Ditched Cheating Alpha, I Led My Daughter to Life's Peak novel Chapter 193

"And now we're common enemies," Dad replied, and that was it for now.

"How much greens can we put today, Krys?" she'd ask me.

I'd show her the size with my tiny fists joined together.

She nodded. "How much rice today, Kaiden?"

"This much." He held up his palm.

"Why do you teach him that?" Dad asked, his voice raising.

"In case he needs to know it." Mom sat down, not really paying him any mind. She had grown tired of Dad's presence the way he had grown tired of our situation-that much I later deduced after many years and restless nights thinking back to the way she looked at him.

I'd never forget the way Dad's eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets. "He needs to know how to be a girl?"

"He needs to know how to feed himself," my mother retorted.

"Feed himself?" Dad scoffed, looking down at his plate. "This is feeding himself? People can't live like this."

Mom responded, "If you use my cooking to insult those people one more time-"

"Don't talk to me like that." Dad sat up. "You cooked better when you had real food to cook at all. Admit it, they've taken everything."

Kaiden picked up his spoon and looked at me, gesturing for me to eat faster. Of course, I did, hoping we could escape this. Of course, we didn't. As our parents bickered endlessly, both of their plates left untouched, I considered how thirsty I still was. I smacked my parched lips, forgetting myself and where I was for a moment.

"See that?" My father barked out. "See how your daughter is as dried out as a fish?" He smacked his hand down on the table, water glasses threatening to spill. "Let us hand her over to the Silvermoon on a silver platter. A perfect meal for them with the rest of our dignity."

From outside in the dead of night, when we were all lying in our beds, a blood curdling scream pierced the open air. All at once, images of a dead boy filled our minds. Some images were of the mother holding him, shielding his dead body from anymore attacks from the guards with her own. The next image was from her perspective, up close to his eyes that didn't look nearly as red as they should anymore. I knew him.

We were just playing outside a while ago. He'd lie on the grass with me when I was too tired to keep up with Kaiden and talk my ears off with stories of all the great things he had seen of the world. I loved those stories, even though I knew they were fake. I think everyone knew that boy, and loved that boy as a part of our pack, though his name escapes me now.

Like a crescendo, a cacophony of sound, people took to the streets. A conflict broke out like never before that neither side could try to take back, and it spread like wildfire across the border between us and them.

My father screamed, "Finally," and rushed blindly out of the shamble we once called a happy home to join the resistance.

If not for the imprint bond, I think my mother would've slept soundly that night regardless of what was going on outside. But instead, she was compelled to follow Dad.

"Kade," I whispered, from my bed beside his own. "I'm scared. What's happening?"

Despite what he had just gone through, he found the strength to get up, tuck me in, hand me Mr. Huggles, and go see what was going on.