6

Rhea’s POV

“No wonder the alpha here didn’t tell you shit! You hit like a little girl, Stefan” I said lightly.

Another biting lash opened up a new gash against my back while I bit back my scream as my tears kept flowing freely down my face.

My back was catching on fire, and I could feel my blood trickling down my back and drenching my already dirty jeans.

The hoodie I had on was still on me, except the back was completely shredded now. It barely took ten of Stefan’s extremely vicious lashes on it to tear it apart. It was already ragged to begin with. After that, my bare back took all the still ongoing punishment.

I had no idea how long it has been or how many lashes I received, but I could assume it’s been more than half an hour at least.

I was making fun of Stefan the whole time, trying my best not to let him hear me scream in pain and give him the satisfaction.

It only made him hurt me more.

“Will you shut up and stop taunting him! he hits like a fucking beast! It hurts Rhea” Hazel whimpered in my head.

Hazel doesn’t agree with my sick method of treating physical pain as an emotional outlet. But guess what? I’m the one with the human tortured, messed up soul, and I’m the one who has to feel every ounce of emotional pain from the horrible, disgusting things I’ve had to do to stay alive over the years, which keep haunting me every sleeping and waking second of my life.

Physical pain is the only thing I know that will numb my tortured soul.

Stefan keeps hitting me on the same spot for five minutes and I can’t keep my mouth shut anymore as the cut he is creating keeps getting deeper and deeper.

My scream fills the entire forest as my vision starts to become blurry from the unbearable amount of pain.

“Stop hurting her!” the shackled alpha gives off a weak version of alpha command at Stefan which does nothing to actually stop him.

His system was flooded with wolfs bane, rendering him powerless. Under normal circumstances the command will work regardless whether Stefan was a part of his pack or not.

An alpha can command anyone from outside his pack; if the command was powerful enough, except another alpha.

I spared a look at him and saw anguish plastered clearly on his face, the same anguish I felt when he was the one being tortured in front of me.

Stefan laughs at him “She gives you some water and now you feel protective of her? She will kill you if alpha Victor commands it, don’t kid yourself!”

“I will enjoy ripping your heart out the first chance I get, I swear to the goddess, you filthy, disgusting, coward rogue!” the alpha said fiercely.

He starts hitting us both one lash at a time, and I can’t help but gather that he said those things on purpose to give me some relief by sharing my pain and taking some of it upon himself.

It made a new, weird feeling to settle inside my heart; which was quite difficult to feel among the sea of pain I was already going through that didn’t really leave much room for me to feel anything else, except that I did.

I felt….cared for in some twisted sort of way. A way I never, ever felt before in my whole life.

No one ever tried to defend me or stand up for me the way he just tried to get Stefan to stop hurting me, and got himself intentionally tortured again in the process.

Even though he didn’t really have to do any of that, since I was just another rogue to him. Especially when he knows for sure that I killed a few of his pack members trying to save myself and defend my pack.

Why is he doing this?

“Maybe he believes that we didn’t really have a choice in the matter” Hazel said softly.

“That’s enough Stefan” alpha Victor spoke strongly, cutting my comeback to Hazel.

At once, Stefan stopped and came to stand in front of the alpha; who was alone this time.

“Leave us” he ordered.

Without another word, Stefan dropped the whip on the ground and walked off through the forest.

I kept my head down while I tried to breathe out through the pain.

What’s taking his brother so long? Don’t they have a warlock that can portal them here? Oh goddess! What if they really didn’t have one other than the one already killed in battle by us? I don’t know how much longer I can keep lying to alpha Victor, hell I don’t even think I’m able to fight against another alpha command in my current condition.

I saw him walking around me, inspecting the damage done to my back, maybe he wants to punish me himself now. I can’t imagine enduring his punishment which will make Stefan’s feel like a tickle in comparison, that’s for sure.

He stands in front of me again and orders “Look at me, Rhea”

I do as he asked, staring straight at his dark eyes that are threatening to swallow me into their blackness forever.

“Do you want me to help you kill your humanity once and for all and forgive your little act of rebellion against me?” he asked fiercely

“Yes alpha” I answered right away.

His response shocks me to the core.

“Become my chosen mate, bear my mark, and I will make sure no sliver of your humanity resurfaces ever again” he said in a deadly voice.

“Oh hell NO!” Hazel gets so angry, she blindly tries to take control over my mouth to scream the same thing she just said in my head.

Her struggle makes me struggle against her, which subsequently causes me to scream out in pain as I try to push her back from saying something that will get us killed.

“Settle down dammit!” I snarl at her.

She ignores me as she thrashes away at my control viciously.

“NO!” my mouth screams her words in a loud shriek.

“We’re not your mate, and never will be!” she says hysterically through my voice.

“Take back control, Rhea, now” he alpha commanded coldly.

I gasp and blink back my tears as I beg him heartily even though that is the complete opposite of what I wanted to say to him, but I had to repair the damage “I’m so sorry alpha. She didn’t mean…”

“I know. You don’t have to explain. We might not be fated mates, but that doesn’t mean we can’t choose one another if we complete the marking ritual. Once it’s done, your wolf will not cause any problems as she will be connected to my wolf and trust me Rhea, my wolf will make her change her mind about us” he promised darkly.

Hazel was screaming in my head wildly and no amount of begging on my part was calming her down.

I asked him curiously “What does being mated to each other have to do with my humanity, Alpha?”

He gave me a sly smile “You don’t know the first thing about mate bonds, do you?”

I shook my head. It was never something I was curious about because I made up my mind a long time ago about it. I can barely function on my own, I don’t have enough sanity to tolerate a mate that I will probably end up having to kill when he refuses to join the rogues.

It was the general rule here. If one of us found our mates during a pack takeover, the mate has two choices, join us by killing the rest of his pack members and accept that the mate bond will turn him into a rogue like us, or get killed if he refuses. The alpha will order the rogue to kill his or her mate with his/her own hands and severe the bond forever. I’ve seen it happen many times. No rogue ever hesitated to kill the mate. They didn’t feel any sort of loss at all afterwards. It was extremely disturbing if you come to think of it. It’s supposed to be the purest, most unconditional form of love between two people and their wolves. And yet, we are so screwed up in the head, so dead inside already, we kill them without even doubting it.

No wonder I wouldn’t want to know the first thing about it. I wished to the goddess every night that I never get to meet him so I don’t have to kill him.

I bet that will definitely break the last straw in my sanity.

And I really needed what little of it I had left.