Tortured

Freya's POV 

"Long live Alpha Luciano. Long live crescent moon pack." The crowd cheered as two huge guards dragged me to the scaffold.

Today was the worst day of my life.

It was the day of my execution.

After five months of investigating the mysterious death of the dowager luna and all evidence still pointed toward me as the murderer, I was eventually sentenced to death by beheading some days ago.

Tears oozed out of my eyes as I smiled mirthlessly at the crowd that had gathered to me take my last breath.

The pack that had converged to watch me die an undeserving, torturous death.

"Ivy." I whispered to myself as my eyes scanned the crowd for a familiar brunette.

She didn't come.

After my sentencing, she had held me in the dungeon and wept bitterly until her cries lulled me to sleep.

Strangely enough, the gravity of the whole situation didn't quite dawn on me on the day of my sentencing.

The realization just struck me earlier that day when I was asked to take off my clothes and presented with a jute gown and a plain white cap, which was regarded as the death outfit for criminals who had been tried and found guilty by the pack council.

"Oh, Freya. Is this really going to be our end?" Ana whimpered inside me.

"I guess so." I croaked, choking on my own tears, before turning to the executioner.

As defiantly as I could, I uttered. "I'm ready now."

The tall, burly man merely gave an impatient grunt as a response.

After muttering a prayer to the moon goddess to bless my soul, I knelt and placed my head on the scaffold as the menacing shine of the sword struck my eyes.

I felt the sword linger on my neck for a split second, but just before I could feel the agonizing pain of the murder weapon, everything turned dark and I awoke in the dungeon with a fear-ridden gasp.

Cold sweat broke out on my skin as I glanced around the petrifying terror that was the dungeon.

Apprehension soon dawned on me and I realized I just had a nightmare.

"Thank you, moon goddess. Thank you so much." I panted.

"We won't go down easily without putting up a fight, Freya." Ana broke into my thoughts, causing me to roll my eyes at her absurdness.

"Right, we won't. Like we have any influence at the moment. Or have you forgotten where we are right now?" I scoffed.

"At least we are not dead yet, right? That's what matters. We need to be alive, so we can get to the bottom of this." My wolf countered.

"Yeah, we need to be alive," I agreed, before exhaling deeply. "Although, I don't know how much longer we will be."

"I hear footsteps." Ana squeaked, prompting me to frown in confusion for a split second before apprehension hit me.

What if it was Alpha Luciano?

Immediately, goosebumps enveloped me and it felt like I couldn't breathe properly through my nostrils.

A week had passed since I had been imprisoned and he hadn't come to see me once.

What horrible news was he coming to give me? Was my nightmare going to come to pass?

"Take it easy, Freya. Try to breathe through your mouth." Ana suggested, to which I nodded before obeying her instruction.

I stopped breathing for a fleeting moment when he strolled in, flanked by three guards and a strange man.

Luciano looked as handsome and powerful as an alpha could be in his perfectly-tailored black suit paired with a black ascot to match.

Truly, he was a majestic sight to behold. It was a shame he was a psychopathic brute.

"A-Alpha." I stammered when our eyes met.

Averting his gaze from mine, he reached into his pocket and retrieved a lighter.

"He smokes?" Ana asked.

"How the hell am I supposed to know that?" I snapped, and she quickly mellowed.

"It's been a while, my darling dear. How are you feeling today?" Luciano asked, flicking his lighter in an on and off motion.

My brows furrowed in confusion as my mind registered what he had just called me; his darling dear.

Plus the fact that he had asked after my well-being.

I had no idea what was going on, but Luciano was really creeping me out.

"Don't you have a mouth?" The strange man barked, glowering at me.

"It's alright, Reginald," The alpha spoke, moving toward me.

I swallowed harshly as he leaned in and cupped my jaw with one hand, and smiled at me.

Scratch what I said earlier about him being creepy, his calm demeanor and harmless smile was petrifying to behold.

"Are you ready to tell the truth now?" He asked.

"I-I don't know the truth, Alpha. Please believe me. I woke up in the dowager luna's bedchamber without a single clue of how I got there." I divulged, looking everywhere but into his eyes.

The beryl hue of his eyes was bone-chilling to stare at.

"Interesting." He nodded, his smile widening as he finally let go of my chin and straightened up.

"Very interesting and audacious of you to keep lying to my face. You have no idea how draining this whole thing is." Luciano said, his eyes darkening as his face hardened into it's usual cold mien.

My heart dropped as he darted me a glare and slipped the lighter back into his pocket.

"Reginald, tell them to bring in her present. She deserves it for being so cooperative. Hopefully, it will improve her cooperation." He said, and I swallowed harshly while inwardly wondering what the gift was.

Was it a sly innuendo? I rhetorically questioned myself.

I was right; it was an innuendo.

The "gift(s)" were nothing more than two wheelbarrows of bricks and cement mixed with sand and water respectively.

My heart sank even further when one of the guards unchained my feet and wrists before roughly yanking me up, and slamming me against the wall.

I shook with pure trepidation as some bricks were placed around me and binded with the cement mixture.

“You’re getting an immurement. Isn’t that great, my darling dear?” He chuckled, folding his arms across his chest.

My heart lurched in terror as bile clogged my throat at his idea of a “gift.”

I knew what an immurement was; it involved entombing someone alive and leaving the person to die.

Apart from beheading, it was the worst form of death. 

At least with beheading, my agony would end quickly. Immurement however was a long and torturous experience because one would feel oneself gradually slipping into insanity before death took them.

“N-No,” I whispered, feeling goosebumps envelop me. “I-I don’t deserve this. I didn’t kill your mother!” I screamed like a lunatic that was being forced into a psychiatric hospital.

Luciano just scoffed. “Quicken your pace.” He barked at the guards.

In a matter of minutes, the bricks had been built up to my waist.

Tears burned my eyes as Luciano fixated a cold stare on me.

"W-Why are you doing this to me?" I couldn't help but choke out as I weakly glared at the alpha.

"I should be asking you the same question. Do you think I don't have other affairs to oversee? Do you think I also want to sit here and watch you lie to my face? This is what you deserve for using a knife laced with silver on my mother!” He barked.

“S-Silver? I did no such thing. Where could I have possibly gotten it from?” I stuttered, confusion dwelling within me.

I was as poor as a church rat and the amount of money needed to get just one gram of silver was no joke, plus it wasn’t even accessible to the wealthy; only the alpha could obtain it.

“Maybe your sponsor gave it to you. I mean whoever d-” He swallowed the rest of his statement and inhaled deeply.

“Even snails would have completed this thing a long time ago.” Luciano swerved his focus from me and barked at the guards.

As the bricks piled up to my chest, uncontrollable tears flowed down my face, and I glared at Luciano again.

"Monster." I whispered and immediately I did, I wished the word had never rolled off my tongue.