The Alpha's Omega Mate-Chapter 113: An almost clean kill.

~Dahlia’s POV~

"What is the matter? I asked Sadie whose face was scrunched up in sadness and has been that way ever since she stepped into this room about ten minutes ago.

In her arms, a sleeping Amara lay. Her eyes darted around us and it wasn’t until this moment that I noticed the tears in her eyes, and the way she watched Grandmama Lupe’s sleeping form silently, hesitantly.

I waved in her face. "That one’s innocent. It’s safe to talk around her." I said softly, but Sadie wasn’t having any of that. She stared at the sleeping woman for an awkwardly long time, and after probably deciding that the woman didn’t deserve her suspicions— or attention, she turned to me with glossy eyes.

"Miranda was found dead this morning."

It took a moment for the news to register in my brain, and another moment for me to finally place a face to the name. A shocked gasp slipped through my lips and my hands flew to cover my mouth.

"Miranda? The bully? Pae’s subordinate?!" I rushed out, ignoring the way she nodded quickly before I asked again; "What happened to her?"

Sadie shook her head slowly, her eyes dropping for a second before the tears dropped. I instantly felt bad. "No one knows for real, the fortress has been chaotic since yesterday."

"Over her death?" I asked, stunned.

"No. Over the fact that she was poisoned. She was found in her room foaming at the mouth and lifeless. I didn’t see but from what I heard, she was one of the victims— and may have also been the perpetrator— of the Manchet bread incident yesterday." She supplied quickly, and as soon as I heard those words, I froze.

Sadie probably caught this action because she then turned to me with curious eyes. Now, she was the one who waved in my face as she asked; "I was served some of the poisoned food too." I said, noting how the color instantly drained from Sadie’s face.

She shook violently as she wiped the stray tears off her face. A moment of silence passed between us and when she finally spoke, her voice was small. She sounded disbelieving, she asked; "She wanted to kill you too?"

I shook my head. "I doubt she’d want to. I mean, did I ever wrong her?"

"You are beautiful. A lot of the female slaves hated you for that and the attention you usually got from the Alpha and Beta."

"But still—" I began to speak but stopped when I noticed her swinging her eyes at me. She looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, her gaze sharp. Intense.

She asked; "So how are you up? How aren’t you like the other victim?"

My face scrunched up in confusion when I heard that there was someone else affected by the poisoned food. But I soon brushed off that info for later as I had to answer the question that seemed more pressing to me. The one which made her glare at me in suspicion.

"Did you heal yourself?"

"I didn’t eat the food." I answered quickly, before she began to harbor the wrong ideas. "Alpha Zarek brought me dinner but unfortunately— now that I think of it, fortunately— it spilled, and then we noticed something weird about the food. It smelled bad and the sauce looked like blood."

"A warlock’s poison..." Sadie hissed. "Dangerous!" Then suddenly, as if a thought suddenly occurred to her, she beamed a smile at me. "You said Alpha Zarek brought the food right?" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

I nodded, unsure. "Yes."

"No wonder!" She squealed, her eyes gleaming with mischief. "No wonder he was so pissed. Now, I understand!"

Again, I frowned. "What do you now understand?"

"So earlier, I overheard Madame Berlin talking about how Alpha Zarek was so enraged with the whole poison situation he even punished Sophie for calling you a runt!" She giggled while I could only gasp.

"He what?!"

"I wondered how you were involved but now I get it. He was probably mad you were almost poisoned too. And yes, he punished Sophie. Asked the guards to whip her twice your age in strokes. And asked them to finish it up by whipping her four more times, to spell the word runt."

So dramatic.

My jaws dropped and despite myself and my moral compass, my face heated up with a blush. "No, he didn’t."

"He did. It’s been the talk around the slaves’ quarters since it happened."

Something akin to electric tingles sprouted from the depths of my soul and coursed through my veins as I listened to her speak. It came to settle at the base of my stomach, filling me with so much heat and so much giddiness, I couldn’t sit still.

But as soon as the feelings came, it easily left because then a thought suddenly struck me...

"Who is behind all of this?" Now I couldn’t help but ask, even though deep down, every fiber of my being pointed at Ms Jennifer. She was the only one evil enough to go to these lengths to have me killed. She—

"I don’t think Miranda did this on her own. She wouldn’t eat it too if she’d simply wanted to kill you." Sadie suddenly voiced out, snapping me out of my train of thoughts.

"Yes..."

For a long time, I stared into space, wondering if I could tell her about my suspicions. If I could talk to her about how weird and scared I felt whenever I was around Ms Jennifer.

However, as soon as I opened my mouth, she immediately beat me to it because she began to speak at the same time. "She must’ve been paid to kill you lots. In fact, Lady Jennifer was poisoned too. But unlike you, she wasn’t so lucky. She’s still bedridden as we speak."

I froze.

Holy balls!

"Even the devil burns himself with fire sometimes just to fool foolish men into thinking he doesn’t own hell." Grandmama Lupe’s croaky voice suddenly broke through the silent room and I instantly turned to see her struggling to find a comfortable spot on her bed.

I frowned. "Huh?"

"Ignore her, Dahlia. Don’t you know her? She’s the famous crazy old lady of the pack." Sadie said softly, dismissively waving in front of her face.

However, I paid no attention to Sadie because I of all people knew how ’un-insane’ Grandmama Lupe was. My eyes snagged to hers and I saw her smiling softly at me, her lips tilted in a way that seemed as though she was saying to me; ’I told you so!’

I knew then that she was up to something but just as I was about to ask her what it was, I was suddenly interrupted when a loud noise outside the room caught my attention. I glanced up just in time to see Sadie already staring at the door, even Amara in her arms had suddenly jolted awake.

A loud shout had Sadie out of her chair, and me off my bed when we heard;

"Clear a bed! Or anything! Lady Nyx and her child need to be treated with immediate effect! They’ve been poisoned!"

Our eyes met for a nanosecond and held. And I could pinpoint the exact moment a particular thought struck both of us:

—that this was an attempt to wipe out all the women in Alpha Zarek’s life.