The Alpha's Guardian

"Francis," I say peeking my head through my bedroom door. He walks over and comes out to the hallway. "Pansy," I say handing him the cup. He takes it from me, bringing it to his nose and scrunching it in distaste. "It smells so sour. How would he not notice?"

"I think he has been drinking it for a while. He's not consuming enough to kill him or anything. But definitely enough to disorient him and make it harder to control his wolf."

"Ok. Does he need an antidote or something?" Francis asks, looking concerned.

"I'm sure he will be fine after a couple of hours of sleep. I need to figure out where it came from."

"Look at you, not even sworn in and still taking care of him" Francis smirks at me and I look at him weirdly.

"I can hardly get sworn in if he is dead."

"I thought you said he wasn't in danger from this?"

"Well, not anymore," I say as I wink at him and turn on my heels making my way down the steps.

Tea is made in the kitchen, so that is where my first order of business is. Check the tea, coffee- well the whole kitchen really and see if I can find more. The next order of business after that is to track down the person responsible. I enter the empty packhouse kitchen and try to deduce where the tea containers might be stored. After noisily slamming through cupboard after cupboard Ethel enters and gawks at me and the mess I have made. I am great at finding and figuring things out. Keeping things tidy in the process? Not so much.

"Oh, dear," Ethel says scanning over the mess. "Is there some way I can help you Ali?" she asks.

"Yes. I need the Tea canisters for starters."

"Sure" she nods as she walks over to the counter and pulls two jars forward on the counter. great, hidden in plain sight. Real hero over here. In my defense, though the tea is in a flour jar, that says flour.

"In a flour jar?" I ask, smirking at her. She shrugs.

"It's his favorite tea and everyone else drinks it if they know where it is." She smiles gently. I scoff at her comment. And Alpha sharing his favorite item? Doubtful.

"I find that hard to believe, he is the Alpha. Everyone is afraid of him, why would they touch his stuff?" My tone is ruder than it needs to be, but I'm on a mission and I intend to get to the bottom of this before the ceremony tonight. "Alpha Wade is not a normal Alpha," Ethel assures me as I walk over to her side and open the canister.NôvelDrama.Org is the owner.

I sniff it and immediately I can smell the Pansy. I turn the canister upside down and sure enough the small bulbous yellow flowers tumble onto the counter. Ethel reaches out and looks at it strangely, rolling it between her thumb and her forefinger. "This is strange. I don't recall this ever being in his tea before." She looks like she is in deep thought.

"Ethel, do you know what that is?"

"No, but I know it's not normally there. He has been drinking the same tea for years and I am usually the one who makes it."

"Has anyone else been making his tea?"

"Just Trudy and sometimes one of the other omegas. But it is usually me. Is something wrong with the Alpha?" she asks, getting worried.

A knock on the door pulls Ethel away from the conversation as she goes to answer it. After a moment she walks in bickering with two teenagers. I smile when I finally realize it's Robin and Mason.

"You two made it after all." I look at the clock and chuckle. "An hour late but you're here."

"Sorry, Robin was stopped by that a*****e from earlier."

"Mason! Your language" Ethel warned, turning to start the task of cleaning up my mess.

"What, he is" he mutters under her breath. Robin stands silently near the doorway.

"Well. We can grab a snack and talk on the road. I am on official guardian business and you two are coming with me." I announce finding a banana in the fruit bowl, feeling disappointed that there are no apples. They are my favorite after all. "Wait what?" Ethel says, turning around looking concerned.

"They are only Omegas, they won't be of any use," she says. And I smile at her.

"Ethel," I say walking over and placing my hand on her shoulder. "I promise you they will be of total use to me." She nods after hesitating for a moment and I lead the kids out the front door.

I have decided that they are going to train to be warriors. Who says they have to be completely useless. As omegas, we lack a wolf, yes, but we have other uses that make us special. We have an immunity to the things that would otherwise render a wolf useless. Like wolfsbane and pansy.

We also have more level heads as we don't have a blood-thirsty crazed beast in our heads trying to fight us for control. I admit it's not common for omegas to be weak and basically human when it comes to strength and other senses. But I have a theory about that, that I plan on testing with these two.

"So, where are we going?" Robin asks, finally speaking.

"We are trying to figure out who is poisoning the alpha. But first I want to go to the one area where all the warriors and patrollers tend to feel weird about and not really check. I want to see why, but I have a hunch.

"And what's your hunch?" Mason asks excitedly.

"Have you noticed wolves in the pack acting weirder than normal?" I ask as we walk briskly towards the border.

"Not really," Mason says.

"Yes," Robin whispers. I stop and turn to face her.

"Explain," I demand. She cuts her eyes to Mason looking for help, he offers her an encouraging smile.

"I-I-I'm only 16. And that boy, erm, man? He saw me and his eyes went black and he called me 'mine' and got mad and tried to pull me away from Mason. Before Mason attacked him his eyes went back to blue and he looked so-" "He's an asshat and you are rejecting him," Mason says with an air of authority. I put my hand up to stop Mason.

"Continue,"

"He looked horrified and hurt. I don't think he had any control over his wolf," she says, hugging herself tightly, looking at the ground.

"He shouldn't have been able to sense you for another 2 years," I mutter out loud. "That doesn't make sense unless it's an effect of the pansy? But I didn't think that it was going to be affecting more than Alpha Wade" I stop to process everything.

"Is the pack on Well water or city water?" I ask them. Mason shrugs.

"It's Well water," Robin responds. Mason shoots her a baffled look.

"How do you know that?" he asks.

"Granddad had to put the new well in because they couldn't access the old well because it was surrounded by wolfsbane and no matter what they did it would pollute the water somehow and people would get sick," Robin says like it was just common knowledge when clearly it wasn't.

"Well, aren't you the history buff." he shrugs, looking surprised with her knowledge.

"Do you know where it is?" I ask, trying to reign in my impatience.

"I do," Robin says smiling, looking mighty proud of herself.

"We are following you then"