Imprinting On Her Soul

AFTER 12 YEARS

"AEREZA…..where are you? Grandma, have you seen Aereza?" 

"No, I haven't," she sighed, hearing her grandmother Wren, who was pouring some green colour liquid into a tiny glass bottle.

"What happened, Ivory?" She heard her grandmother asking her. The 18 year old Ivory heaved a sigh.

"I have made her favourite crispy potato balls and they are getting cold now but this girl is nowhere to be found," 

She witnessed her grandmother chuckling at her words. Her grandmother capped that glass bottle and placed it on the wooden rack where other glass bottles were. 

"I am sure, she might be collecting those colourful stones in the backside of our house with her friends," 

"No, grandma. I had gone to that place but she was not there," Ivory uttered, making her grandmother confused.

"Then where is Aereza?" 

"I am here, grandma," Both the women turned their heads and looked at the door and there that little figure was standing. Both Wren and Ivory's gaze enlarged by witnessing that 11 year old little girl's state. Her tiny face, her clothes, her hazel hair…. everything was stained with mud. It looked like she had taken a bath with the mud.

"Aereza, where were you? Did you get hurt somewhere?" Ivory cupped her face and scanned her entire body. An angry pout was settling in her baby pink lips. 

"I beat Colet today and threw him in that muddy water," Ivory's eyes widened more, hearing that little girl.

"But why, Aereza? Why did you fight with your friend?" The old woman asked. The youngest one's scowl deepened.

"He is not my friend anymore, grandma. He was making fun of you and Ivy's, so I beat him with a stick and with my hands. I pulled his hair too," the 11 years old kid sounded proud of her deed of beating her friend, who tried to insult his grandmother and sister Ivory.

"He was saying you and Ivy have begged to his parents and others for our food and clothes because we are very poor and one day, I will also have to beg to him, so I punched his mouth," 

Her words made both Wren and Ivory to sigh. They passed each other a glance. Yes, they had asked people for food and clothes because their financial state was really very unstable but they never let it reach that little girl, Aereza.

Exhaling a firm breath, Ivory wiped the mud on her face with the back of her sleeves.

"Aereza, we should not fight with our friends, princess," 

"But he is not my friend anymore, Ivy. He is bad. He insulted you and grandma," the little girl continued to frown because she loved her grandma and sister a lot. She could not let it slide if someone would try to insult them in any way.

"Okay, fine. Now come, grandma will help you in bathing and you know, after that, your Ivy will give you a surprise," 

Aereza's greyish silver eyes filled with excitement and happiness, hearing her grandmother. 

"Surprise?" She asked her sister Ivory. Ivory beamed at her reaction before squeezing her cheeks.

"Yes but for that you have to take a bath first, so now go and clean yourself fast," 

The little girl ran away from there in excitement. Both the women chuckled, witnessing her enthusiasm.

"Yummy, it is so tasty, Ivy," 

Ivory smiled hearing Aereza while feeding her those potato balls. 

"Okay now show your hand to your grandma, Aereza," Wren asked. She had noticed a tiny cut on Aereza's hand which she had gotten while fighting with her friend today. Aereza extended her hand to his grandmother. 

Pouring a little amount of that emerald colour liquid in her finger tips, Wren massaged it over Aereza's wound and it started fading automatically. A smile formed Aereza's face. She believed her grandma knew magic because she was a fairy for her but the truth was, Wren was a witch but she had never used her powers for unfair or selfish motives.

"Thank you, grandma," Aereza giggled while chewing on the potato balls. Ivory and Gwen laughed and that was how their life was with that 11 years old kid. Full of happiness, love and warmth.

"So she finally fell asleep?" 

Ivory nodded her head at her grandmother. They both looked towards the bed where she was peacefully sleeping. Ivory caressed Aereza's head with her palm tenderly before exhaling a heavy sigh.

"What happened?" Wren asked her granddaughter.

"I am just afraid of that day when she is going to find out the truth about herself, grandma," 

Ivory's answer saddened Wren's reaction too. She looked at Aereza's sleeping face.

"We will tell her about her truth before she would get to know about it from somewhere else because she has every right to know about it, Ivory," 

Ivory wagged her head at her grandmother. Both the women looked at Aereza's closed eyes who was living in that tiny hut when in reality, she belonged to a palace. She was wearing those torn clothes and was eating that basic food when the truth was, she deserved to live like a royal princess because she was a born princess. Princess Aereza Kensley…..the daughter of late Alpha Slade Kensley. The royal princess of The Silver Shade Pack.

Wren used to be very loyal to Alpha Slade and Luna Aria because they had helped her in her worst times. After Aereza turned one year old, their pack, Silver Shade, had gotten under attack by its rival pack because someone from their own pack had ratted Alpha Slade. The result turned out to be so disastrous that Luna Aria handed her one year old daughter to Wren as she could not trust anyone with her. She told her to take her daughter far away from the pack because at that point, everyone had understood that the Silver Shade Pack had lost and now the circumstances were going to be more treacherous for the royal family, so Aria sent her daughter away and chose to stay beside her mate in their worst.

Wren took Aereza away from that pack and left from their with her and her granddaughter, Ivory, who was her only family. After wandering around from pack to pack, she got a shelter in the Emerald Stone pack and from that day, Wren was living with her granddaughter Ivory and Aereza in the Emerald Stone pack but had never dared to reveal Aereza's real identity to anyone. She had cast a spell on Aereza so that nobody would ever suspect of her being a royal blood and for the little Aereza, she knew nothing about her parents or people, all she knew was that Wren was her grandmother and Ivory was her sister and her parents had died in a nature's havoc.

"She will get to know about the truth when the right time will come, Ivory," Wren said, covering Aereza's figure with the blanket. Ivory nodded and laid beside Aereza on the bed.

Wren spread a mat on the floor and laid down on it because they had a single bed to sleep and she had told her granddaughters to sleep on it because Wren loved her both granddaughters more than anything. Even though Aereza was not hers, she had never discriminated between her and Ivory. 

"Tomorrow in the morning, I have to go to the royal palace to meet Alpha Alanso to meet his daughter, princess Alexandria," Wren informed. Alpha Alanso was the alpha of the Emerald Stone Pack and he had called for Wren to check his daughter Alexandria as she was not feeling well for some days and Alpha Alanso knew that Wren was a very skilled and experienced witch.

Ivory hummed in response before hugging Aereza. The little girl immediately caged her back by wrapping her legs and arms around her. Ivory smiled and pecked her forehead and then went to sleep.

The next morning, Wren left to visit the royal family in the palace. Ivory was playing with Aereza outside their hut. They had some open area in the backside of their hut and Ivory used to play with her there most of the time.

Aereza was running while giggling whereas Ivory was trying to catch her. 

"Wait…I will catch you and then it will be your turn, Aereza," Ivory chuckled. Aereza tittered and showed Ivory her tongue. The girls continued to run and laugh. 

"Yeah .. I caught you…." Ivory finally caught Aereza. She whined in annoyance whereas Ivory teased her while showing her her tongue. Both the girls giggled until Ivory heard some unusual noises and screams of their neighbours. 

"They are coming here again. Run and hide," Ivory's eyes widened in fear, hearing those words of their panicking neighbour. People started running here and there. Ivory understood everything. She heard the sound of horses' running and getting closer to them.

Grabbing Aereza's hand, she dragged her inside the hut and closed the door. She took her towards Wren's rack where her special potions were. Clutching a bottle from the rack, she handed it to Aereza.

"Drink it, Aereza," 

The little girl could not understand anything. She just knew that her sister was looking terrified of something but what.

"Please drink it now," Ivory begged her while tears gathered in her eyes. Aereza drank the blue colour liquid from that bottle and then Ivory's watery eyes watched Aereza's body fading. It was an invisibility potion which Wren had made for emergency situations like this. 

Aereza didn't even know she had become invisible. She watched her sister grabbing another tiny bottle of that same blue colour liquid. Ivory's hands were trembling in terror as was trying to uncapped that bottle. She had just opened it and was about to drink from it but before she could do that, the door of their hut bursted open.

Her teary eyes enlarged in pure horror witnessing those barbarian animals at their door. She tried to drink that potion but those men dashed towards and stopped her from drinking it.

"Leave me," Ivory shouted out of her lungs but a man snatched that bottle from her hand and then slapped her across her face hard. Ivory fell on the ground. 

Aereza's eyes filled with tears. She tried to stop those strange men from hurting her sister, who were looking like some kind of evil and bad monsters to her, but Aereza couldn't even just touch them, let alone stop them.

"Leave me….. leave me," she watched and heard her sister crying and screaming as those men stepped closer to her. Aereza witnessed them laughing evilly at her sister before they tore her sister's clothes out of her body which made Ivory to scream more loudly.

Aereza yelled too. The little girl broke down into tears and tried to push that man away from her sister who had just hovered over Ivory's naked body, but she was not capable of doing anything. Aereza didn't even know what those evil men were trying to do with her sister. All she could understand was they were hurting her sister really badly and it was making her cry and scream in pain. 

Aereza witnessed her sister begging those men to stop from doing that bad thing to her but one by one, they all continued to hurt her. Aereza's body stiffened in terror as she watched her sister writhing, crying and sobbing in pain at what those monstrous men were doing to her sister and finally, she found those men stopping and pulling upward their trousers only after her screaming sister went completely silent.

Aereza watched those men leaving from their hut which made her dash towards her sister. Aereza tried to touch her sister, to wake her up but nothing happened. Her watery eyes roamed all over her sister's naked body which had countless teeth marks of those monsters, bruises and she was even bleeding. 

"Ivy …Ivy…..wake up…. please…"little Aereza begged to her lifeless sister because she didn't understand at that moment that those monsters had killed her sister with that brutality they had done with her.

"Ivy ……please….." Aereza whimpered while trying to shake her sister and she felt like she could finally touch her. The effect of invisibility potion finally ended and Aereza came back to her visible human form.

She shook her sister's shoulders but she didn't wake up anymore. The neighbours and guards gathered into their house.

"Ivory…" Aereza heard her grandma screaming. Wren broke down into tears before her granddaughter's dead body. She clutched her and pulled her in her arms. Someone informed the royal family that their pack had gotten under attack and Wren was there. She immediately left to protect her granddaughters but when she reached home, it had turned too late. 

"IVORY…." Wren sobbed loudly while hugging her lifeless granddaughter as tightly as possible. Aereza just silently shedded her tears while holding her Ivy's hand, hoping she would wake up soon but she didn't know that her Ivy was never going to wake up ever again.

"Who were they?" Little Aereza heard a guard asking another guard.

"They were the members of the Blood Night Pack and their new Alpha, Darren Venzor, had sent them here to attack us," those words and that name got imprinted on that 11 year old Aereza's soul ... .DARREN VENZOR…. The person because of whom her sister had to endure so much pain…..