5. The Hidden pack

[Diana]

Mr Archer was completely opposite to what I had expected him to be. I thought he would be the prim and proper epitome of perfection, from his hair to his boots, but he was quite the opposite.

He had black bushy curly hair that cascaded his forehead, reaching his behind his square frames. He was wearing a turtleneck brown sweater tucked loosely in his umber brown trousers. Upon them he wore a peanut-colored rain trench coat.

His sharp jawline had stubbles, adding a shadowy touch to his sharp feature. His hooded eyes were just like Janus — mysterious, like a rainforest. 

He was thirty-eight, single, and I had started wondering what Janus’ father looked like because I bet their family had genes for looking effortlessly gorgeous even in rags.

He sat across the table, facing me in his personal teacher's chamber, which had vibes like that of a vintage library straight out of a fantasy novel.

His chamber had a blending scent of old books, parchment, ink, and musk. Golden jar candles lit the room dimly.

Janus didn’t even greet his uncle, just escorted me to his chamber and after surfing through Mr Archer’s special bookshelves with books covered in plain black jackets, he fetched a book and sat on the rocking chair by the window leafing through it.

I wondered how they differentiated between those books when they all looked the same.

Mr Archer offered me Da Hong Pao tea in a black and white tea and saucer set with a pattern of a skull entangled with rose vines and snakes in black.

I took a sip as its strong taste sprawled over my tongue.

“That is quite an accusation you are making, princess,” Mr Archer finally broke his five minutes of eerie silence. 

“It’s not an accusation, sir. It’s the truth,” I said.

“And what visible proof do you have?” He said elegantly, leaning against the back of the chair, taking a sip of his tea.

“My eyes and…” I looked at Janus, but I wondered if his uncle knew about his dead family. 

I didn’t want to believe he talked to ghosts, but that balustrade gave off an occult vibe. I couldn’t deny what I felt, strangely I felt safer around those ghosts than living people.

“Janus’ daydreaming doesn’t count,” Mr Archer said.

I had my answer. His uncle didn’t believe in his dead family.

“Sir…”

“You can call me Archer.”

“Yes, Mr Archer.”

“Archer,” he insisted.

I nodded, gaping at him. “Archer.”

“Better. Makes me feel less old,” he said with a soft smile, taking off his spectacles.

“I saw luna Willa bribe Mr Fin, the maths teacher of the Xenon academy to fabricate my results so that I can’t qualify to enter the academy,” I said, looking into his eyes. “I don’t know why she did it. Maybe she is concerned that I will be hurt in the academy. She thinks I am really weak…”

“Hmm.” He set his cup on his saucer and crossed his leg over the other. “Interesting. I don’t feel like you are lying, but without proof, I can’t do anything. By the way, why did you come to me? As far as I know… the princess was never social, rather cold to everyone, even to her father except her step-mother, Willa. What brought you to me? So much so that you had to bribe my hopeless nephew to arrange this meeting.”

I glared at Janus. Huh! He said he didn’t talk to people and here he was, spilling everything to his uncle.

“By the way, Janus didn’t say a word to me. I know him. He doesn’t help people until he is bribed heavily with things that fish his interest. That brings me back to my question. Why do you think I can help you when you don’t even know me?”

Uh-oh! Didn’t think of that.

I cleared my throat, thinking about what I should say. 

“Because I am the princess of this pack. Even though I don’t meet people, I know them… well. I don’t need to socialise to know them. My eyes are on everyone. I see their faces behind the masks they wear… all the time,” I said in a slow, calculative tone.

A chuckle rumbled through his chest, “yet you couldn’t see through your step-mother’s facade for sixteen years until your eyes were opened when you heard her talk to Fin in this academy.”

“Because some people don’t wear masks, they solder it with their soul. A mask so thick, it becomes their skin.”

I leaned forward, my hands on the table as I lowered my voice to hold the gravity.

“And such people… cannot be unmasked without tearing off their skin, behind which they are nothing but a mess of blood, muscles and bones.”

My past replayed in my mind when I said those words. I blinked back my tears and took another sip of my tea.

Archer lifted his brows and his thin lips curled up by a few inches. He turned silent again, his index and middle finger tapping the table beside his cup.

I kept peering at him with confidence when, in reality, my heart was bruising against my ribs.

He changed his sitting position. His elbow rested on the arm of his chair as his thumb scraped his bottom lip.

“There have been several other rumours about him leaking the question papers in the previous years, but he came out clean, so no actions were taken against him,” Archer said.

I didn’t know that.

“The checking of papers begins in a day,” he said.

“Yes,” I said calmly when nothing inside me was calm.

“Janus!” Archer called. “How was your maths paper?”

Janus had given the entrance exams, too.

Janus lifted his eyes off the book and glared at Archer through his eyebrows. “Don’t involve me.”

“How was your maths paper, kid? I want a straight answer,” Archer said, rubbing his temple.

Janus grumbles, “average.”

“Good,” Archer said. “What do you think your mother bribed Fin with?”

“Money, leverage and covering up his wrongdoing?” I said.

Archer gave a curt nod.

“Princess Diana, I will test Fin my way and if he comes out corrupt as you claim him to be… I’ll make sure his career as a teacher ends here. But if not… we’ll have a conversation with the alpha.”

A shudder ran through me when he mentioned my father, but I was right and I had nothing to fear. Maybe.

Archer told me to not get involved while he tested Fin, but I couldn’t stop the palpitation eating me up every second.

Did I do the right thing?

What if things don’t work? Should I have gone to Lyvia?

I grunted while practising for the combat tests. 

The physical test comprised medical examination, agility tests, strength tests, reflex tests and endurance tests. While the combat test was about the application of everything tested in the physical test with weapons in a duel with the students of the Knight academy.

The Knight academy was directly controlled by the gamma of our pack where children were prepared for military, police and knight duties. There was a system that helped a few bright students from the academies to reach out for ranks below beta.

Alpha and beta of our pack came from the royal families only. 

Like Reese was next in line to the rank of alpha and Janus was next in line to be the beta of our Hidden pack.

Our pack was isolated from the rest of the world, so no foreign influence had a say in our internal affairs. Our pack was never warm and welcoming to the outsiders. Invaders had only one fate — death, no exceptions to date in the history of the Xenon pack.

Although I always wondered why our ancestors felt the need to hide the territories of our pack behind huge invisibility barriers and why were outsiders not allowed to enter at any cost.

The pack members who went out for various works were strictly monitored both inside and outside and there were only a few people with permits to cross the borders.

The world knew about our pack, but they too pretended as if we didn’t exist until there was a political emergency that needed father’s attention or the championship that happened once in a decade.

After father’s death, Reese removed all invisibility barriers, and it caused severe unrest both inside and outside our pack. I was so caught up with their betrayal and my own life that I didn’t have time to care about what happened in the world around me.

I still did not know how those invisibility barriers worked, not that I could ask someone. Talking openly about those things was prohibited in our pack. No one dared break that rule if they loved their freedom and life.

“Hey, Sting!” 

His mother called me honey bee and her son recognised me with its worst trait.

Hearing that voice, I deliberately slashed my sword with full force as I turned back on my heel.

Reese used his sword to block my attack and parried. Skidding back, I got hold of my footing again.

He was a year younger than me, but his alpha genes were showing already. He was already taller than me. He took after my father in his charms, but his personality was highly influenced/manipulated by Willa.

“Practising for the combat test, huh?” He said in his usual obnoxious tone.

There was one thing about Reese that I liked — if he hated someone, he would make sure they knew it. He was young, so he hadn’t formed a mask on his skin yet, but it was only a matter of time.

“Yeah,” I said in a neutral tone.

“You will not pass it,” he said with a smug look on his face.

I lifted my brows.

“You are weak,” he said.

“That is something I’ll decide,” I said, and he narrowed his light shaded eyes.

“You complained to father,” he said. “Because of you… I’ve lost all my friends and my hand is still aching from copying those pack rules.”

“Stop whining. You ganged up on me. Don’t blame me,” I said.

He scoffed, “is it my fault you are weak? You’ll be beaten to dust there. You don’t stand a chance against those trained knights. You’ll come back crying like a pussycat. Try all you want, but I just can’t wait to see you fail…” he smirked.

I just looked into his eyes. “I can’t wait to see you win.”

I said, and he looked baffled. After a long pause and an awkward staring contest, he said.

“Did I hear you wrong?”

“No. You’re my younger brother, Reese. We are blood related and as your elder sister, I want to see you win. Also, because you are going to be the next alpha, so… if I lose I get sympathy because… I am a girl and weak as you said. But if you lose… it’d be a black spot on your reputation because an alpha cannot be a loser and a loser will never be an alpha. The pressure on you is a thousand times more than me. So, I’ll advise you to concentrate on building yourself rather than pulling down someone who is already at the rock bottom.”

Reese and my relationship in the past wasn’t good. Even after Willa’s constant efforts, we just didn’t fit together. But Reese had an outburst in the past before he threw me out of the pack, which made me realise how lonely and neglected he had been all this time.

Whatever nuisance he did was to gain father’s and his mother’s attention.

Father rarely spent time with him, and his mother was busy destroying my mind and life. He hated me for that very reason. 

Then when he enrolled in the academy, he was suddenly in the limelight, pressured from all directions and expected to be perfect instantly. With no proper guidance, he was overwhelmed and relied on his friends, who were basically snakes, who filled him with their poisonous mindset.

At least, in this life, those snakes were out of the picture of his life.

He stared at me. “Are you possessed or something?”

“What?”

“This is… not you,” he looked at me as if I was an alien. 

“No, Reese. ‘This’ is me,” I said.

Eyeing me, he went to train on the other side of the training grounds.

The old version of me would give anything to see him lose.

I was stupid.

But in this life I wasn’t going to lose.

I had to prove myself to myself and I had to win for myself.