The Alpha's Blind Fate
Chapter 179: I Am What He Needs

Chapter 179: I Am What He Needs

ZINA

He grinned like he found the entire situation funny, "Fine. I shall stop here now lest I break all his bones before he even meets his match in the tournament."

No one word could fully encapsulate what Daemon was like. He was like the predator who was circling another predator, and something about the way he moved so lethally while breaking both Yaren’s bones and soul could only be described as Controlled Violence. And that fact only served to make Zina even more uncomfortable.

They shouldn’t be fighting.

That wasn’t fighting. No, Daemon shouldn’t be beating the shit out of his brother.

But she said nothing, knowing that this was certainly not a matter for her to interfere with.

Yaren staggered up on unsteady legs and his swollen eyes flitted from Daemon to her, and the look in them rooted her in place. The usual fiery hatred that she was used to receiving from him was no longer there. In its place was a dark hollow look that was even more menacing than the fiery flames of his hatred itself.

It was like the look Zina imagined a skeleton would give off if it died on battle with blood rage coursing through his blood... if that made any sense.

Then he was dragging his feet away from the room, battered body and all, until he completely disappeared from Daemon’s office.

Zina seemed to remember something, and without a word to the two that remained in the room, she bolted after Yaren.

She was well aware that no matter the display that Daemon had put on that night, if Zina were to truly hold the man’s heart whole, then Yaren had to be on her side. Family meant so much to Daemon even if he wasn’t vocal about it, and that hard fact wasn’t going to change just because of her.

"Yaren." She called him, breathing a little for having to chase him down the corridor. Despite being wounded, the man moved incredibly fast.

Yaren halted, and then turned to her. The wall oil lamps that lit the corridors were just enough to show his battered state without giving them out any more details. Zina had hardly ever been in the man’s presence without Daemon or Marcus present so right then before him, she felt like she had been put on a stage with rabid watchers.

"Enjoyed the show?" He taunted, but otherwise he made no move to address her anymore than that. Zina wanted to disappear then and there. It was comical maybe, but she found Yaren to be even more terrifying than Daemon and that fact had nothing to do with the fact that she and Daemon were now acquainted.

Forcing her hands to her sides, Zina faced the man squarely. "What can I do to make you hate me less?" she asked in a voice that came out like a half squeak and certainly didn’t sound half as nice as she had envisioned it would in her head.

She cringed, while Yaren casually swept his eyes over her like any would do an errant insect.

"Tell me then? What do you feel for Daemon? What could you possibly offer him and his ambitions?" He asked, drawing his question like he was waiting for Zina’s failure in answering them.

She wanted to say she liked Daemon, but that expression felt mighty low in the face of what Yaren felt for his brother. Damn it, but no matter how she looked at it, she didn’t know if she would ever measure up to such visceral loyalty they shared. And that was exactly what Yaren was setting her up for; to show her just how much she paled in usefulness when compared to him.

She couldn’t even say she held Daemon’s heart. As it was, their mate bond had done a mighty lot and she couldn’t ask for more.

But she aspired to the role that Yaren played; not to replace him—because he was truly irreplaceable—but to be more than just a woman to Daemon. To truly be his all in all areas more than just in matters of the heart. It was a dream that she truly wanted to achieve with everything in her.

Yaren chuckled in the face of her non answer causing Zina to clench her fists by her sides in shame? Despondence?

"I do not hate you." He said, the abrupt, unexpected confession causing her to release her clenched fists instinctively. "Maybe I once did, but I no longer do so. How could I possibly hate the woman he wants to marry? But know it that I don’t think you’re what he needs. Therefore, I will protect him against you."

"I am what he needs!" Zina screamed before she could stop herself, "I will prove to you that I will remain an indispensable asset to him!"

"If you really cared for his interests, then you wouldn’t be marrying him."

"What?"

How did Daemon’s interest conflict with marrying her?

"Politically, Daemon’s wife is supposed to be someone from a powerful Pack. Someone that can help his influence and standing in the North grow. Someone that can help him realize his ambitions."

That talk of Daemon’s ambitions again. What ambition of his was she unaware of? To take over the world?

Zina was doused in invisible cold water, and she could only stare at the man that was spewing hard truths...truths she didn’t want to accept.

In one sentence, Yaren had all but thrown it to her that she had nothing to offer to Daemon. Not only was she rootless, but her influence could only do so much. In fact, after his coronation, even if Zina remained Theta, there was nothing more he could offer to Daemon. No, her role in their deal ended with Zina making sure he took over the throne of the Arctic North. Beyond that, what more could she possibly offer?

Zina would have loved to pretend like a selfless woman and say that she cared nothing about ebbing Daemon’s Luna. But the mere imagination of some woman from a powerful house standing by Daemon’s side as his true and legal wife unleashed a violent part of her she never knew existed.

In her imagination, she stabbed the woman first in the eyes, and then proceeded to slowly maim her.

Selfless? She was far from being one.

"I am what he needs." She muttered in a low voice in an attempt to convince herself of the intended meaning. But the words sounded more like a question to her hearing.

"Goodluck with convincing yourself on that."

And with that, he was walking away, leaving Zina’s mind working overdrive.

At least Yaren didn’t hate her, he simply thought she was not what his older brother needed.

There was still hope. She would prove to Yaren that she could be more than just a woman to Daemon; she would prove to him that she could aid his ambitions as well. But how could she possibly do that? Daemon had already revealed to her that she was from a pack that had been executed and marked as the Damned. As far as rootlessness went, she took the lead.

She had no powerful family to offer him, she had no powerful backing to give him, so what could she do?

"Become more powerful." A decadent voice whispered in her head in a sultry drawl. The voice didn’t belong to her wolf, nor did it belong to herself. But that was not the first time she heard the voice. In the times she was at her most pitiful lowest, she heard it. She had even gone as far as to dub it the ’the temptress’.

She normally wouldn’t listen to the temptress’s advice, but an idea rooted its place in her head, prompted by the words.

With that idea in mind, she walked back to Daemon’s office while determination and something far sinister churned within her.