~Brielle
I have no idea how to react.
This isn’t my Alpha. This isn’t Ren. His gaze is too sharp, his expression too sinister. I can’t escape his grip until mercilessly, he pushes away, giving me space to breathe and think through what is happening. Something is up with Ren, whether it’s a night terror or another unexplainable
Recovering myself, I pretend I didn’t hear him claim I belong to him. “I’m going to get back and leave you to it.”
For once, Ren doesn’t look as if he wants to stop me. I watch him carefully, waiting for him to say anymore and intervene. When he doesn’t I smile at him tightly, trying not to seem as suspicious as I am. He watches me with a pointed gaze as I pass him, quickening my steps until he’s not in my line of sight.
Once I know he’s not following me, I rush back to the servants quarters. No one seems bothered that I’m at all flustered. Everyone has been all over the place considering ever since the Alpha’s have arrived, not a single person hasn’t been busy.
Most were sleeping when I collapsed into my bed.
My mind is racing, sifting through the conversation I just had with Ren. He didn’t recognize me, which might be pretentious of me, but after the previous conversations and situations we have been in together, I would assume he still knows me. Either it was a night terror, or maybe added stress from the Alpha’s visiting.
I hear Mabel stir from behind me. “Here I was thinking you would be out all night catering to those Alpha’s.”
Turning over on my side, I look at her. Knowing her reasons for coming to this island in the first place, I ensured she wouldn’t be on task to enter the Alpha’s rooms when they needed her. I can’t be sure she wouldn’t do something to ruin Ren’s event.
“Something weird happened.”
At the mention of this, Mabel immediately sits up, light from the small gas lamp slung up on the corner of the room setting a frightful glow across her features. Any gossip, in her realm, is gossip she has to be in on. As much as I would rather figure this out on my own, Mabel has been here longer, and knows substantially more than I do.
“I ran into Ren in the hallway a few minutes ago. Something about him was different,” I tell her, grasping on to each word, each look, each expression. “He didn’t remember my name, and he looked different...spoke different.”
Mabel frowns. “How so?”
“His voice was deeper, his eyes brighter. The way he talked to me was off, as if he was under some kind of spell,” I admit to her. “He even pinned me against the wall in some kind of...primal way.”
Mabel’s eyes are alight with excitement. “This is what I’ve been telling you. What I’ve been telling everyone. He’s not normal.”
“I don’t think this is much of a case of the transforming demon you tell tales about to scare the other girls. It was still Ren,” I tell her firmly, not ready to adhere to the idea that Ren is some kind of immortal being. He surely would have killed us all by now. “I just think something is wrong with him tonight. And I would like to find out more.”
“Well if you’re not about to believe my stories, then you might as well be logical,” Mabel mutters tiredly, disappointed I’m not joining in her theatrics.
I lean back on my pillow. “Your theory?”
“He was drunk. A sophisticated drunk.”
A frown flutters across my face. Did I see Ren drinking at the dinner table? They all seemed very much sober, having been drinking nothing but water, I had assumed. But could he possibly have been drunk? He seemed coherent and fully in his own head space. Whatever is off about him, that’s not it.
Mabel seems to notice my hesitation at her idea, and shrugs, falling back into her bed, bored with our conversation. “It’s up to you what you believe.”
As she turns over, her back to me, I watch her. Of all the ideas she has presented, I cannot assume one is truer than the other. Whatever is going on in relation to Ren, I will have to keep my suspicions to myself. I cannot just ask him…
Which means I may never find out Ren’s secret.
***
I woke up before dawn cracked.
There’s too much to do then stay in bed. After checking on the kitchen staff, the laundry and the house keepers, I could finally slow my step down to something vaguely normal. With a mind too consumed in my work, Ren fell to the back of my mind, becoming nothing more than a slight annoyance I would have to address later.
It seemed the perfect distraction greeted me the next morning in the guest kitchen. A kitchen on the ground level that allowed for guests to wander in and out of as they see fit.
An Alpha, snacking on a piece of fruit.
Each Alpha seems strikingly different, which leaves me with no confusion when my gaze meets with Noah, the Alpha of Harmony. What he is doing up so early, in just a loose white tunic and pants, eating an apple as green as his eyes, I’m not sure.
Without a word spoken, I turn on my heels. My aim, to slip out unnoticed, not willing to be emerge anymore into their lives.
“Excuse me?”
Sighing deeply, I turn around, painting a friendly smile across my face. Ren was angered yesterday when I talked to an Alpha. In the dining room, he was tense when I spilt water on Noah’s lap. So speaking to them, despite very much being my job, makes me beyond anxious.
“How may I help you?” I ask politely, hoping he will give me a simple request that I can do before anyone else wakes.
“I’m not sure if you’re able to help with this, but this tap is leaking,” he notes, motioning toward the kitchen sink. Not exactly in my expertise, but I should at least investigate before calling for someone’s help. “I thought I should alert someone.
Taking a bite from his apple, Noah watches me approach.
He has a gaze like Ren’s left eye. That pure emerald green. His are warm though, pale and welcoming like the embrace of a coming summer. I heard his Pack is rather splendid. It’s one I plan to visit some day, when I get freedom. In his Pack, I doubt there are many that spill water across his lap, though.
“How long have you been working here?” Noah asks after swallowing a bite of his apple. Are all Alpha’s this insatiable curiosity?
I shrug. “Not long. A few weeks.”
My fingers work the stubborn tapping, waiting for the persistent dripping of the water to stop. In those few weeks, I haven’t learnt how to stop a leaky tap. This one doesn't seem to be giving me any mercy.
“Only a few weeks and you have such a high end job here?” Noah says, honestly surprised. “We did speculate that he has an eye for you. What appendage of Ren’s did you have to fondle to achieve that?”
I whirl around, wiping my hands on a dishcloth. “I did not such thing.”
Noah holds his hands up in a mocking defense while I scowl at him. Perhaps it’s improper of me to show such emotion in front of an Alpha, but with callous speech like that, I’m offered no choice. He seems to not be taking it so seriously, that smile upon his face pure amusement.
“You seem effortlessly proficient in your work,” Noah compliments, calming down his slight chuckle to a rather assured stance. “I have no doubt he gave you this job for a reason.”
Turning back to my work, he takes another bite of my apple.
Typical of me, I can’t help myself, as I turn back around. “I know this is extremely inappropriate of me to ask, but would you be able to tell me if an encounter with Alpha Ren that I had last night was anything out of the ordinary? I assume you know him quite well, since you have both spent many years in power.”
Ren raises a dark eyebrow, leaning against the counter as he motions for me to speak.
“I was tending to Alpha Isaiah last night. Strictly getting him the water he requested. When I stepped out, Ren saw me, and I believe he took it the wrong way. Next thing I knew he was speaking strangely, forgot my name and had me pinned against a wall,” I explain to him.
Noah startles for a moment, looking oddly uncomfortable. The smiling Alpha is gone, replaced by something taken aback from my statement. And not from surprise. He’s hiding something.
He clears his throats. “Ren is a strange man. His social skills are not as eloquent as others. Hell, he spends all his time locked up in this place.”
As much as what he is telling me makes sense, I can’t accept it. Noah quickly puts his apple core down, and approaches me. I still as he lightly grabs my arm, his eyes enough to keep me locked in my spot.
“I wouldn’t take it personally,” he says deeply. “And I wouldn’t look into it. For your sake.”