Alpha Loren novel Chapter 99

December 27th

Ella's POV

I still had no idea why Leo had just dragged a struggling human woman into our house but after fifteen minutes of coercing and encouragement and Leo just about keeping his patience, we got her out of the hallway and settled her on the sofa.

All Leo told me was that she knew we were werewolves and that she'd been through some trauma. She was thin, like she hadn't eaten in days, so I heated up some soup on the stove and brought it over to her.

For some reason, she was incredibly anxious around Leo so I'd banished him to the other side of the room where he stood cradling Cato as I gave Hestia the soup.

"Hopefully this will make you feel better," I said to her.

She gave me what could have been a slight smile as she took the bowl, still nervously eyeing Leo.

"Leo, would you go upstairs please?" I asked him.

He turned and glanced at Hestia before nodding.

"Don't worry about him," I reassured her once he was gone, "He looks scarier than he is."

She bit her lip, "He seemed quite scary when he showed up at my house threatening to kill my kids," she said, her voice hoarse and quiet, "And he was quite scary when he ordered the death of my husband and left me in a cold, dark prison cell with his evil friend for days too."

She then picked up the spoon in the soup and slowly stirred it.

My mouth dried, "He did all that?"

She nodded.

"When?"

"In the last week," she replied, lifting the spoon for a few seconds before putting it back down, untouched.

I felt my stomach churn and squeeze as I brought my hand to my mouth and stood up.

"I-I'm so sorry," I said, turning to look out the window, staring at the pure white snow.

"...You didn't know?" she asked after a pause.

I plastered a smile onto my face before turning back to her.

"I know he is no stranger to evil. But I thought he had changed," I said sitting back down next to her.

She placed her hand over mine, "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about," I replied, "And I'll have strict words with him later. But for now, is there anything I can do?"

"Just stay with me...please?" she asked, "I don't want to be alone."

I nodded, "Of course."

We sat quietly as she finally ate her soup. I couldn't help but dwell on the shock of what she had said about Leo. How could he do this? Why would he do this?

"Your husband..." I began, "If you don't want to talk about it then don't worry but...who was he?"

"Achilles Drakos," she said, "He was a mercenary working for your mate, finding out the name of some leader. But he made the mistake of messing with him and lost his life for it."

Connor's name.

I swallowed, "And who are you?"

"I am nobody," she replied, "I had no idea werewolves existed or that my husband was anything other than a teacher until a few days ago when Leonardo and his friend, Luciano, abducted me as blackmail against Achilles."

She's innocent. She did nothing wrong.

"Luciano," I said gravely, "That's the friend he left you with."

She was suddenly quiet again.

I could hear Leo upstairs, talking to Cato and pacing around, probably still rocking him. The thought of him doing this still sickened me to the core.

"Leonardo forbade Luciano from touching me. But when you went into labour, he had to leave. Luciano disobeyed the orders and when the Alpha returned he suffered a lot of violence for it," She said, "If that's any consolation..."

"He dragged you into this in the first place," I replied, "Luciano is a vile, repulsive man but this is on Leonardo's conscience too...although I'm starting to doubt he has one." 

She was quiet again, "He does. Otherwise, why would he have brought me here to help, especially when he knew it would mean you'd find out."

I shook my head, "We will not excuse him," I said, "But we will be glad that he at least made one good decision," I added before noticing her soup bowl was already empty, "Would you like some more soup?"

I sat with Hestia for hours. Leonardo had come in briefly to inform us he'd tracked down Hestia's children. They were safe but with social services who he was now battling with to have them returned.

Hestia seemed relieved but quite rightly she didn't thank him and I soon sharply sent him back out of the room.

The next morning, I woke still in the living room next to Hestia with the TV still playing back to back 'Friends'.

It was already fairly late in the morning and I could hear Leo's footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Ella? Does Cato have a Doctor's appointment today?" he asked, being sure not to step through the doorway into the same room as us.

"Fuck," I cursed before looking at the clock, "It's in twenty minutes."

"I can get Blair back here to watch, Hestia," he said.

I looked over to Hestia who was now awake considerably due to Leo's appearance. I'd promised to stay with her and as I watched her pull her legs tightly into her chest, I knew I couldn't break that.

"No. I have to stay," I stated. "It is only a quick health check. You can go without me. And when you get back, we need to talk."

He nodded his eyes darting to Hestia, "But I'm not leaving you-"

"We'll be fine," I said firmly. "And now you only have 19 minutes to get there."

He paused for a moment in thought before sighing. 

"Lock the door behind us, call me if anything remotely worrying happens and the Praesidium Deae Astra is in the top drawer of the dresser in the hallway, okay?"

I nodded before turning my eyes away from him and leaving him to frantically get Cato ready.

Half an hour later, Hestia and I were already half an hour into a movie: the jungle book.

"This is my favourite part," Hestia said as the Baloo the bear began to sing 'the bare necessities'.

"I hands down know all the words to this," I announced seconds before the doorbell rang.

I sniffed the air to try and figure out who it was before they impatiently thumped the door with their fist.

"Leonardo!" Luciano's voice called. 

I quickly grabbed the remote and paused the TV as Hestia pulled herself back into ball formation.

"Don't worry," I reassured. "I'll get rid of him."

As I entered the hall and retrieved the Praesidium Deae Astra from the drawer and quickly sent Leo a text simply reading 'Luciano is here'  before cautiously creeping towards the door with the knife hidden behind my back.

"I can smell you, sweetheart...and the human girl. Open the door," Luciano demanded.

"Leonardo isn't here," I replied. 

"Oh darn. How inconvenient," He remarked sarcastically. "I said open the door," he repeated this time in a deeper tone.

With a firm grip on the knife, I slowly opened the door. Luciano was filling the door frame as tall and terrifying as ever. He looked down at me and smirked.

"You're fucking stupid, aren't you? Why the hell would you open the door?" he said attempting to step forward

"Go away, Luciano. If you want to see Leo, he will be back in half an hour," I hissed refusing to move aside.

"Move out of my way, babes," he ordered in a bored tone. 

"No."

"Move or I will throw all 110 pounds of you out of my way."

"You wouldn't dare to so much as to lay a finger on me," I tested. "That black eye and cut lip. Leonardo related I presume?"

His face hardened and his jaw clenched in the most terrifying manner. I put on my brave face and tried to listen to my own words. He wouldn't dare, right?

"You obviously haven't got to know me very well yet, lil cuz," he said, "I do not fear your mate."

"You are not coming in," I stated adamantly.

"Is someone in protective mode for the human girl?" he teased. "Don't worry. I only want to say hello."

"Do you want me to call the Alpha?" I questioned withdrawing my phone. "Maybe then you could ask him whether it's okay to 'say hello'."

Luciano lurched forward at lightning speed and snatched the phone out of my hand.

"You will not be calling anyone," he growled before pocketing my phone and heading further into the house.

I pulled the dagger out from behind my back and drove it towards him. Unfortunately, he caught my wrist in his strong hand whilst the tip of the knife was still 10 inches away from his cheek.

"You bitch," he snarled before clasping his huge hand around my neck and forcing the knife out of my hand. He flung it across so that it landed with a clunk in the corner of the hall.

"Never try anything like that again. Understand?"

I nodded officially scared and short of oxygen. He released my windpipe and I immediately brought my hand to my neck as he walked with confidence into the living room.

"Hello again, my love," he said as he laid eyes on Hestia.

He leant forward as if he was going to kiss her on the cheek.

"Do not touch her, Luciano," I interrupted still trying to catch my breath.

He paused and turned to me.

"Do I need to remind you again who is giving the orders around here?" He questioned.

"Do I need to remind you that I have a knife?" I responded before launching the Praesidium Deae Astra in his direction as hard as it could. He hadn't even seen me pick it back up off the floor and he certainly wasn't expecting me to try and cut him again.

He put his hand out to catch it and he didn't fail but the blade still slit his hand and the paralysing powers still jumped straight into action. 

He fell to the floor with a loud thud as I smiled complacently to my self. 

I just took down Luciano. Hell yeah.

"That's for being the world's biggest twat," I hissed as he lay completely motionless on the floor. 

Hestia looked at me totally shocked just before the front door swung open.

Leo marched into the living room with Cato still in his travel seat.

He had a worried expression on his face which then transformed to match Hestia's as he spotted  Luciano on the floor.

"I got your text," Leo said in disbelief, unable to take his eyes off the paralysed man.

"I handled it myself."

"I can see that," he replied, "...You took down Luciano?" 

"Evidently."

"Good fucking job," he said sounding pretty impressed. "But why is he here?"

"I guess you can ask him in 12 hours when the hocus pocus wears off," I replied as Leo picked Luciano up off the floor and began carrying him out of the kitchen and casually shoving him into the basement.

"Is...he dead?" Hestia asked quietly.

"As good as for precisely 12 hours."

When Leo came back from the basement he examined me closely.

"What's on your neck?" he asked staring at where Luciano choked me.

"Did he do this?" he snarled approaching me and moving the hair from my neck in order to get a better look at the mark that had obviously been left.

I nodded, "He grabbed my throat."

"He did what?!" Leo roared. "I am going to fucking kill him!"

At that point, Cato's screams filled the room. I quickly picked him up and tried to soothe him.

"He has left bruise all over your neck! Did he touch you anywhere else?!" 

"Can you stop shouting?" I asked. "You have woken Cato up."

"Did he touch you anywhere else?" Leo hissed slightly quieter.

"He grabbed my wrist and that is it," I said showing him my right wrist that had bruises forming around it.

"I will be back in a minute," he announced before going into the basement dragging Luciano out and then leaving the house again.

"That will probably be the last time you ever have to see Luciano," I said calmly.

"I sure hope so," Hestia replied. 

An hour later Leo returned.

"Do I want to know what you did?" I asked pausing the jungle book once again to get up and greet Leo in the hall.

"I'll spare you the details but basically he's currently paralysed, unconscious and bleeding a few miles of the border. He'll probably die but if by some miracle he survives then he better have the sense not to ever come back on my land. Hopefully, we will never know either way."

I nodded, "Why didn't you do that after what he did to Hestia?"

Leo swallowed, "I was hoping the multiple punches in the face and ribs I served him was enough to get the message across. But I was wrong."

"If it had been me in Hestia's place you would have murdered him on the spot," I said, "But I would never have ended up in Hestia's place. Because you never would have used me as blackmail, killed someone I love, chained me up without any food in a prison and left me to be raped."

Leo clenched his jaw.

"I made the mistake of thinking you'd changed but you haven't. You care about me but when it comes to anyone else, innocent or not, you don't give a shit."

He paused for a moment, looking straight into my eyes, "I don't blame you for thinking that, Ella. I thought it until a couple of days ago too. But unfortunately, it took me doing something evil and terrible to an innocent woman and the immense amount of guilt I now feel for it to realise that I am not who I used to be."

He maintained the honest eye contact, letting me see the whole truth as he stood, his lips slightly apart and his eyebrows angled slightly down.

"I'm sorry, Ella," he said, "I know you aren't going to forgive me and I'm not going to put my time and effort into justifying what I did. Instead, I'm going to focus on putting this right. You are entitled to be mad but please can we have this argument later? Right now I need to go the child protection centre and get Hestia's kids back."

He stood in the same spot, waiting for my answer as I processed what he had said, slightly taken aback.

"Yes of course," I said, "Go. Do what you need to do."