Ambition is a big word.
Ethan had ambition, his father Alex had ambition, the current Grace had ambition, and Aldrich in the distance had ambition too. The only exception seemed to be Maggie, now expecting twins. She appeared serene, yet stirred up conflicts among countless people.
It was the first time Ethan had heard someone describe him as having ambition. He wanted to refute it but kept the words to himself. Because Grace had hit the nail on the head. He wasn’t striving to become a leader; he was striving to be recognized as one. Leadership didn’t come from pure bloodlines; it came from the people’s choice, their admiration. He didn’t care about how the masses saw him, nor did he intend to improve their lives or resolve land disputes once in power. He only wanted the power to mend the scars he had endured. Perhaps fundamentally, he wasn’t cut out for this.
“You think that once you become the leader of the North, they will adore you? Can you truly win their hearts?” Grace’s eyes acted as mirrors, reflecting all his shortcomings.
Ethan suddenly felt fear. What was he afraid of? Was it the fear of Grace seeing him in a worse light, or was it the fear of his own wayward desires? This was not the time to get tangled up in such trivial matters. He roughly pulled Grace up from the ground, reverting to his usual cruel and arrogant demeanor. “I know that competition might not yield the best outcome, but if you give up the fight, doesn’t it mean you’ll never achieve any result?”
Grace staggered for a moment, feeling like she had wasted her momentary softness. She shouldn’t entertain any notion, even a tiny fraction, of wanting to crack open the jerk’s shell and see if his heart was similarly tender. After all, sympathizing with the enemy would only bring greater disaster to herself.
“Even if you bring me to the Council of Elders, you’ll never beat Aldrich!” she sneered at Ethan.
Ethan shrugged, “Who knows.” They continued on their way toward the council.
Aldrich couldn’t predict the situation on the other side, as there were more pressing matters right in front of him, and that was talking to Alisa. Alisa had also recognized him, realizing it wasn’t the irritating Marvin but Aldrich. Although she couldn’t say there was much difference between the two, at least Aldrich understood human language, making him marginally more intelligent. The thought of Marvin made her involuntarily curl her lips.
“Surprising to see the busy Aldrich alpha coming to visit me in person,” her voice lacked much inflection. “Are you here to settle a score?”
“No,” Aldrich sat at the bedside, “I want to talk with you.”
Alisa wasn’t buying into it. “Our pitiful, inferior human race doesn’t deserve to converse with the supreme alphas of your wolf world.”
It was evident that the annoying woman before him also held stereotypical biases against the world of the werewolves.
“I know you have many grievances against me, and truthfully, I have some against you as well,” Aldrich admitted. “But it’s undeniable that Maggie is now carrying my child, and we’ve made a pact not to separate from our child. Therefore, coexistence is our only option. You’re Maggie’s sole family, so I want to attempt peaceful coexistence with you.”
Alisa’s beautiful brows furrowed. “Coexistence? You say it so lightly. How can humans peacefully coexist with werewolves? If such a thing has happened, Maggie and I wouldn’t have been in the dark about the existence of werewolves in our world!”
Aldrich almost blurted out the question of whether it was possible that the slow pace of human technological development and not just werewolves but vampires and witches, too, existed. But it seemed that this remark wouldn’t alleviate Alisa’s anger, so he decided to go along with her words.
“I understand your anger, but just like human society didn’t change overnight, werewolf society also needs time to rectify its mistakes, right?” The statement was accurate, and Alisa was momentarily speechless.
“The nature of werewolves is that of beasts, just like humans, except wolves are more aggressive than monkeys. But we’re all evolved beings, shaped by nature and the survival of the fittest. What I want to tell you is that just as there are terrible humans, there can be the same among werewolves. You lack an understanding of werewolves.”
Alisa’s gaze was no longer as aggressive, though it remained skeptical. “So, you came this time just to educate me about werewolves?”
“No, I wanted to talk with you about Maggie. It’s like, the Maggie in my eyes versus the Maggie in your eyes-what’s the difference?”
Different perceptions of Maggie? Alisa thought, that was indeed a good question. Maggie was her treasure. Her little sister, the child she had protected for so long. She always had trouble realizing that Maggie was gradually growing up. She was no longer the frightened child who used to hide behind her and cry softly. She had her own thoughts now and wouldn’t change for anyone, not for her, nor for Aldrich.
“She used to cry a lot when she was little and didn’t talk much. She felt insecure. Whether in the orphanage or at school, she was always the one who got bullied the most. I was a bit older than her at the time and had been sent to the orphanage because of a family accident. Before that, I had a younger sister. So, I treated her like a real sister and protected her. She’s my only family.”
Aldrich tried to bring up the topic of their adoptive family. “I heard you were adopted later on?”
Alisa’s head tilted slightly, and she stared directly at Aldrich. “Did she tell you that, or did you secretly investigate her past without her permission?”
Aldrich felt that Alisa’s hostility toward him was disproportionately intense, even considering their status as the only family Maggie had.
“She tried to come find you before and was stopped by Thomas. She said some nice things to get in. She mentioned you’ve always been good to her, and being adopted by you was her only source of emotional support. If your adoptive family had been fine, she probably wouldn’t have said that.”
That period of memory was a black nightmare for either sister, one without any other colors. Leaving the adoptive family, she had to take sleeping pills for half a year to avoid waking up in the wee hours. The boys in her dreams had absolute power; she couldn’t break free or call for help. The once enviable mansion had become a gigantic cage. She was like a bird with broken wings, subject to brutalization.
He first just put his hand inside her dress, and then the hand began to touch other parts of her body — her shoulder, her belly button, her breastbone — and she always swallowed it, all for the $20 allowance she could save up for when Maggie got to high school and bought her a nice dress to wear to prom.
However, she could not wait until Maggie went to high school. The boy was no longer satisfied with her, and his eyes began to turn to Maggie who was developing and gradually becoming plump. His eyes were like a snake’s snake. Alisa was terrified that one day the boy would do to Maggie what he had done to her.
Only Maggie, she thought. Only Maggie can’t go through this.
She would rather be whipped, slapped in the face, kneeling in the narrow toilet to be violated. All her humiliation is for that Maggie would grow up healthy.
All she had was Maggie. No matter what, she had to get Maggie out of this hell.