The Alpha's Omega Mate-Chapter 168: Three males.

~Dahlia’s POV~

The silence in the room weighed more than a hundred dead cattle. It settled above us all like a cloak made from the finest of quilted wool, suffocating me.

But what was worse was the look on Elodie’s face. The shock. The pain. The betrayal.

She glared at me as if just seeing me for the first time, and even though I didn’t know her so much, that look in her eyes seemed to hurt me intensely. It was so much that I could barely breathe.

My eyes snagged to Kai’s who still seemed as though in a daze, and with trembling lips, I muttered the only thing I could. "Stop him."

At first, he was stunned into silence— into stillness if I may add— and then he turned to face the guard by the door, his voice tight and cold as he commanded; "Stop him."

Elodie froze. "Why?"

But I was too tired to speak. Too embarrassed to face her. Too lost in this small world now drawn around myself to make a sound. My eyes rolled to the back of my head and I crumpled to the floor but because I had been expecting to hit the ground, I was shocked when I fell into something warm instead.

It felt good here. Warm... soft.

My wolf purred in my mind, pushing against the barrier of my body to snuggle against the warmth. One that should only belong to my mat—

My eyes flew open. "Kai?" I croaked out, my throat suddenly dry. "Please put me down."

He did as told, immediately dropping me into a chair just as the door flung open and a wild angry looking Orion stormed into the room. His eyes landed infinitesimally on me, and in that moment, my breath hitched in my chest.

He bellowed; "Why?"

My throat worked. No words came out.

"Why did you ask the guards to bring me back here?!" He seethed, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that he wasn’t talking to me. His eyes were on me but his words were directed at Kai.

He snarled; "I may have wronged you, but you wronged me too."

Now, that seemed to throw Kai off guard. He strolled predatorily towards Orion and when Elodie noticed the rift that was soon about to occur, she immediately rushed to stand between them, acting as a human shield for Orion.

"Both of you, get yourself together!" She snarled, and then to me, she spat; "Now, you start talking!"

The way her eyes flashed at me made the blood running through my veins pause. My pulse quickened, my heart accelerating as my brain went on overdrive, sputtering things that I hated to hear.

She hates you.

She hates you!

She hates you now, you slut! 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

My lips trembled, tears streamed down my face. But despite everything, despite the rage in their eyes and the tension in the air as thick as a woman’s derrière, I still managed to hold Orion’s gaze, and then I whispered;

"Don’t tell him."

Orion froze before he heard the words. His nostrils flailed, his dark eyes as deep as a pit. He roared; "YOU! That’s all you have to say? I shouldn’t tell him?" Why?"

"Because I don’t want to—"

"You don’t want to be taken away from your lover boy here, right?!" He seethed now, his eyes darkening with a kind of rage and hatred that I’ve never seen on him before.

"No, it’s not that!" I screamed. "I didn’t even want to be here in the first place!"

"Oh spare me, Dahlia!" Orion snarled, "...spare me the theatrics! Does he know that you’re bought? That you’re Zarek’s property? I bet he doesn’t..." he trailed off, then stopped dramatically, his eyes widening as he slapped his hands over his chest, "oops now, he does. And now that he knows, he’ll have to follow the normal werewolf laws... he’ll have to return you to your master!"

My breath caught. I gasped. "Please. Please no. Zarek must not find out. He must never discover that I am here."

"Why?" This time, it was Elodie who asked and I didn’t even bother to turn to her as I answered;

"Because it’s not safe for me there—"

"Because he’s her mate."

I and Orion spoke in unison, our words different, but each of them holding immense weight. So much weight that we all felt crushed under it.

A stifling silence settled between us, but in it, I didn’t miss the way Elodie’s face went chalk white, or the way Kai turned to me as if seeing me for the first time, or the way Orion paused, a befuddled expression on his face.

And at once, they all asked; "What?!"

The betrayal in Kai’s eyes was enough to have me panting for air. He struggled to stand but then decided to sit moments later, but on a chair furthest away from me.

"What?" Elodie’s quiet gasp rolled through the still air now. "You’re Zarek’s mate?"

"And my mate?" Kai asked, but this time, I couldn’t bring myself to look at them. I couldn’t bring myself to respond.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I dropped my head; my heart racing at a million miles per second— or beats as the case may be.

Now, it was Orion’s turn to look puzzled, he whispered; "How’s that possible?!"

But I didn’t know either, so I shrugged. "I don’t know. I don’t understand it too."

"Zarek needs to find out. He needs to be here. To know that the woman he’s been scouring the earth for is right under his nose... in a neighboring pack, whilst he’s been looking in all the wrong places."

Suddenly, he stopped talking to eye me, then Kai. He spat; "You bastard!"

Kai dazed, flinched as if he’d been struck. He snorted; "what now?"

"She was here when I came to look for her and you hid her!"

"She wasn’t!" Kai snapped, "I went to look for her after you came to me. And I found her almost dead in a cave!"

That seemed to shut Orion up, but suddenly his eyes lit up again. "She was here three days ago when I came after hearing about Elodie’s recovery! You still hid her!"

This time, Kai didn’t argue. He didn’t say a word. He looked defeated. It was Elodie who spoke up now, and when she looked at me, I saw a flash of something akin to hatred in her eyes.

Her cold red eyes raked my body slowly, stopping to stare straight into my eyes, and then she drawled; "Kai didn’t hide her... That’s why you ran off didn’t you, Dahlia? You knew that it was Orion... my Orion, and then you took your daughter and hid."

I gulped.

"Tell me, what the fuck is going on between you and all these males, including Zarek!"