Xira POV
My legs felt like they didn't belong to me. Each step back down was a conscious, agonizing effort. The sanctuary doors loomed, a wide mouth ready to swallow me whole. I stumbled through, my gaze fixed on the floor, not daring to look at anyone.
The sight of Axel's head, lifeless and displayed, was seared behind my eyelids and I would not forget in a hurry.
The men who did these were the same men I was tied to, possibly until death.
I shuddered at the horror which waited for me and for a second I envied Axel. At least his ordeal was over, mine was just beginning.
When I dared to look up, I found the stately man and the priest talking to each other in hushed tones, their heads bent together.
Then the stately man saw us, he gestured towards me.
"Xira," The priest said, a faint, almost imperceptible smile on his lips. "This is Lord Aster. He oversaw the transfer of power."
My gaze slid from Lord Aster to my father. Edmund Varleen. The former Alpha. He was staring at the floor, the very picture of a defeated wolf. The fury I'd seen earlier was gone, replaced by a hollow, pathetic resignation.
I felt choked by anger and I found myself speaking.
"So," I said, my own voice sounding alien and cold to my ears. "This is what you traded your life for. My life."
My father's head snapped up and all the defeat left his eyes. In its place was disgust.
SMACK!!!
He hit me so hard that I felt all the humiliation he must have felt and I fell to the ground, my ears ringing.
"How dare you speak to me that way." He spat. "You seem to forget what you are..."
"You are a whore mutt who is only good for rogues." My father continued, and my blood ran cold.
"A whore mutt?" I whispered, the words tasting like poison.
"Yes!" He roared, his frustration finally breaking through. "You reek of their scent because you are nothing." He gestured wildly at the twins. "Why do you think you were a suitable offering? A purebred she-wolf of Stormfang would have been an insult. But you... you are nothing. A dirty half-breed, already stained. They would never have accepted this deal if they weren't getting a toy to break."
The floor fell away. The world went silent, save for a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
A half-breed.
My mind flashed back to all the times I had been taunted for my lack of a scent.
My gaze found the twins.
They stood rigid, their face a mask of stone, but I saw it then. In the infinitesimal tightening around their eyes. They knew. They had known all along.
Their disgust was not just as a result of my father's cowardice; they were also disgusted by me.
This was far worse than I could have ever imagined.
I scrambled back from my father, my hands scrabbling on the stone floor until my back hit a pillar. I drew my knees to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible.
"You are dismissed, Edmund," Lord Aster said smoothly, as if he were simply concluding a business meeting. My father didn't look at me again. He simply turned and walked away, the priest and Lord aster following. The heavy doors booming shut behind them, leaving me alone with my new tormentors.
Elias loomed at my side while Luther watched me with cold calculation.
"Get up," Luther's said, the first words he had spoken to me directly. His voice was a low rumble, devoid of emotion.
I didn't move. I couldn't. My limbs were frozen, locked in place by a terror so profound it was paralyzing.
A sigh of exasperation. Then, rough hands grabbed me, hauling me to my feet. My head swam.
I didn't struggle as Elias propelled me out of the sanctuary and into the main hall.
The few pack members still lingering scattered before us, their heads bowed, their eyes averted.
They saw me.
They saw my white dress, the badge of my betrayal.
They saw the scent of the twins clinging to me, the mark of their ownership.
And they saw what they thought was the truth.
Whispers began, slithering through the hall like snakes.
"Look, It's the curse."
"I thought she would be killed."
"Mated to the blood-twins."
"Always knew she was a whore who would betray her pack first chance she got."
I was a ghost in my own home, a spectacle of shame. They led me down a familiar hallway, the one that led to the Alpha's quarters. My father's old rooms.
But they stopped before the grand doors.
My stomach dropped. Instead, they hauled me toward a narrow, unadorned door at the end of the corridor, one I'd walked past so many time but never paid any mind to. The servant's entrance.
Elias wrenched it open and shoved me inside.
It wasn't a room. It was a cell. Stone walls, a single, narrow window set high up, a rough cot with a thin, threadbare blanket. The air was damp and smelled of dust and disuse. This was a punishment chamber.
"You will remain here until we decide what to do with you," Luther said. His words were final.
The door slammed shut. The sound echoed in the small, oppressive space, followed by the distinct, heavy click of a bolt sliding home.
Locked in.
The darkness wasn't complete; a sliver of moonlight from the high window cut across the floor.