60. The Plan

"You have no idea how badly I want to strangle you right now." Eden glared at Iosif.

"Maybe you can control until we stop Dimitri," Iosif responded with a smirk.

"He has to, now that he's letting Marley fight that vampire." Thea interjected, giving Marley and Eden a disapproving look. She was opposed to letting Marley anywhere near any knight. Hell, the she-wolf wouldn't let Jared fight Dimitri even though he was a lycan. It was too dangerous for anyone, much less a human.

Eden sighed at the thinly veiled antagonism he was receiving from his friend. The others in room; his parents, Oliver, and Hunter were curious how the Alpha was convinced, when they themselves had objections of putting Marley's live at risk.

"As you all know by now that I look like Dimitri's mate." Marley started, gaining everybody's attention. "To complete the look, I have to get other things right too, like my clothes and scent, which Iosif has already taken care of."

"Scent?" Hunter asked.

"A person's scent cannot be completely masked, but it can be fainted greatly," Iosif replied, "a few natural fragrant can make her smell close to Selene, which will be enough to trick Dimitri. Like she said, I have taken care of that."

"He would be expecting me to come to him with Iosif and Kyle." Marley continued, and Eden's fist tightened. "The real challenge is to keep up the act until I make him drink my blood."

The wolves, besides Eden, looked at her dumbfounded.

"Marley!" Catherine gasped. "You do realize if he bites you, you'll turn one of them. We can't-"

"No, she won't." Iosif interrupted. "The whole process to turn into a sired knight takes hours, and to turn like one of us more than a very excruciating day." His lip twitched upward, fiddling with a small object in his pocket. "And if somehow during the change the knight who bit you dies, the process stops. You're back to being a human."

"But how Dimitri drinking her blood is going to kill him within a day?" Thea inquired.

"With this." Iosif slipped out his hand from the pocket and presented to everyone a finger-long thin vessel. A water like liquid was shaking inside the tightly sealed cylinder. "The drops of Valinor flower, the plant rare to find even in the deepest parts of amazon, yet somehow Odis had a bundle of them planted in his backyard." The knight shook his head, smiling. "The man was always two steps ahead of us."

"Bundle of them, that's why you have so much of it," Hunter commented sarcastically, eyeing the tiny vessel.

"This is more than enough." Iosif replied. "Absolutely harmless to humans, but a tiny drop of it can shut down a knight, leaving him paralyzed. And vulnerable."

"This will be injected inside Marley, so when Dimitri feeds from her..." Thea drawled out, before looking at the vessel sharply. "Is it sterilized?"

"Yes," Eden answered for Iosif. He had grilled Marley for every single detail in the forest, and her plan did come out impeccable, yet the Alpha's doubts and pessimism didn't go away. After all, it was his Marley whose life was on the line.

Oliver frowned. "If this vale flower-"

"Valinor," Iosif corrected.

"If this valinor flower's sap needs to be inside Dimitri. Why is Marley needed for it? Why couldn't you have injected him with it when he was sleeping or slipped it in his food or drinks or blood."

"Because vampires are highly sensitive to its smell, even in sleep. A nature's protection for them against it." Once again Eden replied, receiving a sharp look from Iosif for the use of v-word.

"But when it's flowing in the veins of a living, only the older ones can catch it," Iosif continued. "My brother is one of them, but Selene's presence and her overwhelming scent will drastically reduce his senses and armour. His drive to claim his mate will ride over anything. He feeds from her, and within a minute gets paralyzed, turning into an easy kill."

"Death of a sire before you're turned leaves you back to your previous state, but if you're fully turned you die with him. And that's the plan. He dies, his army dies." Marley finished.

"What if he doesn't fall for your tricks?" Thea challenged, her eyes boring into Marley. She looked at vessel in Iosif's hand. "What if this thing never reaches inside him? What if anything goes wrong?"

Her words echoed out Eden's deepest fears.

"It won't." Marley retorted, her fist clenching and her eyes meeting Thea's with same intensity. She was tired of being looked down again and again. She was tired of explaining herself again and again. "Nothing will go wrong. I won't let it."

"How long till Dimitri comes here?" Hunter asked, breaking the tension between the wolf and the human.

"We have at least a day till his army reaches Marshville," Iosif replied.

"Soon, this will end," Alpha said.

After discussing other details of the plan, everyone dispersed back to their routines. As Marley was heading out of the room, Catherine's distressed face met her at threshold.

"Honey, are you sure about this?" Eden's mother said, her brows knitting in worry.

"Yes."

Catherine frowned, before nodding her head understandingly. "To be honest, I'm not on board with this, but at the same time it's better than risking everyone else's life. I trust yours and his decision." A small smile appeared on her lips. "At least, now you two seem fine. When I saw you at home I got really worried."

Marley returned her smile, her eyes moving where Eden was standing with his father. He was already looking at her. She moved her vision back to Catherine.

"Come to me if you want to talk about anything." Catherine said. Marley looked at her feet, hiding the guilt. Eden's mother never treated her lesser than her own son. She shouldn't have hidden things from his parents.

"She will." A voice spoke from behind. Nicholas towered behind the human girl, looking down at her with a parental smile. "She should know that by now." He gave her a light pat on her shoulder, before ushering himself and his mate out of the room.

"Oh yes." Catherine stopped midway and turned around, glaring at Eden. "Ethan told me how badly you shouted at Marley. I get it you were angry, but there are definitely some lines you shouldn't cross. Eden just because she's your mate doesn't mean she can't leave you." She huffed as her son looked down. "Before going full savage maybe a little introspection would've been nice. Do little thinking about what made her hide things from you, and mend that gap instead of belittling her." With that, the angry mother swivelled around and walked away with Nicholas at her tail.

The teens looked at each other, an awkward silence passing between them.

Eden cleared his throat. "I should probably see how Oliver is dealing with others about the changes in plan."

Marley nodded and moved to let him pass.

********

The training had been double tiring for the Alpha since he hadn't got a wink of sleep last night, spending all night hours in forest, listening -or more like arguing against- his mate's ploy to defeat knights. The images of Marley's blood splattered body kept haunting him throughout the day, weakening his resolution to let human have her way. However, another part of his mind kept reminding him she was in the same position, scared about her mate.

Eden sighed as he reached outside her room. Werewolf was tired, agitated, and barely holding himself together. A goodnight sleep beside her didn't sound bad.

As Eden entered the room he saw Marley standing in front of the mirror. She wasn't in her pyjamas like every other night, but wearing a thin strapped white summer dress with floral prints that reached above her knees. Her eyes were unfocused, letting the wolf know her mind was somewhere else.

"You look beautiful."

Marley looked up and found her mate just behind. His hands snaked around her waist, gently pulling her closer and burying his head in her neck.

"We shouldn't," she said, pushing Eden away. "I'm going to see Dimitri wearing this. It's better if it doesn't have your scent." She explained.

"I never thought I'd be seeing you dress up for another man." Eden shook his head, and slumped down on the bed.

"Neither did I." Marley said, smiling at his frowning face. "I should change." She went to the bathroom.

When she returned she found Eden lying asleep on the bed. As she joined him, his hands once again wrapped around her, surrounding her with pleasant warmth.

"You're awake?"

"Not really," Eden replied in raspy voice. "But was kind of waiting for you." His eyes opened meeting hers. A long moment of silence passed between them. "I don't think you're over our yesterday's fall out. I know I'm not."

The werewolf had noticed things didn't go back to normal, like they usually did when they made up after fights. Maybe a part of it was the danger looming over all of them, or maybe his words dig deeper inside both of them. Whatever it was, it just didn't sit well with Eden.

"I don't know. It was kind of soothing watching your mom scold you."

Eden snorted. "I hope it made you hate me a little less."

"I don't hate you Eden." Marley sighed. "And that's the problem I cannot hate you. What's worse is you can. You can hate me."

"No, I can't," he said hurt. "What you saw yesterday wasn't me hating you but pretending to. That was some shitty acting, and man did it backfire."

"Are you sure it was just pretend? You sounded so real," Marley mumbled.

"I fucked up. Didn't I?"

"Sometimes I feel like I don't belong here, with you and the pack." Her eyes moved down to his chest. "Maybe, subconsciously you believe that too. I wasn't the mate you were expecting, you weren't expecting a human girl. That's why you said-"

"I fucked up bad." He groaned. "Baby, every degrading thing I said yesterday was lie and wrong. When I wanted you to believe those lies you fought tooth and nail with me to get your way. Now, that I don't want those things in your head, you're clutching onto them." He chuckled at the irony, and lifted her face to meet her eyes. "Marley, I never had any expectations for my mate, because if you hadn't noticed I didn't give a shit about mate-stuff before meeting you.

"But the first time I saw you, I knew I wanted you the way you were, a human girl who crushed every limitation I set for her without even being aware that she was doing so. My naive self thought it'd easier to steer you the way I wanted, but turns out I was the one who was being steered. When Odis took you, I imagined you scared and fragile in a dark dungeon, but turns out my girl mapped the whole mansion, broke out of it, killed a knight and saved another supernatural-"

"But Kyle-"

"Kyle did his thing, but you did all of that before him." He stopped her. "And now you're literally putting yourself on line to save all of our asses, which to be honest scares me." He shook his head. "All I'm trying to say is don't let that stupid rant get to you. It was a pathetic attempt to stop you, to limit you, and it failed. I'm sorry for putting you through such humiliation, and I'll make up to you everyday." *If we get out of this alive.*

Marley smiled, and nodded her head. "I'm sorry for misjudging you. I should've been honest. I should've known hiding things from you wasn't the answer."

He leaned down and kissed her, weight lifting from his conscious. She pulled him closer, her thumb stroking his cheek, and savoring the moment for all it's worth. Few minutes later, they fell asleep in each other's arms.

******

Marley woke up with a start. A nightmare had shaken her out of her sleep. Her breathing slowly went back to normal when she realized her blood wasn't sucked out of her neck by an unknown beast. She looked at Eden who was sleeping soundly beside her. A calmness fell upon her seeing her mate breathing slowly.

*It was just a bad dream.* She reassured herself.

However, that serenity was gone when multiple howls rung outside the window, shaking her to her core. Eden woke up with the same chilling shock.

Before a word could pass between the couple, someone vehemently knocked on their door. Eden at once reached the door and opened it, finding Oliver's pale face.

"Iosif miscalculated. It didn't take him a day," Beta said agitatedly. "He's here."

Marley gulped. *This wasn't a dream.*

********