The Alpha's Omega Mate-Chapter 39: Secrets.

~Dahlia POV~

It’s been several days since I was declared fully healed enough to return to the pack, and while most of the other servants have now become more vile towards me, Madame Berlin has been the absolute worst.

She detested me. And maybe that was an understatement.

Recently, I found out that she’s related to Ms Jennifer in a way and now, I cannot say if wickedness was just a part of their genes or if there was something I was doing absolutely wrong that they could not look past.

My hands trembled as I scrubbed the Alpha’s plush rug for the hundredth time today—not because it was too dirty but because Madame Berlin keeps complaining that it isn’t neat enough—and at this point, I could not ascertain if I was indeed scrubbing it clean or giving myself a brutal manicure.

"Slave!" Madame Berlin’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I rolled my eyes at the name she’d referred to me as, knowing fully well that she wasn’t all that better than I was.

Walking like the devil was hot on her tails, she stomped over, her eyes glazing with fury as she snapped; "Didn’t you hear me calling you earlier?"

I shook my head. "I’m sorry Ms, I didn’t hear my name."

"I said Slave!" She spat, and I mean that in a literal sense as some of her spittle landed on my face and chest.

I winced. "I didn’t know you were referring to me, seeing as there are so many slaves around here... even you. You just oversee us."

And as soon as I said that, she gasped— mainly from rage rather than surprise. A faint red color that almost matched her dress tainted her face and ears, and her eyes thinned into glaring slits. I could swear on my life that I have never seen someone so angry before and heard her curse expletives in a language that was so distinct I could barely make sense of it before the slap reached my face.

For the first time in my life, I felt nothing after being hit. Nothing at all as I simply stared blankly at her. Maybe it was the sun beating down on me for the past four hours or this overly clean rug she keeps insisting I make cleaner, but I felt nothing at all. I was numb.

"You’ve begun to grow wings, and trust me, pretty Omega, I’ll help you clip them off soon, you just wait!"

Silence.

"Your services are needed in the house!" She snarled, "Ms Jennifer needs you to make her your usual coffee, she also wants you to tidy up her chamber."

At first, after hearing this, I wanted to retort by saying that besides other domestic chores around the house, I was only assigned to work at the Alpha’s chambers and no one else’s until I remembered the Alpha’s decree the day I was sentenced... and how Beta Orion had blatantly refused to take me in too. I swallowed back my words and nodded as a feeling akin to dread settled at the base of my stomach.

Ms Jennifer...

"Okay, I’ll go as soon as I’m done with this..."

"You’ve been on that rug for hours, wench!" She snapped, interrupting me, "...she cannot wait that long, moreover it is clean enough!"

-as if it hasn’t been clean enough wayyy before now.

She let out a few more expletives before snatching the rug out of my hands and pushing me in the direction of the house, getting my dress wet in the process.

I was mad at that—usually, but I made no comment as most of my focus now was on the fact that I was about to go to Ms Jennifer of all people.

My heart raced in my chest as I made my way into the house and to her wing, and by the time I arrived at the front of her chamber, my hands were already wet—not from the water earlier, but from sweat— I was sweaty and my dress clung to my body in weird places.

I knocked twice before going in and almost toppled over when I saw her sprawled on the bed, stark naked with nothing but several golden accessories draped here and there on her body and one of the Alpha’s robes by the corner of the now rumpled bed. I immediately looked away.

He had been here not so long ago... I could still smell him; and they’d done it together. However, what I wondered was why Ms Jennifer had ensured I was the one to clean their mess up, and why for some reason she doesn’t seem satisfied that I had not given her the reaction she wanted.

As soon as she glanced at me, her eyes twinkled with mischief and she slowly rose to a sitting position with her eyes still fixated on me.

"You asked me to come prepare you a cup of coffee." I said politely, "can I now?"

"Oh no wait! While I’ve been meaning to have a taste of your so famous coffee that Orion wouldn’t stop yapping about, I want you to draw me a bath first." She rushed out. Something about her sweet soft voice unsettled me as she’s never been like this around me before.

With trembling legs, I went over to start preparing her bath and only stopped when she called out to me again; "I love it nice, warm and bubbly; and there are a few essential oils lining the cupboard close to you. Take a pick!"

Again, I hurried to do just as told and by the time I was done, I spun around only to gasp in shock when I found her already behind me, waiting as she watched me prepare her bath.

I bowed. "I’m done with it. What else do you need me to do before I prepare your cup of coffee?"

"And who says I want to drink anything that’s made by some filthy tramp?!" She sneered and I gulped as I instinctively took a step back. She followed. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"But I- I thought you wanted—"

"I wanted what?" She snarled, stopping to laugh so loud and so eerily that the hairs on my body stood on end. "You think I called you here because I wanted some stupid cup of coffee... Or because I needed to bathe? I have people who do that and they’re definitely not you!"

While she spoke, she stalked even closer, and I responded by moving backward until... splash!... I screamed as I fell into the bathtub, my limbs strewn in all the wrong places.

Ms Jennifer didn’t react. She didn’t even seem angry that I had ’tainted’ her bathtub with my ’filthy body’ as she would put it. And it wasn’t until then that I realized that this was preplanned. She’d wanted this but why?

I see no sense in all of these.

"Now that I have you exactly where I want you, I’d like us to have some real conversations." She drawled, pushing out a chair to sit by the bathtub while I, on the other hand, was too stunned to move nor speak. I couldn’t even nod as I was unsure of what to do at the moment or why she would go to these lengths just to talk to me.

"Get your daughter away from my Zarek."

My eyes widened. I sputtered; "W-what?"

"I do not want to repeat myself. And I do not want to continue seeing your lowly tramp parading around the pack house and clinging onto Zarek just like her mother used to do."

"She’s just a kid!"

"And I know, don’t I?!" She growled. The way she advanced toward me menacingly made me shrink into myself and I let out an exhale when she stopped only to plop back into her chair.

"I know she’s a kid, and I know her actions may seem harmless to all of you, but I do not want it. I don’t like ’harmless’ kids flocking themselves around my Zarek. One is enough but two? I cannot handle two!" She snapped and I could only watch in horror as the vein by the side of her neck popped menacingly.

"Two?" I asked because for some reason, that was the only thing I’d heard. It was the only thing I could make out from all her ranting. Two kids... does she mean Tiffany?

Jennifer barked out a humorless laughter. One that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She stopped laughing eventually to rub off the tears in her eyes and when she turned to me, I shrunk further into myself because now, she looked scary. She looked dark... and every bit of the evil witch that Amara says she is.

"So he didn’t tell you?"

"Tell me what?" I asked back in confusion. "What did ’who’ not tell me?"

"Zarek has a child." She spat, sobbing, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes because I knew that already.

"You don’t look surprised." She suddenly pointed out but still I said nothing. It was none of my concern.

"Whatever my master does is none of my business." I answered indifferently, unsure as to where this conversation was headed.

"Oh, so it’s also not your business that this child we talk about has been living in this pack for the past one week? And that while your daughter jumps around pack meetings with him, his is in the guest house with his first love being treated like royals?"

Wait... what?

My eyes bulged.

Naturally, that should’ve been none of my concern. But for some reason, the news made my heart hurt so badly in my chest. It made unshed tears burn at the back of my eyelids and made me want to smash Ms Jennifer’s head in.

Breathing in shallow breaths to keep myself from finally losing it, I lifted my gaze to meet Ms Jennifer’s and then I whispered; "I didn’t know."

She smiled. "I knew you didn’t."