Chapter 189 189|protect me from monster

Chapter 189 189|protect me from monster
Lilith pov

When evil doesn’t look like a monster, how would you even know who the real villain is?



My heart pounded so painfully it felt like it would rip straight out of my chest.

So painfully I couldn’t breathe.

So painfully my vision blurred until I could barely see what was in front of me anymore.

Maybe it was because the tears wouldn’t stop falling.

Or maybe it was because something deep in the darkness kept pulling at me, whispering for me to close my eyes, begging me to lose consciousness so I wouldn’t have to witness what sat before me.

My chest felt torn apart.

Shredded into pieces that could never be put back together again because the man before me…

That couldn’t be my father.

It couldn’t.

My father couldn't be the one twitching weakly against the chair. He couldn't be the man with no eyes. No tongue. No arms. No legs.

Not the man desperately trying to speak through broken, incoherent sounds spilling from his mouth.

Yet I understood him.

Even without words, I understood him perfectly.

“Lilith… my child… run… run away…”

My body slammed harder against the ground as I trembled violently.

And then suddenly—

Memories flashed through my mind one after another.

My father laughing loudly while I glared at him after failing to knock him down during training.

“You’re too slow, little wolf!” he had teased while I threw myself at him again in anger.

The memory shifted.

I was eight years old again, curled beneath blankets while thunder roared outside our home. I remembered clutching his shirt while he sat beside me, smiling warmly as he flexed his arm dramatically.

“I’m your hero, remember?” he had whispered proudly. “I will chase away all the thunder and monsters for you.”

Another memory.

Me on his back while he ran through the fields with my mother chasing after us, all three of us laughing so hard it hurt.

We had been happy.

That was the man I thought had died.

That was the man I mourned but he had been alive all this time.

And now… now he had been reduced to this.

A broken human barely clinging to life.

Samuel’s laughter only grew louder at the sight of my face. At the horror in my eyes. At my father’s desperate twitching as he tried to make me run.

My lips parted slowly.

A single word escaped me so quiet even I could barely hear it.

“Why…?”

My voice cracked apart.

More tears poured down my face as I stared at my father, at what was left of him, while Samuel’s laughter echoed endlessly around me.

“Why…?”

A little louder this time.

My body shook harder.

“Why… why…?”

Why was my father still alive?

Why had he been tortured like this?

Why was he forced to live in something worse than death itself?

All this time… all this time I believed he had died peacefully somewhere while my mother waited for him until her final breath.

But instead, he had suffered all alone.

Something inside me finally snapped.

“WHY?!”

The scream ripped violently from my throat as I jerked toward Samuel in complete hysteria.

The silver chains instantly yanked me backward, burning against my skin as they drained my strength but I didn’t stop.

I didn’t care.

“WHY?!” I screamed again, thrashing harder. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!”

The chains cut deeper into my wrists as I tried to lunge at him anyway.

“WHY?!”

My vision blurred entirely with tears and rage.

“What did my father ever do to deserve this?! What did I do?! What did any of them do?!”

I screamed until my throat tore apart.

“The late Alpha! The Alphas! Lora! Everyone who suffered because of you—WHY?!”

My body burned violently as rage consumed everything inside me. My mother had died waiting for my father and the man she loved… the man I thought could finally rest in peace beside her had been alive this entire time.

Reduced to this nightmare yet Samuel only laughed harder.

Like this was funny. Like my pain was entertainment.

A joke.

A fucking joke to him.

He doubled over laughing, clutching his stomach while my father twitched harder against the chair, desperately trying to tell me to run away.

Suddenly Leo stepped forward with a dark expression, raising his hand to strike me but Samuel grabbed his arm instantly and shoved him away so hard Leo crashed violently against the floor.

Samuel didn’t even look at him.

He just kept laughing.

My screams mixed with his laughter until the entire room felt insane.

Then suddenly—

“WHY?!”

Samuel roared the word back at me mid-laughter.

His eyes were wide now. Wild.

His chest rose and fell rapidly while he laughed like a complete maniac.

“You want to know why?!” he shouted. “Why I became the infamous Rogue Leader? Why I destroyed countless lives? Why I killed my own uncle? Why I betrayed my cousins? Why I turned your father into this? Why you lost everything?!”

He pointed at himself while laughing hysterically.

“I will tell you!”

Tears streamed endlessly down my face as I stared at the monster before me. The doctor who once cared for my mother. The gentle man who smiled kindly at everyone.

The sheep hiding the wolf beneath its skin all along.

Then suddenly, his laughter stopped completely. The smile vanished from his face and for the first time, Samuel looked confused.

Genuinely confused.

His head tilted slowly as he stared at me. Then quietly, almost absentmindedly, he muttered,

“That reason…” he paused. “I don’t know either.”

For a moment, I stopped, still shaking, still crying.

Still gasping for breath as the chains dug painfully into my skin but I stopped screaming.

My red, blurry eyes stared at him in disbelief and confusion.

Then suddenly, he smiled again.

A grin stretched across his face before a laugh burst from his lips and he clapped his hands together excitedly like a child. His eyes gleamed brightly with madness.

“I don’t know!” he laughed happily. “Haha… I truly don’t know why I did all of that!”

He spread his arms dramatically.

“At first, I thought it was because I wanted power. To rule over everyone and everything.”

Then he looked at me with genuine bewilderment before shrugging his shoulders lightly.

“But now…”

A chuckle escaped him.

“I truly don’t have a reason anymore.”

A tear slid slowly down my cheek.

My head turned weakly toward my father again.

Toward the man who still twitched desperately against the chair, his body shaking violently as he tried again and again to force the words out through his torn mouth.

Run.

Lilith… run…

The same man who once stood proudly before me and told me monsters weren’t something to fear… The same man who smiled and promised to protect me from every storm…

Was begging me to run away from one now.

Something inside me shattered completely.

A violent surge of rage exploded through my chest so hard it almost blinded me. The chains around my wrists rattled violently as I jerked forward with everything I had, my body trembling uncontrollably.

“I’ll kill you…” I hissed shakily.

My bloodshot eyes snapped toward him.

“I’ll kill you, you monster!”

CRACK.

The sound was faint but I heard it.

One of the silver chains around my wrist had cracked slightly. Samuel blinked once before his grin widened slowly.

And the next second, he vanished.

My eyes widened.

Before I could even react, he was already crouched in front of me, one hand gripping my shoulder tightly while the other moved so fast I barely saw it.

A sharp prick stabbed into my arm.

My body froze.

I gasped softly and turned sharply to see a syringe in his hand, the empty needle glinting beneath the dim light while he smiled at me.

“I need you quiet while I speak,” he hummed pleasantly.

Almost instantly, dizziness slammed into me.

The room tilted violently.

My breathing hitched as my vision blurred in and out. I tried jerking toward him again but my body suddenly felt unbearably heavy.

The chains rattled weakly.

My head spun violently as nausea clawed up my throat and I collapsed onto the ground with a soft thud, unable to force another word past my lips anymore.

The moment I fell, Father began twitching even harder.

His face drained of what little color remained as he jerked wildly against the chair before crashing face-first onto the floor, desperately trying to crawl toward me despite his ruined body.

“Li…lith…”

Samuel only watched me with sparkling eyes, fascinated.

“That’s better,” he whispered softly.

His hand reached toward my face, brushing a strand of hair away from my forehead with almost unbearable tenderness.

The gentleness of it made my stomach twist harder.

“You see, Lilith…” he whispered excitedly, “that’s the reason I wanted you to figure it out for me.”

My vision doubled violently. I could barely focus on his face anymore.

“I wanted you to tell me the answer.”

His voice sounded distorted beneath the violent ringing in my ears.

“I waited so long for this, you know? For you to hear my story and explain it to me.”

His grin widened slightly.

“Something tells me you are the only one who can.” A soft laugh escaped him. “So…” he hummed lightly, “hear me out, alright?”

Then he stood up abruptly and walked away, his voice sliding through the air, completely ignoring my father dragging himself weakly across the floor toward me.

Tears slipped endlessly down my face as I stared at Father’s trembling body. The chains dug painfully into my wrists while my breathing came out uneven and shaky.

My lips parted weakly.

“Father…”

My voice cracked apart the second the word left my mouth.

Tears blurred my vision harder as I watched him twitch helplessly on the ground, his mouth opening and closing desperately as he tried to force the words out.

“Lilith… Lilith. Run! Run!”

The words came out broken, desperate, nothing like the strong, unshakable man I remembered.

This wasn’t the father who taught me to stand my ground.

This was a man terrified of the monster he could no longer protect me from… or chase away.