Chapter 3

Louisa's POV

Lying on the bed, being watched by Alpha Lucas and Beta Lucian, I felt so desperate.

"Alpha Lucas..." I said in a low voice, barely louder than a whisper.

"Is she trying to talk to me?" Lucas frowned.

"She's calling your name. So let me take a wild guess," Lucian shrugged.

It seemed that he had a very passive-aggressive way against his Alpha, and Alpha Lucas didn't have any problem with that.

This kind of fair and intimate Alpha-Beta relationship was something that I had never heard of.

My father's Beta would never dare to look at my father in the eyes, let alone throw him a big fat attitude.

"Do you have anything to say or do you want to keep staring at us like that?" Lucian asked.

"I... I want to go home..." I murmured.

"Home?" Lucas narrowed his eyes. "Do you call that shithole a home?"

I felt crossed.

My father's pack was not as advanced as those packs in the north, but it was a clean, decent place.

It was not fair to call it a shithole.

I wanted to talk back to him, but years of subordination shut me up.

This wasn't the place and the time for a person like me to talk back at a person like him.

I cleared my voice and said, "If you could please let me go home, Alpha Lucas... I have to see my family. My father will get upset if I'm gone for a long time."

Lucas chuckled with disdain.

"Is she seriously saying this or her head got bumped into something while I was dragging her into the tent?" Lucas said to his Beta.

Lucian gave him a dark look.

Lucas rubbed his head and said to me, "Your father sold you at 30,000 bucks to me over a poker table. I was at the Masquerade to collect you and saw your stepbrother trying to tear you into two halves. Why would you call someone who abandoned you and hurt you as your family?"

I opened my mouth and closed it.

I couldn't think of anything to justify myself.

I didn't have a family.

The family I had in my mind was nothing but an illusion.

My father wouldn't even notice that I was gone.

Maybe with me being gone, he would have one less thing to worry about.

I wept silently.

I tried to lift my arm to wipe my tears, but it was just too painful to move.

"They are the only ones that I have got..." I said in a quiet voice.

Lucas stood up, looking vexed -

"Now she's crying. Fuck. Lucian, help me out here. Why is she crying?"

Lucian replied, "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you told her the truth?"

Lucas looked confused, "What else should I tell her? Do you want me to lie to her, telling her that her father loved her more than anything in the world?"

Lucian sighed and said, "That girl has just been sold by his father, Luke. You really should have got some common sense."

"Please let me go home... I don't want to stay here..." I mumbled in tears.

"Oh, fuck, shut up, will you?" Lucas said impatiently. "Your father is dead and your pack is gone. There is no home and family for you to return to!"

His words were like sharp knives, stabbing into my heart.

I looked up into his eyes, trying to look for a trace of evidence indicating that he was joking.

But there wasn't any.

He was... telling the truth?!

My head was so painful that I felt it was about to explode.

"No... It can't be it..." I said in despair, struggling to get up from bed. "I need to see them... I need to go back to my pack..."

All the muscles in my body were giving off shooting pain at the same time.

My spine must have been raptured, which was why I couldn't move my limbs.

Nevertheless, I still persisted, trying to sit up.

Tears were like running waterfalls, pouring down my cheeks.

Deep down in my heart, I knew he was telling the truth.

My pack was gone.

My father was dead.

But I just had to see it myself to confirm.

At that time, Lucas started to get agitated.

"Fuck! Lucian! Stop her! Stop her from moving! Strap her on the bed! Chain her up! I don't care! Just stop her from moving around like that!"

Lucian, who looked a bit surprised by his overreaction at first, stepped forward and pinned me down against the bed.

I could feel the warmth and scent of cigarettes in his hands.

"You have to stay put, she-wolf." He stared into my eyes and said in an assertive voice. "If you keep moving like this, I have to be forced to take action to tranquilize this situation. Do not force me to do anything."

His words were like cold surgical knives, cutting into my flesh and bones.

I looked over Lucian's shoulder and saw Lucas, who was walking back and forth in the tent, looking agitated.

I felt deterred. I knew it must be the bond between me and him.

Whenever I felt pain, he would feel it. And that was why he asked his Beta to subdue me.

So I stopped struggling, lying in bed, crying in silence, and eventually choking on my own tears.

Lucas covered his head with both of his hands and roared at his Beta, "Lucian! Do something! My head is about to explode! I'm drowning in grief! Oh, fuck it! That's it!"

He rushed forward and pulled me up from the bed, holding me in his arms while walking out of the tent.

The pain coming from my back almost killed me.

My head started spinning.

I could feel something bitter in my mouth.

I didn't know what it was, but I tried to swallow it back into my throat.

The night wind was blowing and I could see millions of stars in the dark night sky.

I had never been held like this by a man.

I was in my mate's arms, which was supposed to bring me overwhelming happiness.

But I just couldn't feel anything else but tremendous fear.

His body was without any temperature.

There was not a single dash of warmth coming from his embrace.

He was as cold as death.

Even though I leaned against his chest, I couldn't hear any heartbeat.

It was as if I was being carried by a living dead.

Where is he going to take me?

Is he going to hurt me?

The smell of burning was getting more intense.

Then, his cruel voice echoed in my ears -

"Now, take a look at it by yourself, you fucking she-wolf! Are you convinced?! Can you stop fucking around with me?!"

I looked up and saw the direction of my father's pack.

Old Crimson Creek was on fire.

The fire ruptured the darkness by burning it up as if the whole night was bleeding.

And that was what I smelt in the air.

The burning of my home, my family, and all the werewolves in my pack.

"No!!!" I growled under the night sky with all my efforts, but my voice was smothered down by the howling wind.

The swallowed bitter thing in my mouth surged at the back of my throat again.

This time, I had to let it out by coughing violently.

"Oh fuck!" Lucas dropped me to the ground. "She's fucking coughing blood now! She's a fucking plague!"

As my back hit the ground, I passed out into oblivion.

The last thing I saw was the burning night sky.

The stars were weeping blood.