Deprived (Daughter of an Alpha Book 2)

by Kaitlyn Taylor

  The back-tavern wall had a few burn marks on it from Deja’s fireballs that Dion had dodged and there were several holes in the ground from the dirt clumps that Dion created. It took a lot longer for Dion to back Deja close enough to the trees to grab her with the vines than I had anticipated but eventually he succeeded, and Deja was dangling in the air. Thick, green and brown colored vines wrapped around her limbs and were the only thing keeping her from falling face first to the bottom of the tree trunks. It was hard to tell because of the dark night sky, but I was pretty sure her arms were turning red. As I looked more closely, there was a hint of a bright orange color mixed in with the red and smoke surrounded the vines that held onto her. They were burning the longer they held onto her and the reddish orange color continued to spread throughout her body. I had never seen a fairy hold onto to fire like this. Judging by the looks coming from Dion, Deni, and Gavin, they had never seen it either.

  The vines broke, dropping Deja to the ground, which she somehow landed gracefully. Her upper body was still on fire and it continued to spread to her lower half. She was a walking flame and it did not seem to bother her.

  “Deja,” Dion held out his hands motioning for her to stay where she was. “Just relax, Deja.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” she yelled as she whipped her arm back and then sent it forward letting go of a fireball three times the size of the one she usually created. It went straight for Dion but instead of dodging it he blocked it with a shield made of dirt and rock. It just appeared from the ground beneath him. I had to stop being surprised by that kind of stuff. Fairies could control the elements, so pulling a large amount of dirt up from the ground was nothing out of the ordinary. If Dion had not blocked it with the dirt, the fireball would have hit the tavern and it would have gone up in flames.

  “Deja!” Juda stepped out in front of the fairy, putting herself in between the Alpha and his sister. Juno tried to grab her before she walked right into the middle of the flaming danger, but she was too quick. Some kind of instinct forced me forward as well, standing shoulder to shoulder with the giant. Well, her shoulders were slightly taller than mine, but we were next to each other building a wall in between Deja and her brother. Luna and Kota tried to run towards us, but Kory and Levi caught on a lot quicker than I had hoped. They held them back keeping them away from whatever was going to happen next.

  “Listen to us, Deja,” Juda begged loudly. “This isn’t you. Think about it, Deja.”

  Something about what Juda said registered with her. I saw the look on her face shift as if she was thinking. Her entire body was outlined in flames and it was actually a beautiful sight if you did not think about the possibility of being set on fire by your best friend. She looked so powerful but at the same time so wild. The wild part was what concerned everyone.

  “Stay calm, Deja,” I added. “No one is threatening you. Just relax so we can talk about it.”

  “He threatened me,” she pointed towards Dion who rolled his eyes and dropped the back of his head to the top of his back. He was not in the mood for this but I also was not in the mood to be set on fire so he was going to have to deal with it.

  “Let’s talk about this,” Juda continued to talk to her while I looked around at the group surrounding us. Our brothers all look concerned and Luna and Kota looked like they were about to turn murderous if they were not released. The tensions were high and uncomfortable and all because we insisted on going to the tavern. We should have gone back to the Castle like the guys told us to. We were so busy trying to be independent and find our own voices that we put ourselves in danger and now we were fighting with one another. We could not have this happening while Malachi was still out there. He would take advantage of this.

  “We can talk about it back at the Castle,” Nico said walking towards the flaming fairy. I noticed the huddle of people with their heads hanging out of the tavern door trying to see what was happening. We did not have to time to explain why Deja was covered in fire, so it was best to listen to Nico and go home. We followed along the path towards where we left the guard tied up on the iron fence. I had forgotten that I had been hit by him for a second. It seemed so unimportant after what happened with Deja and Dion.

  “Where’d the guard go?” I asked Nero who was walking in between Nico and I. I tried to whisper so Nico did not hear me. I knew he was mad, and I did not want to make it worse, but I should have known that he would find his way into the conversation.

  “He’s down in the dungeons,” Nico asked, a shiver running down my spine as his voice sounded much harsher than it usually did. He was definitely angry only now I was completely convinced that it was because of me. I think it was because of what the guard did.

  “How did that even happen?” Nero asked avoiding Nico’s glare.

  I told my brothers about are earlier adventure up on the mountain and how we were walking towards the tavern when the guard stopped us.

  “I didn’t summon you,” Nico told me.

  “Then why would the guard tell me that?” I muttered to myself. “And why did he try so hard to get me to come with him?”

  “I think we need to have a chat with the prisoner,” Roman suggested as Nico and Nero nodded in agreeance.

  “He really didn’t want to tell us what he had done to you,” Nero pointed out. “It took us twenty minutes to get him to talk and he only told us because we threatened to let Juno beat him until he was dead.”

  “What about the other guard?” I remembered the second wolf station at the front gates.

  “He was too scared to speak,” Nico chuckled.

  “You like that people fear you?” I questioned.

  “I like that people have no idea what I’m going to do,” he corrected me. “They know what Dad would’ve done but not me.”

  “The next time you guys decide to go on an adventure can you do it during the day?” Kody asked as we reached the front gates. “It’s almost morning.”

  “It is not,” Luna argued.

  “Yes, it is,” Levi assured her.

  “It’s two hours until sun up,” Kory said specifically. “We’re supposed to go out and search the forest tomorrow, but we can’t do that if we all don’t get enough sleep.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Juda assured him as two new guards shut the gates behind us.

  The pathway up to the Castle doors was lit up with large black lanterns hanging from a detailed carved wooden post spaced out evenly on each side. The same lanterns hung from extended hooks on the Castle walls as we reached the double doors. Nico pushed them open, letting them hit the walls when they could not extend any farther and stopped in front of us his back the only thing we could see.

  “Mother?” he said softly.

  “Mom?” Nero and I questioned together as we pushed through the rest of our group. We stood on either side of Nico staring at the woman who had been non-existent since our father died. She looked pale and her auburn hair was a mess. She was in her night clothes, which was much more worrying than the messy hair. She would never come out of her chambers looking like this. Her hazel eyes were wide as they stared at all of us entering the Castle. She seemed so weak as she stood before us. I knew she was not eating the way that she was supposed to, but I did not realize it was this bad. It almost looks like she has been starving herself. I fought back the tears that wanted to burst from my eyes. This person was not my mother. She looked like a sickly version of her but there was something else off about her. Her energy was different.

  “What are you doing up at this hour, Mother?” Nico asked her as he took a few steps towards her. With each step that he took in her direction she took the same step away from him as if she were afraid of him.

  “It’s your fault,” she told him, her voice raspy and with a hiss at the end of the words. “He’s dead because of you. All of you!”

  She was pointing at Nero and I but then she looked behind us at the rest of the individuals standing with us. I knew she was talking about our father
, but I could not understand why she was saying these things. Before she locked herself away in her room she had told us that she knew we had done everything we could to save our father and her husband. This was completely different from what she had said over a month ago.

  “You’re tired, Mother,” Nico continued to be calm with her almost like he was trying to approach a scared animal. “Let me help you back up to your room.”

  “No!” she screamed as he reached out a hand towards her. “Don’t touch me. You disgust me. You let your father die so that you could become the Alpha. Do you honestly think that you’ll be able to replace him? You’ll never be half the man that he was.”

  “Mom!” I yelled just as she finished her insult.

  “You don’t get to talk to him like that,” Nero added, taking a step forward in a much more threatening manner than Nico had.

  “You’re stupid to follow him,” my mother hissed at Nero and I. “He’ll lead you to destruction. He’s no better than a murderer and should be in the dungeons until Execution Day.”

  I could not help myself. I sprang forward at her, wrapping my hands around her neck and knocking her to the ground. I put my body weight on her knowing I was much heavier than she was in this frail body of hers, but I did not care. After what she said about Nico, I would gladly crush her. My mind fought with itself as I remembered that this was my mother that I was choking. I so badly wanted to kill her for her disrespect towards our Alpha, but I also knew that I would regret it if I made my brothers and I orphans.

  “Get off of her, Nova,” Nico told me as he grabbed my shoulders, yanking me away from my mother.

  “She has no right to talk to you like that!” I yelled as the girls held me back from attacking my mother a second time. “She hides up in her room for over a month, wallowing in her pity party and she has the audacity to come down her and insult you like that? She accused you of things that aren’t true!”

  “I know what she said,” Nico whipped his head in my direction, although I could not tell by his expression what he was feeling. I got a sense that he appreciated that I defended him, but I also felt his sadness. It was hard hearing your own mother talk about you like that to your face.

  “Nova, I need you to listen to me,” Kota whispered in my ear as they all stepped in front of me, prevented me from making another move. “This isn’t your mother. I think she’s spelled. Her energy is different. It’s definitely her but it’s not her at the same time.”

  “Can you do something to fix her?” I asked desperately, hoping that she would not tell me this bit of information without also having a solution.

  “I’m not experienced enough to help her,” she admitted. “But Kory is. He should be able to help her.”

  She left us and walked over to where Kory, Kody, and Nathan were huddled up together discussing something that probably had to do with my insane mother. As Kota told them of her suspicions I started to see all three of them shake their heads as if they agreed with her findings. Kory pushed his way over to Nico who was still trying to calm our mother down and whispered in his ear before walking towards the traumatized woman. She tried to run away from him but with one snap of his fingers she was frozen in place.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s fine. I can’t help her if she’s running away from me.”

  “Do what you must,” Nico told him.

  Kory faced my mother now and after examining her energies he placed his hand just under her neck on her chest and muttered words that were not understandable from where we stood. My mother started to twitch softly but as he continued to chant the twitching turned into violently shaking, making every heart in the entry way spike to unhealthy levels. When he finally pulled his hand away my mother dropped to the ground. Kory quickly stopped us from running up to her by holding his palm up in our direction. He checked over her energies again, this time seeming much more satisfied with what he was finding.

  “She’s your mother again,” he turned towards us with a small smile peeking out from the corner of his mouth. He was proud of his work, and I did not blame him. I would forever be grateful for what he did for my mother. As my brothers and I came closer, I was able to feel my mother’s pure energy again, just like Kory said we would. She still looked like she was wasting away but that did not matter. She was alive and back to normal. The rest we could deal with later. She was unconscious after the ordeal that she went through. Nico lifted her off the floor of the entry way like she was nothing more than a feather and carried her up to her chambers. Nero and I offered to help him, but he assured us that he had it under control.

  I wondered if there was any truth to what my mother said about Nico. I knew that it was not true, but I could not help but wonder if, deep down, she truly believed that he had something to do with our father’s death. That we all had something to do with it. It seemed so absurd to think that Nico would let my father be killed just so he could become the Alpha. Malachi’s minions knocked all five of the acting Alphas out before Malachi ever entered the barn. There was no way that Nico or the others could do anything about it. Nico was devastated when he woke up to see our father lying in his own pool of blood. I had never seen him cry before that day. I did not believe for one second that what my mother said was true, but it bothered me that those words came from her mouth. I know she was spelled but that does not mean I will excuse her behavior. She owed Nico the biggest apology for everything she said.

  I watched as Nico climbed the stairs with our mother in his arms. His face was frozen, unable to be read by anyone. He was doing a good job of hiding his energy as well. I tried to read it as he walked by me, but it was almost like he was feeling nothing at all. After what my mother said I would not blame him if he shut every emotion off. He walked slowly up the stairs, which seemed strange to me. It was almost like he was contemplating something. With his face being expressionless and his energy being nonexistent I had no idea what it was that he was thinking about, but I knew my brother. This was going to bother him just as much as it bothered me only he was going to do a much better job of hiding it from everyone.

  A gentle hand landed on my shoulder. I jumped slightly, not expecting anyone to touch me. I turned to find tussled blonde hair catching my attention and then brown eyes forcing me to change direction. He gripped both of my shoulders now looking into my entire being as he spoke. He had never done anything like this before. I caught the way he looked at me on several occasions, but this seemed much more intense. When I finally shook myself out of the trance he had put me in I realized we were the only ones still standing in the entry way.

  “Are you listening to me?” he asked, not once taking his eyes off of me. I did not realize that he had said anything, and I quickly started to replay our encounter in my head, but it was all the same. It was just the brown eyes staring into mine. I do not recall his lips moving but that was not the part of him that was hypnotizing me at that moment.

  “What did you say?” I finally replied placing my hands on his chest without thinking. I wanted to pull away, embarrassed that I had just made such a bold move, but he grabbed my hands before they could return to my side, forcing them to stay where they were.

  “I asked you if you were okay?” he repeated softly as he moved in closer to me, closing the gap between us much quicker than I had anticipated.

  “I don’t know what I’m feeling right now,” I answered honestly. He dropped his hands from mine and wrapped my entire body into his chest forcing my hands to leave their position and wrap around his muscular body. He was comforting me in a way that he had only done once when my father died. This was sort of the same thing. My mother was not the woman who raised me anymore. In a way, she died, too, and once again, Roman was there to make me feel just a little bit better.

  “You should go and get some sleep,” he told me, loosening his grip on my body but not completely letting go. It was like he was giving me the option to stay or go, letting me make my own choice.

  “What’
s the point?” I muttered as I leaned my head against his chest. “The sun will be up before I ever shut my eyes.”

  “We have a lot to do later,” he remined me. “We both should try to get a little bit of sleep. Even if it’s not much, anything will be better than no sleep at all.”

  “I don’t want to be alone right now,” I finally said the words that were swimming around my head this entire time he had been holding me in his arms.

  “I won’t leave you,” he promised as he turned both of us towards the staircase. He guided me the entire way to my chambers, passing both Nico and Nero’s rooms. It still seemed strange to have Roman around me knowing my brothers could walk in on us at any moment. I already heard about Kory and Kody walking in on Kota and Nathan and I did not need a repeat of that. I was not in the mood for anything physical tonight. I needed sleep, even if it was only an hour or two. That did not stop the desires I was keeping to myself. I wanted Roman in every way and knowing he would be in the same room as me as I slept did a lot for my imagination. I hesitated to open the door even though all I wanted to do was push the giant male through into the room and slam the door behind me.

  Once in the room, I left for the bathroom where I dressed in my night clothes and threw my hair up on top of my head. When I returned, Roman had the bed turned down and he was sitting on the side that I normally slept on. My instinct wanted to tell him to scoot over but I was too tired to say anything. I walked around the bed and climbed in, feeling very foreign on this side, but the second my head hit the pillow it no longer mattered what side I was sleeping on.