Chapter 15: Lost Cause
Raven
For a long moment, it was hard to pay attention to whatever was going on around me. For a moment, I was confident that something inside me had broken, and it was my will to live.
Rex continued to speak somewhere ahead, his voice distant in my ears, while Axel stood there, having transformed into his human form, his body still bathed in blood. Thor was nowhere to be found, not that I held out any hope that he wouldn’t hate me just as much.
Quietly, I knelt there and waited for death, my knees pressed against the cold ground. I can assure you, I didn’t feel any relief when it refused to come. Night fully fell, the moon hanging high above us, but nothing changed apart from the fact that none of the pack members were allowed to return to their homes.
Mother had a lost look on her face, her eyes unfocused as though she could not process what was happening. Even Brandon looked shaken, his usual composure completely gone, not that I blamed them. I myself wasn’t much better as I sat on the floor, hating every breath I took, each inhale feeling heavier than the last.
While others hoped to live, I was aware that living would be nothing but hell, especially since Rex could control my life. He could command my will, and I would be powerless not to obey. Call it stupidity, but there was a strange freedom in knowing you had nothing left to lose.
It was already a mercy that I didn’t consider dragging Lillian down with me. Slowly, I scrambled off the ground, my limbs stiff, and headed straight toward where Rex and Axel stood whispering in extremely low tones.
Axel had already gotten some clothes to wear, though his presence still felt dangerous, and he noticed my approach long before Rex did.
A low growl crawled out of his throat, his light brown eyes—almost golden in the dark—focused on me. "Return! Return before I rip your head off your shoulders!" Axel ordered, his voice sharp with warning, but not once did I stop my approach.
Would it be insane to say I almost wished he would just get it over with? Maybe, in another life, I could do better.
It wasn’t until I stood about a foot from them that I stopped and opened my mouth to speak. "Do you plan to kill us all?" I asked Rex, who seemed to be the one making most of the plans, my voice quieter than I intended. "The children will get sick... at least let them into—"
I didn’t get to finish.
Rex slowly turned to look at me, his gaze intense and silent as it fixed on my face before sliding down my entire body. Quietly, he moved toward me until I could feel his entire body towering over mine, his presence suffocating.
"You seem to have no fear. Why is that?" he asked, genuine curiosity on his face, though his eyes held malevolence—cruelty waiting to be unleashed.
"I guess I have many things to teach you," he said, and I could feel my heart thundering in my ears as his voice shifted into a command. One my body was compelled to obey. One I couldn’t disobey even if I wanted to.
"Head back to the town center and sit on the ground. Do not move. Do not speak until I order you to."
The moment the words left his mouth, I felt myself turn, doing exactly as he had asked, my body no longer mine.
I felt Lillian’s gaze on me even before I got back to the center of the square, where the entire pack was seated under the dim moonlight. Her expression was filled with anxiety and fear, as though she thought I had betrayed her secret to Rex to get her killed.
But the moment I settled back on the ground, I felt my entire body go stiff, realizing that even if I wanted to move, I couldn’t.
The night passed much slower than I thought it would, every second dragging painfully. I found myself hoping that the Moonburn Alpha would come to our aid, especially after realizing what had happened, only to be disappointed.
Axel had yet to kill Yemac, which meant the Alpha might still assume that all was well.
I wasn’t surprised when, the next morning, half of the pack men were slaughtered.
The rest of us were ordered to take only what we could carry, the air thick with fear and grief. I, on the other hand, merely had to sit on the ground and wait before we were carted away like the livestock we were.
The journey was arduous and longer than I expected, especially for me. Horses carried the heavier loads, while everyone who could shift did so, carrying their family members on their backs through the rough terrain.
Without any form of remorse on my face, I instantly walked over to Lillian, almost like I was daring her to refuse me. As long as I was alive, then she would live. If I was to suffer, then I intended to ensure she suffered too, as I rode on her back.
I was tired—mentally, physically, and even more from worrying about what they were going to do to me once we got back to their pack. Yet some tiny part of me dared to hope that there was a slim chance I could get them not to kill me.
Convince them to make me pay penance for my transgressions instead.
Seduce them?
I was aware that at least one of them had been interested in me.
I was a beauty, and people’s words had hammered it into me over the years. If somehow I could make one of them fall for me, wouldn’t I be protected?
I hated my thought process, but it wasn’t like there was any other viable path to take.
Leaning down, I gripped Lillian’s fur tightly as I lay on her back, drifting off to sleep as I wondered what would come next.
It took a full day before we finally arrived at what could only be a fortress deep in the woods, hidden beneath thick canopies and shadows, one I didn’t think anyone could easily find. It was so well concealed that I couldn’t help but be impressed.
But we had just entered when I instantly lifted my head and caught gazes that weren’t the least bit friendly.
Instead, they glared at us with so much hatred I was convinced they would kill us if left unsupervised.
Rex began to address us, his voice carrying easily. "You are all slaves," he announced, something that had mostly been expected.
"Work hard enough, and you will be given an opportunity to join the pack," he promised, a possibility I knew didn’t extend to me.
But Rex was still speaking when a woman, well-dressed in long black skirts and an excited smile, moved to greet him. It was not the greeting itself that made it clear, but the look in her eyes as she fixed her gaze on him.
Whoever she was, she was in love with Rex.
Which meant that, out of the three, I only had two men left that I could somehow convince that I was useful enough to be kept alive.
And part of me felt that Axel was a lost cause.
