I was already appointed as Silver Alpha I knew my father won’t approve of any normal wolf-spirit. Everyone joked around how Hyukjae was too timid and too skinny thus he might be an Omega. Now I couldn’t have cared a bit about that fact… Omega or Sigma… that would be no problem but I couldn’t say the same for my father. So I thought to wait and see what Hyukjae might become before approaching him. A couple of months went by and I fell harder and faster for him… moreover, Siwon was in the same class as Hyukjae and probably the meanest to him as well.”

“What?” Ara and Sehun shouted in unison.

“Siwon was always full of himself and degraded everyone but seemed to love picking on Hyukjae the most,” Donghae explained and couldn’t help but frown when Ara and Sehun shared yet another of their secret glances. “Why?”

“That explains why Hyukjae seemed to hate Siwon’s very presence,” Sehun said quietly. “Siwon was always trying to win his heart but Hyukjae seemed aloof and disinterested but he never told us the reason.”

“Siwon is only after his powers so he could throw me off the Silver Alpha title and Nobles can rise back to their rightful throne,” Donghae said bitterly. “I would gladly hand over this title but that would mean me not mating Hyukjae… which I could never let happen.”

“So what happened with Hyukjae and Siwon back then?” Ara pressed anxiously.

“I had a bit rundown with Siwon and Hyukjae came to save me and stood up to Siwon… that’s when I realize Hyukjae’s inner spirit was far too strong than people believed… it must mean his inner wolf was stronger. But that got me thinking, if I approached Hyukjae after finding his wolf then he might feel like I only wanted him for his strong wolf thus I went to meet him two days before his birthday. His parents said he wasn’t back from Wolveemo yet so I sat on his doorsteps to wait. Soon it started to get dark. I grew worried but had no idea where to look for him that is until I felt something weird around the neighborhood. The protective side of my wolf became restless so I went to search around the neighborhood and saw Hyukjae being taken by a stranger in the dark alley. Of course I tried to save him… I remember I drove the attacker away and by the time I turned to Hyukjae he was bleeding and passed out on the sideway. Once Vinz told me that venom of a fresh mark can be out, so, I did just that since I didn’t wanted Hyukjae to be marked by anyone else but me. I had no idea I would end up marking him as mine. But the thing that got me worried was why anyone would try to mark Hyukjae even before knowing he could be the Zeta?”

“No one but a Guardian can sense a Zeta,” Ara injected suddenly standing up and face-palming herself as she repeated. “Only a guardian can know who the Zeta is even before the said Zeta!”

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