The Alpha's Omega Mate-Chapter 99: The betrayal.

~Zarek’s POV~

"There was a time that you’d have said that and I would crawl on my knees, begging for your forgiveness, but not now. Now, you lack all the qualities of being an Alpha, and I’d rather leave than allow a vegetable to lead me." Elder Tyrion glowered, and behind him, I saw Orion’s jaw slacken.

Even Jennifer, the one who seemed so invested in this charade earlier on now looked like she was having second thoughts.

Like this was all a mistake.

A smile crept up my face as I glared down at the man who was a few inches shorter than me, and ignoring the fierce set of his chin, I strolled over to my throne and sat, waiting for the ’others’ who would join his madness. And sure enough two more Elders joined in.

Still Orion didn’t move... and neither did Jennifer, even though she looked like she wanted to.

"And who’s the vegetable?" I finally drawled slowly, my words plunging the room into total and utter silence.

The silence was so heavy and so intense that from up here, I could swear that I could hear the steady thumping of everyone’s heartbeat... and that I could distinguish which from which. It was that solid.

A flash of emotion akin to uncertainty fleeted past Elder Tyrion’s eyes— probably that was his subconscious reminding him that he was dancing to an imaginary music— but just as it came, the moment disappeared and his eyes went back to the stoic deep dark orbs that I’ve grown to know and abhor.

He sputtered; "Y-you."

More silence.

I cocked my eyebrows and tilted my head at him as I glared straight through him. I sat frozen for so long, still staring, and without saying a word that soon the smell of his fear began to flitter into my nostrils.

I chuckled. "You have such a brave front, Elder, but your smell says otherwise. So, would you leave now that I still feel benevolent enough to allow you to go freely, or do you want this to happen in my usual way?" I asked coldly, and I noticed his eyelid twitch just in time as he took a trembling step back.

"No."

"...And next time, when you want to call out someone for being a vegetable, you call yourself out first because as we both know, a part of you has gone dead for the longest time... and even your close relatives do not know it yet." I added, causing the crowd to erupt into a series of laughs and indecipherable mutters.

Elder Tyrion’s eyes widened. His nostrils flared in rage.

But before he could spit out the words forming on his lips, a weird emotion suddenly contorted his face.

He knew.

He knew that I remembered.

And probably knows now that I never lost my memories.

Like a light bulb had been suddenly turned off, all the fight in him dissipated. And in the place of the spit fire who was so eager to start a revolution only seconds prior was a defeated man.

A defeated man who knows I still remember his plight.

His shame.

The fact that he can not father children.

Tears glistened in his eyes as his knees instantly hit the floor. He bared his throat at me in a gesture of surrender, but I was way past that now. I didn’t need him any longer.

"Alpha.... I’m sorry!" He rushed out timidly but I turned away from him, my eyes scanning the crowd behind him.

"Who started this movement? And why?" I bellowed so loud that the furniture in the room clattered under the weight of my tone.

Everyone went silent until Jennifer shakily rose to her feet beside Orion. My eyes thinned.

"You did?"

"No," she murmured quietly. The fear radiating off her was so thick, it clouded my senses like a cloak.

She shook her head. "Elder Tyrion did, and we backed him up because we thought you have no business being Alpha as you no longer have your memories."

"Specify who the so-called ’we’ are, because I for one never backed up that nonsense!" Elder Kira shouted from the back, and I had to fight off the urge to smile at her words.

"Shut up!" Jennifer snarled. "Now’s not the time to point fingers!"

"Oh it is," I drawled, a bemused smile on my face. "Now is the perfect time to point fingers because I really want to know how many of you backed this up."

"Oh come off it, Zarek!" Jennifer snapped, finally showing off her true colors, "what would you have us do? Were you thinking we’d keep waiting around until you got back all your memories? The pack was sinking and Nyx’Zariel was terrorising the innocent citizens of this town!"

"The Alpha never lost his memories." Someone said from the back, causing a loud uproar to suddenly drown us all present, but I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

The royal healer.

And my only ally in all of these shenanigans.

"What?!"

"No, that’s impossible!" Jennifer cried out but I remained still, unmoving.

"After the accident in the woods... the one which had supposedly led to his ’memory loss’, Alpha Zarek overhead Lady Jennifer plotting ways to get him off his throne since he was now nothing but a ’vegetable’, so he decided to go on with this facade in order to find out more details about what was being plotted behind his back... and I helped him fake it." The royal healer continued, and the more the words spurted out of his mouth, the louder the ruckus in the room grew.

But something about all these being out in the open enraged me as it felt as though all my plans had been let out in the open.

Hell, even Jennifer had begun to fake tears and was now crying hysterically by the side. I balked.

I calmly waited until all the side conversations and murmurs had died down before I glanced back up at Jennifer’s face, and now that I look at her, her face had been entirely wiped clean of her earlier smugness. Now, all that was left was a panicking young woman who could not seem to believe the things she was hearing.

"Zarek..."

"We met three years ago at a forest camp called ’Fără ieșire’ where you’d helped me escape from my captors— men who had pulled me into slavery and torment all in the guise of training. I told you I’d been set up by my father... and what did you say...?"

"That now, I have every right to rebel against him."

"That now, you have every right to rebel against him."

We said in unison and she gasped as realization finally dawned upon her.

"Orion here has been my friend ever since. We escaped together with you and called ourselves ’brothers bound by pain’ ever since... and for some reason, this is how you all would’ve decided to repay me if something had indeed happened to me? If I had really lost my memories?" I snarled, my voice breaking at the very last word, betraying my emotions.

I blinked back the sting in my eyes and looked away.

"Zarek please..."

"Alpha Zarek, we never kne—" Elder Tyrion began to say but something about his half-assed apology set my heart ablaze. And I couldn’t take it anymore.

With rage coursing through my veins, threatening to burn enduring in its path, my eyes raked the crowd and I bellowed; "Everyone leave!" I barked, "and then turning to Elder Tyrion and his two companions, Esau and Pyle, I drawled; "And you three, get out of the pack. Henceforth, you’re now rogues and I brand you, Elder Tyrion, a traitor... just as you were in your previous pack."

The entire room went silent.

But it did nothing to calm my frayed nerves or the way my beast went on a rampage within me. Not when the person I really wanted to punish remained unscathed... and not when his accomplice now shuffled closer to me with tears leaking out of her eyes.

God, how much I disliked this duo right now!

However, my rage soon calmed when a fleeting scent caught my nostrils, and as the crowd fizzled out of the room, the scent grew stronger... impossibly closer.

I moaned, "fuck... Dahlia."

But how is she here? Isn’t she meant to be in the hospital, immobile and in pain?

My pupils dilated when her scent increased with each passing second, and I vaguely felt something gently gliding over my skin before my senses came into sharp focus.

"Jennifer?"

"Oh shhh..." she drawled in the most seductive tone I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and just like that, my wolf purred in delight.

A satisfied moan slipped past my lips when her hair brushed against my skin and her fingers tangled in my hair.

But it wasn’t the fiery ginger hair I loved.

It was blonde.

And blonde meant Jennifer!

My eyes instantly snapped open as the thought slammed into my head and in rage I could barely contain, I wrapped my hands around Jennifer’s throat, whilst ignoring the way her eyes bulged and her skin purpled.

She panted and gasped for air but that didn’t deter me. Instead, it fueled me into lifting her into the air while I rose to my feet.

I was more than a few inches taller than Jennifer so it was no surprise when her feet began to dangle in the air.

She sobbed, choking; "Z-Zarek! Zarek p-please!" But I ignored her hysterical cries.

Instead, I asked the one thing that had been plaguing my mind for days nonstop... hell, it’s been over a week now. "How do you do that? How do you make your scent change?"

And as soon as the words left my lips, Jennifer frowned but she said nothing; and in response, my grip around her neck tightened.

"I could do this all day, but I don’t want to because I hate touching you. Now tell me, how do you do that? How do you manage to smell like Dahlia and even fool my wolf into believing you?"

"Zarek I—I..."

"Answer me!"

"I use—"

Bang!

A loud painful smack against my soul had me staggering backward, and due to the pain now wracking my skull, I instinctively let go of Jennifer’s neck, watching her as she scrambled away from me with tears leaking out of her eyes.

In rage, I turned around to see who it was that had struck me and truth be told, I was half expecting it to be Orion.

However, to my utmost shock, it wasn’t. Instead, it was...

"Nyx? What are you doing here?"

"And since when did you start to hurt women?!" She snarled, causing my eyes to thin into slits as an intense rage overcame me.