CHAPTER THREE

MELISSA

The flogging continues. They do not even care to cover me up a bit first. My body continues to spasm in pain, and I cry out in anguish. I feel utterly helpless as guards have access to the most intimate part of my body, inflicting hurt on me, and sometimes laughing at my distress. My vagina still hurts from birthing two children, and my breast tingles…. My babies, I need to feed them, I think to myself, but the whip continues landing on me, all over my body till I am jerking and twisting in pain. What cuts my heart the most, is that Kayden stays there, watching me, kissing Evelyn occasionally, while enjoying my pain, there is even a smile on his lips. The fact that Alpha Kayden would allow guards abuse a woman he had once cared for makes me wonder at the monster he has become. Finally, the whip stops flying, and the guard drops it, taking a step back. “Alpha Kayden, I’m done whipping the woman,” he says in a gruff voice that shows how tired he is from flogging me. “If you want her further punished, I can take her to the rest of my guards, we would have a nice time taking turns with her.”My throat constricts at his words. “Please no,” I choke, imagining several men being inside my body, hurting me more in their perversion when I was already broken. I almost beg Kayden to kill me, but then I think of my twins. I need to be alive to protect my babies. Alpha Kayden shakes his head. “There’s no use giving her to the guards, she’s half dead already, there’s nothing to enjoy, she is totally worthless now.”He walks over to me, and bends till I find myself looking into his dark blue eyes, eyes that are as cold as ice. His hand trails into my hair, and he grapes a fistful of it, tilting my head up with force. “I will not kill you Melissa, your death is too easy for what you deserve. I will put my mark on you, and banish you. You will always remember this day, the day you were marked for doom. No pack would accept you, and every single person you come across would know you for the evil vermin that you are.”I do not fully understand what he says, until he walks out, and comes back in, carrying a glowing metal with the words MURDERER written on it. “No!!!!” I start screaming even before he gets to me, but the guards immediately pounce on me, holding my arms and legs spread out. One of the guards yanks off my clothes. “Where do you want her branded?” He asks Alpha Kayden. Alpha Kayden does not reply, instead, he lifts the glowing, hot metal to my forehead. A scream of anguish tears through my throat as I hear my own flesh sizzle. I continue screaming until my throat becomes so hoarse that no sound comes out anymore. “I, Alpha Kayden Williams banish you, Melissa Wilson from the Bloodmoon pack. You have until tomorrow to leave. You are not to be seen within this pack again,” Kayden says in a harsh, cold voice, and I don’t reply. I have no strength left in me. I simply stare out ahead. I must have drifted into semi-comatose sleep, because when I wake, the sun is no more in the sky, and the moon is out. I get up on my feet and hobble around, but I soon discover that the pack house main room is empty, and the doors are open. My babies! I think immediately. I need to find my babies and flee with them. Every single step I take hurts, not only because of childbirth, but also because of the flogging, yet I push on, walking to Alpha Kayden’s main house. Kayden’s house seems quiet when I get to it. I immediately walk to the back of the house. There is an entrance that leads to the kitchen, and if I’m lucky, from there, I can make my way to the room he once said he would like to use for a nursery. I turn open the door, and step into the kitchen. The smell of freshly roasted chicken wafts through my nostrils, reminding me that I have eaten nothing all day, and my belly churns in response, but I ignore my hunger and move on. The kitchen door eases into a hallway that leads to the nursery, but I stop dead in my tracks. Right in front of me stands Evelyn, looking at me in shock and surprise. She recovers from her surprise quickly, and looks me up and down, giving me a satisfied smirk. “You look so pathetic – just look at what you have been reduced to, and all because you thought you could be better than me.”I was never in any form of competition with her, but of course, she will not see reason. Evelyn and her mother live within their own bubble, and nothing I say will ever convince them that they are wrong. “Evelyn, please, let me have my babies, and I promise, I would leave. You will not see me again,” I say instead. She scoffs. “The fact that you are still making demands means you do not understand that your life is over. Everything you have ever loved has been taken away from you, your mate, your pack, your children.”I shake my head. “Why do you hate me so much Evelyn?”“Because he loved you more than he loved us!” She cried out. “Ever since my mother married your father, it was always my princess Melissa this, and my little sweetheart Melissa that, he never talked that way about me! That was why I killed him.”I stare at her in shock as her words stir up forgotten pain within me. |Evelyn had killed my father! And all because he loved me his own daughter, more than a stranger he had just met. She was probably the one that killed Davis too. I don’t pause to contemplate this, as I know I have little time before Kayden catches me in his house, then there will be no hope of getting the twins. “I am sure you have a justifiable reason for whatever you have done,” I force myself to say. “Please, just give me the twins. Trust me, you don’t want anything to do with raising them, raising babies can be messy –”“Oh, but I wanted to raise them, that way, Kayden will already have his heir, and he will not pressure me to spoil my trim figure by getting pregnant.”“Evelyn please…”“They’re dead,” she interrupt me. “The twins are dead. I think they died of starvation or something, you should have fed your kids immediately you birthed the, but because you are so selfish, you chose to take a nap first.”I stare at her in shock and anguish, but within me, I feel anger and rage building. Every single thing that has ever happened to me, I always felt I deserve, but this – my babies were innocent, they never deserved to die. “Where are my babies Evelyn?” I ask, as rage makes me bolder. She smirks. “Get off my property murderer, before I call Kayden and ask him to send you to whatever after life the twins are at.” Turning around, she sashays out of the kitchen without a single worry. She knows I am weak and powerless, and have no one on my side. But it won’t be for long, I promise myself in anger, as my rage and anguish cause tears to fill my eyes. I endured every single thing that happened to me, but Kayden and Evelyn had to extend their cruelty to my innocent babies. It is all Kayden’sfault, I realize as more tears fill my heart. He was my mate, and yet he choose to believe my wicked step sister above me, he rejected me, then took my own children away from me, and because of that, the children were dead. Now, my children are gone from me, leaving me with no reason to continue living – well, no reason except one, revenge. “Moon hear my voice,” I swear in pain. “Give me no rest until I avenge the death of my babies, until I make Kayden suffer as much as he has made me.”I turn and leave. If I am caught in Alpha Kayden’s house after banishment, I will be killed. And I cannot afford to die now, no. I must have my revenge first.