Chapter Ny One


    The woman standing before me had the same colour of hair my mother did, but slightly different eye color. She did look very much like my mother, but slightly younger; she was sobbing silently, and I noticed her swollen eye and her mouth... her tongue was missing preventing her from speaking.


    de walked forward. He stared the woman up and down and scowled in irritation-this wasn''t what he was expecting, and it was a wound to his ego. He kicked the woman hard, and she fell to the ground. I am sure he broke a bone, Thane stared down at the woman, and I saw something sh in his eyes as he picked her up; she could hardly stand.


    "She is from my pack, and I had promised you she would be dead," Thane said to his father.


    de didn''t seem satisfied by that; leaving it up to him, he would have lengthened the woman''s torture. Thane whispered something in the woman''s ears before slitting her throat. She choked on her own blood, clutching on to her throat as she dropped to the ground. He had given her a very quick death, against his father''s wishes. He had done that because, just like me, he knew the woman had been innocent; she had just been unlucky, and now she was dead in my mother''s ce.


    de had been here for blood, so blood had to be shed in this halls and I never really understood what I was asking of Thane when I pleaded with him to spare my mother.


    What was more painful was the fact that I felt relief-so slight, but it was still there-relief that it hadn''t been my mother, that it had been someone else... someone I didn''t know. "Take care of this mess," Thane said to the soldiers.


    "I''ll like to have her body nailed to our front gates, just to remind others that we are not to be messed with," de said.


    "She has a family, and she would be buried," Thane replied, his facade still on.


    "You seem to forget who you speak to.


    "You seem to forget you are in my pack," Thane said to his father, staring him off, and finally de nodded.


    "She is dead, and that''s all that matters." de agrees, but I could see it in his eyes; that wasn''t ''all'' that matters to him. He had wanted the woman''s body as a proof of his brutality. Thane walks straight to me. I tried to catch his eyes, but he had avoided my gaze.


    "Come now," he whisperedmanded, and I followed.


    There were so many emotions I felt all at once: surprise, gratitude, relief, and then sadness. I didn''t know the woman, but I knew one thing: she was innocent, and yet she was killed. Thane led me into his office, mming the door shut. He seemed furious.


    Chapter Ny Disc


    "You hadn''t killed her," I said, still surprised that my mother was alive.


    "No. I couldn''t"


    "Why?" I asked, but he gave no response. "Who was she?"


    "You don''t need to know."


    "But I do," I said. Thane might have killed her, but I was her true murderer.


    "A pack member"


    "Does she have a family?."


    "Yes," he says. "I am not proud of what I have done. But now you know how far I''ll go just for you; I''ll kill for you, and I would do it again," he says.


    "Thank you... I shouldn''t be relieved by her death"


    "Hush... is alright. Your mother had been transported somewhere she would be safe, and you


    don''t have to me yourself for the woman''s death; I''ll take the me; I did this, not you," he says.


    I held him close, my hand''s circling around him, and I sobbed into his chest Heforted me. "I am ready to be anything you want me to be, with noints; I do not care what you do. to me." He took in a sharp inhale. He hadn''t liked what I said.


    "No. I want you to be the very same person you are, the very same person you will always be, Riley Kaidon.".


    Just then the door to the office busted open and Axel walked in.


    Axel, who I hadn''t seen since our little date. He seemed to have disappeared or made himself very scarcetely, and with all that was going on, I hadn''t even sorted for him.


    But Axel had a frown in his face; he looked... different, he had looked over me like I wasn''t


    there.


    "Why?" he questioned Thane. "Why would you do that to an innocent woman?"


    "I think you know the answer to that question."


    "Kate was the rebel; she should have been brought to justice," Axel said, and my mouth fell open. I snapped it back shut immediately.


    Axel had said that knowing I was standing right here and how did he know my mother''s name?


    "If your intention is to make me feel guilty then there would be no need for that, I feel guilty enough, but it had been done" Thane said, his voice still calm and controlled.


    Chapter Ny One


    "She is not your fucking mate; you cannot make such decisions just because of her."


    "Can''t I?"


    "She would leave you soon, and then what?. Nelly was a part of us."1


    "Oh, you got her name too."


    "This wasn''t the n; you weren''t supposed to fall for her," his wordsing out sharper.


    "Axel!" I called out, and he finally seemed to notice me, but the coldness never left his eyes. "This is all on you."


    "I''m sorry...


    1


    "Keep your apologies to yourself, or better yet, apologise to Nelly in her grave."