3. Nineteen

~ Harper’s POV ~

I needed to blow off some steam. I had thought that after running through the woods my wolf would settle down but my wolf was still restless. 

I jumped over a fallen log landed on all four legs and sent the dirt flying everywhere. Running in the wolf form was cathartic and an excellent way to let go of pent-up emotions but right now, it didn't seem to be working. With the new revelations by the doctor, I wasn't surprised that my so was still strung up after running for hours without a break.

Nevertheless, I don't stop running even though I feel my muscles cramping and my body tiring. I rolled the words spoken by the doctor in my mind to analyze them again. They sounded like a bad omen, one that I had unknowingly prevented and one that I was genuinely glad that I had. 

After Mason was born, I went to meet the doctor who had done Natalie's C-section. The grim set of his facial muscles let me know that whatever he wanted to say wasn't going to be a good thing. "What happened, Doctor?"

He immediately bowed in respect to me. I nodded back in return and waited for him to say something. 

"The Luna's pregnancy was complicated, Alpha like I told you before." He gestured for me to take a seat. He went around behind the desk while I took the chair in front of it. I nodded my head to what he had said. In addition to being my blood and having all the complications that came with the fact, Natalie's pregnancy had a state called placenta previa, which made it very unsafe and dangerous for her to carry the baby to term. 

"I believe that the energy that the pack is bestowed with after an alpha ceremony is the reason your son and the Luna are alive." 

"What?" I gaped at the doctor. 

"When you ascended to take over the pack, the ceremony grants the pack a temporary power so that the transition between the ranks can go over smoothly. The higher the rank of the wolf in the pack, the greater the reserve of energy they have. I believe that this particular energy is the reason that your son and the Luna are alive to see the next day."

I looked into the doctor's eyes to see if he was playing with me, to see if it was all a joke. "What you're trying to say?"

"I'm saying that without the alpha ceremony, the Luna and the baby wouldn't have survived. The Luna would have bled out on the operation table and the baby would have died of lack of air. So, it is a good thing that you had the ceremony when you did and that you chose Natalie to be the Luna because it turned out very well."

It has been seven hours since the doctor told me everything and explained to me how close I had been to losing my son. 

I stopped running and dropped down on the ground, beyond exhaustion. I needed a few minutes to catch my breath. I put my head between my paws and felt my muscles relax. 

It felt extremely weird to call Mason my baby and even more unsettling to admit that Natalie was now the mother of my child. Sure, I had known about it for months now but now that it had happened, everything held a new meaning. 

I trotted in the woods for fifteen minutes when I came upon the outhouse stationed near the Southern border of the territory and I knew the correct thing to do to get rid of my restlessness.

It would be morbid to think to have a dungeon in the 21st century but that's exactly where I had landed while having my run. It was a small outhouse that looked pretty downtrodden and bereft. The steps to the basement lead to the prison cells where all the rogues were kept in custody. 

The knowledge that the rogues from the attack on the rogue camp were imprisoned in the dungeons, I found it hard to walk away. The only thing that could divert my attention from everything going on in my life was the rogues who kept targeting my pack and I needed to get long overdue answers. 

I shifted back into my human form and changed into the clothes stashed in the woods. The best part about these dungeons was that normal pack wolves didn't know that the place existed, so the rogues would be completely at my mercy. 

Feeling invigorated at the prospect of torturing rogues, I entered the outhouse and nodded to the two warrior guards stationed inside. I walked to the hidden trap door and climbed down the steps where all the cells were lined up. 

Out of the six rogues we had managed to capture during our attack, only two had managed to survive. The rest had succumbed to their injuries and I knew that the surviving two would be worse for the wear. I would have to go easy on them, against my better wishes. 

They did have a little time to recuperate in addition to being looked after by a pack doctor, so maybe not that easy. 

The two rogues were put in alternative cells so that they could have no contact with each other. Wolfsbane was regularly pumped into the cells through the vent so that we could weaken their healing and torture their wolves. That way, the prisoners were more susceptible to our questioning and less likely to deflect or act smart. 

The guard stationed at the cell water to me bowed and unlocked the cell at my gesture. I nodded back and entered the cell which had traces of wolfsbane in the air and was making my wolf pretty antsy. 

The rogue was pretty bruised up and didn't look extremely roughed up. His injuries in the attack couldn't have been much because he had the gall to beam at me. He looked two years older than me, had brown hair and if he wasn't chained up to a very uncomfortable-looking chair, I was sure he'd be two to three inches taller than me. The stupid grin he was throwing my way made me want to grab his head and slam him into the wall, but I resisted. 

Plus, I liked the shiner he was sporting on his left eye, which must have been a courtesy from one of the guards. Damn, that looked good. I'll have to pay the guard who landed on this filthy rogue a few extra dollars. 

I took a few steps to get closer to the rogue, pulled my arm back, and landed a heavy blow straight to his jaw. His head whipped to the side and his groan of pain made me feel satisfied. 

I tilted my head to the side. "Let's begin this, shall we?" 

His eyes glared at me and his lips formed a bloody grin. "Bring it on."

I landed another heavy punch which whipped his head to the side and almost toppled the chair to the ground. "What's your name?" 

He turned his head to look at me and spit on the ground in defiance. "Aaron."

"Aaron, you are going to tell me what I need to know. Alright?" I bent over him and looked him straight in the eyes, daring him to defy me. When he said nothing, just glared hatefully, I leaned back and landed several punches on his torso, his groans of pain music to my ears.

"Was the sorry bunch of tents we found on the eastern border all there is to it?" I asked after twenty minutes of me punching him to the ground and him being defiant at every turn of my questioning. 

Aaron's eye had been shut closed because of my punches and he was looking like a purple-colored goblin at this point and I was pretty proud of the work I had put in. 

"No! That was just the scout's dispatch. Just to look over the daily activities of your pack members, find out your strengths and weaknesses." He smirked, one of his teeth chipped and lying on the blood-soaked ground.

I pulled at the collar of his shirt and brought his bloody face closer to mine. "Where are the rest of you bastards?" 

"Here and there." He pathetically whispered and I growled in his face. I landed another punch to his torso and heard him being knocked out of breath. 

"I don't think punches do it for you anymore." I moved away from him and went towards the table filled with various tools, which I had the guards brought in so that I could get more information out of him. Just when I picked up a twisted serrated knife I had never used before, the door opened and Aiden entered the room. 

"You're the first person to torture someone the same day your son was born," Aiden remarked and I chuckled at his dark humor. 

"Feel free to join me in this torture the same day your godson was born." I winked at him. His eyes grew wide at what I was insinuating and he came forward to hug me. 

"Aw, that's sweet!" Aaron coughed and blood spilled down his cracked lips. We broke apart from the hug and looked at the chained-up rogue. 

"I assume you two are like brothers." He said and looked between the two of us. 

Aiden went to the table and picked up his favorite torture device, the two-pronged knife, and rammed it into the guy's thigh. Blood immediately started pouring out of the wound, Aiiden had nicked the artery. This rogue would probably be dead in the next few minutes. Oh well, we could always resume our interrogation with the next rogue. 

Aaron groaned in pain but still had the gall to look up at us defiantly. "You know the thing about brothers. They won't ever leave you behind." 

The green light in the corner lit up and the vents were turned on. The same vents pumped wolfsbane into the prison cells to make the prisoners defenseless. 

Aiden banged on the prison door. "Let us out."

"They won't hear you. You see, they have been disposed of." He grinned while I could feel the air being pumped with wolfsbane. 

I took two steps towards the chained-up rogue but collapsed on my legs as the wolfsbane entered my system. 

The image of the wicked grin on Aaron's fax burned in my eyes when I fell on the floor, unconscious.