Chapter 33
“Oh.” Viola looked down at the vast arrays of food in front of her that Miss Zoe had brought, but her eyes fell on one in particular, and all the blood drained from her face.
Zoe, who was pulling a chair to sit next to Viola and also have her breakfast since she hadn’t had the time to do so at home, noticed Viola’s sudden paleness as she stared at the food before her.
Her gaze was fixed on the big barbecued fish that had been prepared with fillings and sauce the way werewolves liked them. Zoe followed her stare and then looked back at Viola.
“Are you alright?” Zoe asked when she noticed the slight trembling of Viola’s fingers.
At the question, Viola looked away from the fish and blinked before replying,
“Yes… I am fine. The fish looks delicious, but I’m sorry, I don’t like fish,” Viola murmured, not giving the reason.
Fish was like poison to her body. If she ate it, it caused the most deadly and uncontrollable reaction in her system. Growing up in a werewolf orphanage, where fish was given to them once in a while because it was said to help build a wolf’s immune system and many werewolves ate it without issue, Viola had learned that it didn’t build hers or her sister’s. It had almost killed Ivy once but thankfully she threw up and everything cleared from her system.
Viola had once witnessed a young werewolf who ate fish and had the same reaction as she and Ivy. He had been taken away from the orphanage by the owners of the place, and curious, Viola had followed them, thinking he would be treated and that she could find medicine for she and her sister as well in case they have the reaction again in the middle of the night.
What she saw instead was the boy being brutally killed. The horror of how he died was still stuck in her mind, so vivid that it made her swear never to eat fish again.
It was one of the reasons she hated the orphanage and wanted to leave it at all costs, even though she had done so in the most unthinkable way, one that still haunted her now.
In Moonwillow, when she had still been the pack’s favorite, she had told them that fish disgusted her, and no one had ever questioned it. Fish was hard to come by in the werewolf world, and when one person didn’t want it, it became a bonus for someone else. Now, she hoped Miss Zoe wouldn’t question her or try to probe further about why she didn’t like it when many do.
Oh,” Zoe said, quickly sliding the fish tray aside. “I completely forgot you might not like it since you’re not from here. You can have the meat instead, it’s just as good, and I want you to enjoy your meal p>
Viola felt a small relief wash over her, and she realized she had been holding her breath without knowing it. She nodded softly, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
“Thank you,” she murmured, grateful for Miss Zoe’s thoughtfulness and the gentle way she had noticed her discomfort without making a big deal out of a werewolf not liking fish, though, come to think of it, she didn’t even have a wolf, which was unusual enough on its own.
Though she knew it wasn’t the same as the orphanage, which had been part of a different and much smaller pack with its own rules and cruel ways, Viola had learned to be careful about letting anyone know that fish gave her such a strange reaction after she had seen a boy get killed for it.
After breakfast, Viola barely had time to sit and lounge around, not that she wanted to, when she was facing such a high-stakes meeting with elders and other she-wolves later that night for dinner. She needed to be well prepared, because it had been a long time since she had been presented at anything important or grand, like a meeting with elders.
She wouldn’t give the Alpha or anyone else a reason to see her as unfit, though it would be hard in her current state of mind, especially when she still had a slight limp to her walk.
She had once been someone who could effortlessly be around people without feeling an ounce of nervousness. It wasn’t the same now.
Her confidence had been stripped from her the day she was thrown into a place like the Hollow quarters and hurt every single day for keeping her head up instead of bending it. Now, the strongest feelings inside her were fear and anxiety, because the elders could easily decide she wasn’t worth being part of their pack or even participating in their activities.
Not to mention that she had nothing to her name, nothing she could offer or add to the pack at all.
“Why?” Viola asked when Zoe told her that from now on, if anyone asked what pack she came from, she was to say the North Pack.
“The Alpha’s order. Everyone knows how much he hates Moonwillow, and having someone from that pack join the competition would raise questions. The elders wouldn’t give you the chance to take part,” Zoe said as she parted Viola’s full, frizzy hair section by section, carefully untangling the mass with conditioner in preparation for the hairstyle she would do for her tonight.
“So if you really don’t want to stir drama, because the elders can be very dramatic sometimes, just stick with this. Viola from the North Pack. Your parents were omegas, which would explain why your wolf didn’t awaken, and you wanted the chance to become something different from a servant life.” Zeo informed.
It was totally normal for someone born from two omegas to turn out wolfless, because the wolf could be too weak to surface and for the body to go through shifting. Having that as an explanation for why she didn’t have a wolf was good, believable, and accepted among most packs. But just going out straight to say she didn’t have a reason, would earned her a banishment immediately.
“They’ll find it amusing, even laughable, that you chose to aim for becoming the Luna of the biggest and strongest pack, but it doesn’t matter. It’s better than not having a chance at all. Are you sure you can do this, Viola?” Zoe asked as she looked at her through the mirror in front of them, where Viola’s hair was frizzed out in every direction.
Viola felt a huge lump of dread in her throat at that question. She had feared the fact that she came from a pack the Silver Pack disdained for reasons she had never been told, but now, a solution had been laid before her.
She would have to take on a new identity, one that wasn’t entirely a lie, because Evan had indeed given her to Ember. So technically, she belonged to the North Pack, and no one could say otherwise, Evan had rejected her from his own pack to hand her to Ember right in front of everyone that night.
What she found daunting was facing the elders, but she was the kind of person who never let herself get discouraged once she set her mind on something, especially something that could change her life completely and give her a big opportunity to reconcile with Ivy again.
“I can do it. How many elders are there?” Viola asked, pushing away her nervousness.
“We have six elders: two females and four males. The tablet I gave you has their names and positions on it. You can look through them while I get your hair done, because, goodness me, you have so much hair on your head,” Zoe said with a light chuckle, easing the tension in the room for Viola, who found herself getting more free around this shewolf.
For the next hour, as Zoe applied a hair mask, face mask, and every other treatment she believed Viola needed, Viola held the frameless tablet and memorized what she needed to know about the Silver Pack’s elders.
The more she read and learned, the more she realized how much power they held, even over the Alpha himself, because they had lived far longer than he had and had once ruled during the first year after the past Alpha passed away before giving it back to the current Alpha.
A sudden urge to pick at the skin at the side of her nails grew, and when she gave in, she received a faint flick with a makeup brush from Zoe. Viola looked up to see Zoe regarding her with disapproval.
“Aya. You’re ruining your nails with that habit, Viola. Can you at least stop peeling the poor skin for today?” Zoe said good-naturedly, calling for one of the omegas who had come with her to apply ointment to the raw skin Viola had peeled.
Viola bit the inside of her cheek in embarrassment.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. I also have the bad habit of picking at my hair and plucking it out. See?” Zoe moved her side part to show a small balding spot at the side of her head, the baby hairs left behind from plucking.
Viola’s eyes rounded, as she had never thought an elegant she-wolf like Zoe could have an impulsive habit too, and she smiled when Zoe flushed.
“I do that when I get nervous, but I try to stop because it’s ruining my hairline. So you have nothing to feel ashamed of. By the way, it’s a secret between us, don’t let anyone know,” Zoe added, making a pouty face that made Viola chuckle as she nodded.
“I’m good at keeping secrets p>
Viola never thought she would be this free with another person, but she found herself talking and exchanging words with Zoe the way one would with a friend, a normal friend, unlike the ones she had in the past, where whenever they gathered together, they only gossiped and spoke badly of others.
By the time Zoe and the two omegas had finished helping her get ready, the sun had begun to set, and the time for dinner was approaching, along with the growing dread of meeting the elders and the Supreme Alpha.