TOO PROUD TO SAY I'M SORRY

  Was it just me, but did it seem like the flow of events in this timeline was repeatedly forced into the mold of our Original Timeline? Because, just like in my Original Timeline, I shifted and became the Alpha Princess who ran with three betas and… there was one other thing that was different. I didn't have a harem in Timeline 3 - I had a Special Team of agents.

Unlike the first two timelines, Timeline 3 had a fundamentally unique legal clause that allowed a single and very specific exception to our anti-slavery laws, and that was the law of agency. Now how did that get there?

According to the Law of Agency, a warrior wolf may willingly pledged his allegiance in full to an alpha wolf and enter into an agent-master relationship.

If you read the fine print to this relationship, it would sound a lot like an Alpha-Beta relationship, just without the Beta prestige and benefits. In other words, they were slaves, pledged for life or until their master released them from their pledge.

Anyway, thanks to a series of dream travels, I met my wolves and enslaved them, I mean freed them to run for me. And just like in my Original Timeline, I did it all this year!

Within the first term of High School, I had accumulated 3 betas and a bevy of assorted agent wolves, each with their own specialized skills and bloodline powers.

Now that I was recalling it, there was another thing that was weird - how Bell would appear at just the right time to save the day - bear in mind that he was gallivanting across the continent, featuring at every wild party and brow raising scandal, and then stuck in the fight cages. The only times I would actually see him was in an LNC report and then later in my dream travels.

Just like in the Original Timeline, Bell was a fight dog for a few months too. The Lorents had kept this so tightly under-wrapped that even my parents and I believed that he had been sent to Black Forest University for most of last fall.

When I had my shifting dream, I recognized him the moment I saw him, tight leather pants and all, "Oh, hi."

"Hi yourself, princess." Bell smirked. He had half his face covered in blood.

"What happened to your head?" I was really calm in my dream, but only because I thought I was dreaming.

Even after I woke up, I couldn't believe it could be my shifting dream. There was always a part of me that didn't really think MY FIANCE would also be my soulmate. Weren't soul mates suppose to love and protect you?

I had also watched some of Mum's lycan soap opera in my lifetime, read some webnovels by Savy and Lizzy's recommendation, and in these stories, love didn't work so conveniently. But this was real life, not some Lycan drama, I guess.

In real life, it was entirely possible that your childhood fiancé would turn out to also be your soulmate. No drama whatsoever. Except my fiancé and soulmate was a Lorent Prince, so...

"Mind your own business, Princess." Bell answered coldly. For someone bleeding to death, Bell was pretty haughty. I hadn't seen Bell for a couple of years by now, and he had morphed to become far cooler and even more arrogant than the Puppy-Bell I grew up playing with.

Which made him pretty much like the Bell from my Original Timeline, but I didn't know about the other timelines back then. I was determined not to be any less cool than MY FIANCE. Maybe it was the way we grew up together, but I was suddenly on full competitive mode.

I shrugged too, one of those sophisticated Lorent shrugs I had picked up, the one that showed that I couldn't care less, "Whatever."

I WAS GOING TO BE THE COOLER ONE.

Eventually, I ended up telling my parents about my dream. We went for dinner at the Lorents and Dad must have said something while Charles and I were shooting, because  Alpha James had no choice but to come clean. His son was missing.

By now, it was already winter and son had been missing for nearly a month. He knew my Dad and Beta Lucas was still actively searching for the Morning Light boy, could they keep an eye out for his foolish son too?

I think it was very hard on Alpha James to swallow his pride and admit he needed my Dad's help to find his son. Alpha James was always super nice to me, he always bought me the nicest birthday gifts, say the nicest things about me, and I think he was sincere about treating me as his own daughter (and his idea of being a good dad was to spoil his daughter rotten.) If Alpha James was my dad, I would seriously be a horribly spoilt thing… sort of like Beta Lorent's daughter.

I had only met Beta Lorent's children once. Lavine and Anthony. Lavine was dressed head to toe like a typical Lorent Princess. White short dress, heels, and blinged out like the ladies in the New Lorent magazine.

She was in a bad mood that day and wouldn't talk to anyone.

Lady Amber tried to cajole her a little over the dinner table to be more sociable, "What's wrong child? Are you feeling unwell?"

Lavine pouted and would not answer.

"Come child, at least eat a little." Lady Amber coaxed, "The cod is delicious tonight. Done just right. Compliments to the chef. Brother, please help me send my compliments to the chef later this evening."

Beta Lorent nodded hurriedly, his fish falling off his fork in its sumptuous large white flakes. He had it in mid-air because he meant to eat it, but when his sister gave him work, he stopped to whip out his phone to add it to his to-do list. #betalife.

The cod was really good.

Lady Amber returned her attention to Lavine, "Isn't cod your favorite food?"

To which Lavine crossed her arms at the table and whined, "Can you stop talking to me for a minute? I'm tired!"

To which Lady Amber only tutted and shook her head ruefully, "Alright, alright, I'll leave you alone."

I watched in open astonishment. Here was a girl, years older than I was, behaving horridly and getting away with it. From the way Lavine looked grudgingly satisfied at the outcome and picked up her form to pick on her food, it looked like such interactions were a regular affair for her.

Anyway, sometimes I imagined that if Alpha James was really my father, I would be just like Lavine - except worse, because I was the Alpha's daughter.

Later on that evening, when the ladies were talking at the sofas, Anthony walked over and wrapped his arms around his Aunt Amber from behind - which was a surprising affectionate gesture from a teenage boy.

This interrupted the ladies' conversation.

"Why? What do you want, child?" Lady Amber asked.

And then ANTHONY WHINED TOO, "I want to go home. Can you drive me home now?"

"But we have guests tonight, child." Lady Amber said.

Anthony whined, "But I'm tired."

"Ah, alright, alright. I'll send you back first." Lady Amber got up and excused herself. While she made all the polite goodbyes, Anthony stood at the living room exit, sulking while he waited.

"Why? What happened?" Beta Lorent asked. He had been busy with something else and had just realized the movement among the ladies.

"Anthony is tired, I'll send him home first." Lady Amber said.

Beta Lorent shook his head, "Alright, fine. You do what you think best."

Lavine decided to go home too. She got up from the corner couch where she had been pouting at her phone the entire time and followed Lady Amber out without a word.

And after that everyone went back politely to the usual conversations and acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I couldn't wrap my head around it though. I didn't know what to make of Lavine and Anthony at all. I didn't want to sound judgmental. Maybe Beta Lorent's children were just very tired teens.

Anyway, it was none of my business - back to my story:

The next time I dream travelled and found Bell in his fight dog cell, I scolded him properly for worrying his parents. No, it did not occur to me that Bell was not locked in the fight cage on his own volition.

"Why do you have to be so easily affected by other people's feelings?" Was his response to the news that his parents were desperately missing him, "You're such a crybaby."

This seriously pissed me off.

"Just die in your next fight!" I yelled at him.

Also when he did face the wall and I noticed his tears, I very unsympathetically taunted, "Who's the crybaby now?"

But I felt bad straight after that and told him to try to ride it out and I would rescue him as soon as possible.

"Just stay at home and wait." Bell was most ungrateful for my assistance. In fact, he sounded like he would rather die than accept my help, "Tell my old man to stay out of my business too. I can save myself."

Like father like son - I told him so too. Mostly because I was still mad at him for dismissing my offer to rescue him. Bell was always this way - always pushing me away, always looking down on me, always acting like he had to fight the whole world on his own. I don't even know what he was trying to prove. Like supposing he did really fight the whole world and won, would that make him happy?

I didn't think anything would ever make Bell happy.

When Charles and I used to challenge him, he was never happy when he won, "So what? You two are just stupid pups."

On the rare occasion that he lost, he would be so angry, he wouldn't be able to speak. (See, another characteristic that made him like father, like son.)

I don't think Bell was happy for the longest time. I'm not sure what happened…

For some reason, I flashbacked to hearing Lady Amber tell my mum the night Bell and I were trapped in a tree, "Ever since his mother fell ill, this child only comes alive when your daughter is here."

Yeah. That was when Bell stopped being happy. When his Mum fell ill. She was okay now, I think… her stuttering had lessened over the years.

Maybe Bell just forgot how to be happy.

I wondered if the Bell from my original timeline grew up with a similar backstory because there were too many things that were the same about him.

After he figured out how to siphon my dream traveling powers for his own use, he would constantly appear through dream travels to my side and help me out in a pinch - just like in our Original Timeline.

He helped us with the rogue attack on the Alpha House, the rat king, the vampire ring, the revolt of the fight dogs, the Blue Demon Army, the warlock Fount, the Black Forest vampire hunt, the Tygers' den in the Colored Mountains, the Snow Wolf Friendly Tournament…

Of course he also caused mayhem and trouble everywhere he showed up.

But he always made it clear that he wasn't going out of his way because he was my luna or my soulmate or anything.

"Don't misunderstand, Princess." Bell would say each time just before opening his portal to leave, "This doesn't change anything between us."

"Don't worry." I would toss my head and answer him proudly, "There's nothing between us."

Neither of us were lying, but now that I was older and wiser, I was quite aware of the play in words my Moon and Rose used.

He did not say there was nothing between us - those were my words. He said "This doesn't change anything between us."

So there was something.

I felt quite smug. I bet he was regretting the day he walked out on me.