Chapter 24 The Past

Ava's POV
Aaron began to talk about his past.
Yes, that's how my life ended. Everything was perfect and happy until one day, a man crept up behind me and everything was never the same again.
I may not have told you, no, I have not told anyone, what kind of life I had.
Deeply loving parents, a strong community, and a childhood without anything to worry about.
Maybe other kids at my age would have been taken to meetings and training by their parents, but not me.
I can do any thing I want to do, I can go wherever I want to go, and no one will do anything to persuade or educate me. Because my parents would not allow it.
They don't want to see anyone telling me what to do or interfering with any of the decisions I make.
Maybe if I say that, you'll think my parents are spoiled and irresponsible, but I'll tell you that's not the case.
Because while they were still alive, they did everything they could and should have done, for me.
My father has always been laissez-faire about my education, and maybe it's not the right thing to say, but he would only let me make my own choices.
One sunny afternoon when I was twelve years old, they called me around and they asked me, "Aaron, what are you going to do in the future?
I will always remember that day.
It made me feel for the first time, for the first time, that my eyes are for seeing, my ears are for listening, and that everything I do has meaning and value.
It showed me that I was a real and living being, just like them, just like everyone else.
It's important that I need to do some of the things I'm supposed to do, and have to do.
So what do I have to do?
"What kind of a man do you want to be?" My father, who was sitting across from me in a wide armchair, had two arms like the root strips of two ancient trees that seemed to be able to hold everything up. His eyes looked at me and asked this.
The sun shone down through the glass behind him, and when I looked up at him, I could barely make out his face, and I was only a little taller than his knees.
And my mother, who looked at me with a smile and encouraged me with her gaze, said nothing.
Although she did not say anything, but in the moment of looking at her, I seem to feel that she has said everything, my heart slowly has a very vague answer.
"I'm going to be the Alpha," I said.
"I'm going to be the Alpha of our wolf pack," I told them.
To my surprise, my father was not the least bit surprised when he heard this answer, while my mother turned her head away silently, as if she could not bear to look at me again.
In short, they both reacted in the exact opposite way, not at all like I thought they would.
After all, I always knew that my father wasn't that fond of me before.
He likes Tom, Tom Fergusson, the son of Beta of our wolf pack, four years older than me.
Four years old is enough to separate two children in every way. By the time I was born he could already run and jump and say many things to make the adults happy, by the time I was four he was sitting at the dinner table in a tie knot dress listening to comments about him, and by the time I was twelve he had been wrestling on the training field for four years.
I stood next to him only as high as his shoulders.
"You have to work hard if you want to be an Alpha." My father said so. "And the first thing you have to do now is to beat Tom, who will become your Beta."
He will be my Beta.
I looked at him in shock, wanting to know if he really knew exactly what kind of words he had said. But he nodded at me.
"Starting tomorrow, you need to stay at the training ground for fourteen hours."
Forgive me, I really just thought it was a terrible joke at the time.
Then in the evening at the dinner for the ninth anniversary of the establishment, he pushed me in front of everyone.
"He will be the Alpha of our wolf pack," was how he introduced me.
I felt my cheeks become hot.
That wasn't the end of it. He waved at Tom, who was laughing and raising his glass at the others at the table over there, in the middle of everyone, and called him over to me.
This is also a moment I will never forget.
Tom smiled and came over, his smile shining in the light, just like the countless times before when he took me for a swim in the river to steal a vodka, he smiled warmly, came over and took me by the shoulders.
"I knew this guy would be good looking when he was younger." Ava thought in her mind. "He's different from Aaron, Aaron's look is about inherited from his mother so he carries a softness in total, except that he usually always has a stern face that makes people overlook his looks. Tom, on the other hand, is a standard guy, and he's especially attractive when he smiles."
Aaron continued to speak as he immersed himself in his memories.
My father said. "And he, Tom Fergusson, he's going to be the best Beta ever."
Beta.
I saw Tom jerk his head around to look at me.
His smile gradually froze on his face, and finally disappeared completely, his eyes slowly became less bright, like a layer of mist, and there was only me inside.
I had no place to go under such a gaze.
Yes, that's how things work.
Until I was twelve, I followed Tom around, and I continued to run around when he went to training, without any slight intention of doing anything.
I followed him like a small animal following a big animal, and he led me to make friends and led me to everything.
Tom's fighting ability was as brave and powerful as his character. When he was fourteen, none of the wolf pack warriors of his age could already defeat him, and when he was sixteen, the entire pack was no match for him, except for my father, the Alpha at the time.
"I will be the Alpha," he told me the year of his sixteenth birthday. "I will protect you and protect everyone."
I am happy for him.
I was so happy and proud of him.
But on the third day after his birthday, my father asked me what you were going to do, what kind of man you were going to be, and I was looking at him, and he was so tall and strong, like a brother of mine.
And my mother looked at me like that.
I said. "I'm going to be Alpha."
I betrayed him.
I betrayed my brother.
I took from him all the glory that he could have had.
Yet he never blamed me. He helped me, helped me spend fourteen hours after fourteen hours in the training ground until the day I finally beat him, and he still smiled that big smile, patting me on the shoulder and complimenting me, just like he did when I was a kid.
Then took me to sneak into the wine cellar once again, and we got drunk together that day.
And when I woke up the next day, I was the only one in the wine cellar.
Tom left.
He really left, no one knows where he went, and I searched for him for a long, long time, many years.
I grew from a kid who just got wolves to an age where I needed to find mate.
Also on a sun filled afternoon, I met a female wolf, we had senses, I thought that was the connection between the mate, I took her back to our pack, so she became my mate.
It was also Adele's ninth birthday.
My parents reminded me at the time that she was of lowly omega blood, but at the time I didn't take it to heart, I didn't think it mattered.
But I didn't think there was another meaning to this reminder.
I only knew then that she was an omega from the Pacbu Pack, but I didn't know that she was actually of noble birth. Because of her bloodline, she had no say in the wolf pack and she was looked down upon.
She had always needed a chance to be able to raise her status among the wolves.
Obviously, I am this opportunity.
I took her back to our pack, got everyone to accept her, made her one of us, and up until this point, I thought that was all there was to it.
Because I was born to be Alpha, I can surpass Tom and beat him no matter how good he is. Because I have worked hard, all the happiness and good things should be mine.
This includes an absolutely perfect mate relationship.
However, the day before we were ready to host a feast and truly enter into an eternal mate, Pacbu Pack swooped in.
They came too suddenly, the battle layout was too subtle, and our defenses and posts they knew as if in advance and could do nothing against them.
In the end, my parents died and everyone in the pack, half of them were killed and half became prisoners.
I fought to the last minute to protect the few people left, Adele, and her.
They were all behind me, and I couldn't back down, or there was only one way to die.
But I didn't think about it, and I never will.
Just as the opposite side came together, someone behind me called out to me.
You know who it is.
You wouldn't guess it, would you?
"Yes. I know." I felt like I couldn't make a sound anymore.
Who else could it be?
"Adele," he said. "She called out to me, and I thought she was in danger, and I looked back.
I didn't think I would be the one in danger.
When that knife went into my chest, do you know why I didn't end up dead?"
"Why?" I kind of wanted to cry.
Instead, he smiled, faintly. "Tom. Tom arrived. He took the first cut for me, broke an arm, but didn't take the second one."
"I was taken back to Pacbu Pack with Adele and Tom disappeared again and I don't remember anything but his blood dripping on my face and it continued to drip until I passed out."
"Then later, I escaped the Pacbu Pack with Edna's help and was sold into the Colosseum, where I stayed for three years."
"Three years later I walked out of the Colosseum, took Adele and found Tom and founded the current wolf pack."
"Until today."
"Tom won't be a Beta for the Blue Moon Pack, and I'm more than willing to let him become a Gamma."
"I sometimes wonder if my life will always be like this. I betrayed Tom, and then she betrayed me. I'll always live in the middle of this."
"You ask me why I'm not upset."
"I was sad to end it a long time ago."
"It was all over when Tom broke that arm."
But I was sad.
I looked at his smiling face and watched as he fell alone in his memories and talked as if he was raving, and I was sad.
I guess I should forgive him.
Because I simply don't have the right to choose not to forgive. In my present, still violent doctor of Bright Moon Pack.