Chapter 87: Chapter Thirty-Four

***Travis’s POV***

Born and raised a Beta, trained and fought as a Delta. Few and rare were the times in my life I have felt utterly confused, panicked, and without direction. So how could this deplorable wreck of a man today be me? Vulnerable and at the mercy of monsters.

I was Travis Reese. I was feared and respected, a leader. I was...

I was nothing like that anymore. I was just a scared little man, trembling at the lycan beasts, and with each passing second, the incessant thud coming out of my chest only grew louder and wilder until I could no longer hear anything but my heartbeat and heavy breathing.

The more I fought to pull myself together, the less successful I seemed to be. My hearing had faded, my throat instantly sealed out of fear, and my vision blurred from the prickly sweat running down my forehead to my cheeks. I was a complete mess.

“Answer the Beta!” A guard next to me yelled before landing a brutal kick to my stomach.

‘*Son of a bitch*!’ I thought as I coughed up for air through my gag. I had been caught off guard not only by the blow but also by the order. What question was the guard referring to, I couldn't say, but I knew that I couldn't take the hits any longer without my wolf. I had to come to my senses and quickly.

So I focused all of my attention on scanning the large, bright room into which they threw Gisele and me. From left to right, top to bottom, the walls were covered with long, frameless glass that left the entire room wholly exposed and deprived of privacy. The hundreds of mirrors mounted on the walls openly monitored the space around us like undisguised spies, and as the hall grew more and more impressive, I couldn't help but feel smaller.

The glass hall’s true purpose was clear: intimidate the enemy.

And it was working.

My reflection and that of the many Lycans standing in front of me was all I could see, and although my pitiful state was difficult to watch, the genuinely frightening spectacle laid with them.

Standing well over six feet tall, each looked as imposing and menacing as the last, but one, in particular, stood out from the rest.

At a distant table in the back, a single Lycan sat, tapping against the wood with his long, sharp claws, and at the sight of him, my blood instantly froze. Unlike the others who had jet black pupils, this one had piercing purple eyes and thick dark fur growing on his human neck and arms. As he stared at me, smiling through his cracked lips, I began to understand why he seemed more chilling than the others.

This dark-skinned beast was half-shifted.

'*It can't be* ...' I thought as my unease reached a fever high. Lycans were like werewolves, either turning or staying in human form but never straddling the two worlds. Still, from the sharp teeth sticking out of his smirk, I knew I wasn’t mistaken.

“Get up!” The same guard shouted in my face as he and his young friend lifted me and ripped off my gag. “And fucking answer the Beta!” He screamed again, his eyes jetting back and forth between a tall, pasty-skinned Lycan and me.

“We caught these two entering the borders, sir.” The young guard spoke in my place. “The she-wolf is a rogue, but this one… He says he’s a Delta.”

“A Delta?” The towering Beta responded in a low voice. “Which pack?” He asked, his dark eyes attentively fixed on me.

“R- River Creek.” I stammered.

“River Creek, eh? So far from home, Delta. Does William Bosk know that you’re here? Did he send you?” The man asked before finally ordering Gisele and me untied, and as the ropes around my arms and legs hit the ground with a thud, he spoke again. “No, your Alpha didn’t send you here, I know. That wouldn’t be like him. So, why are you here?”

“We have some precious information.” The rogue Alpha began to say as she slowly stood up, freed at last from her ligatures. “Information you’ll most-”


“I wasn’t talking to you, Rogue!” The Beta growled, his thin lips slowly twisting into a suspicious and dismissive scowl. “Unless I ask you a question, you are to never speak in my presence.”

"You-you can't ..." Gisele stuttered in fear, jumping back at the Beta’s booming voice. "I'm- I'm an Alpha, and you're only-"

"An Alpha?” The Beta’s eyebrows rose in surprise as he echoed her words. ”So the rogues are giving themselves titles now.” He laughed, addressing the sneering crowd. “Can you guys believe it? A rogue Alpha! What has the world come to, my friends? These mutts now think that they’re worthy of our titles.”

Suddenly, the pale man stopped laughing and sighed as he threateningly walked toward Gisele. “Tell me something, Rogue….” He whispered. “What is the most important thing an Alpha needs in order to be called an Alpha, the one thing they just cannot do without?”

“A- A pack.” Gisele answered in a shaky voice, looking toward me for support.

“Correct.” He smirked ominously. “An Alpha cannot be an Alpha without a pack, and that leaves me to wonder… do *you* have a pack, Rogue?”

“I-I do. And if- If anything happens to me, they’ll-”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk...” The lycan Beta cut her off with a wave of his finger. “Perhaps you did, but then you chose to come here.”

“What does that even-?”

“Bring them out!”

He shouted his order in the air, and instantly a handful of Lycan guards emerged from the dense and restless crowd and walked toward us. Each of them carried a large rectangular box, rounded at the bottom by the weight of its contents. ‘*Goddess, no. Please, not that*.’ I silently pleaded with the Moon Goddess despite knowing what was to come as streaks of blood followed in their paths and the room filled with the smell of rust.

The smiles of the purple-eyed Lycan and the Beta widened beyond measure as their men finally came to a stop and quickly spilled the contents of their boxes.

"Nooo!" Gisele cried out, collapsing to the ground as the severed heads of all the men, women, and children in her pack rolled at our feet.

And just like that, in less than two hours of us being here, the monsters had wiped out the entire rogue pack. Aki's last words sprung back into my mind, and among the hundreds of petrified faces, I found myself searching for that of the burly guard. But, alas, there was too much blood, too many lifeless eyes.

“How could you?” I mumbled in disbelief. “You’ve killed everyone. They’re all dead! Children! You’ve killed children! How could you?” I screamed, my disbelief rapidly morphing into pure anger.

Before I knew it, I was lunging toward the Beta but found myself yanked and slammed to the ground in no time. Three werewolf guards stood above me and pinned my arms to the side while the entire crowd burst into another fit of laughter.

“Did you really try to attack me in a room full of my guards?” The man asked, chuckling. “You’re bold, Delta, I’ll give you that. Now, where were we? Ah, yes. That one said you had precious information. Would you care to share?”

“Go to hell! All of you!” I winced in pain as the guards lifted me again.

“Are you going to make me ask the rogue? Hmm? Fine.” He sighed, turning his head back toward Gisele. “Alright, Rogue. Speak now or join your pack in death.”

For a moment, she remained silent, her gaze riveted on the bodiless heads of her former pack members. “The information we have isn’t for you.” Gisele slowly started to speak, never looking up. “It’s for him.” She finished by pointing to the sitting Lycan.

“No, Gisele, don’t say anything!”

“Shut the fuck up, Travis! This whole thing was your plan, remember? You wanted this, so here it goes! Alpha Parrish? I believe you’re missing a daughter.” She screamed and grinned at the uproar of gasps her words had caused. “That’s right; the Lycan Alpha has a living half-breed that roams freely across the country.”

“A lying rogue, why am I not surprised?” The Beta’s voice rose above the hushed whispers. “We don’t let half-breeds live, and if we did, we would be able to sense them.”

“Not if they don’t have a Lycan.”

“If that’s the case, then that woman is no half-breed. That’s it. I’ve heard enough. Ge-”

“Her name is Mina Langley. She’s a half-breed. She’s your half-breed!” Gisele shouted at the purpled-eye Alpha, ignoring the Beta’s threats as she stood up. “She’s mated to Benjamin Miller of Blackwoods Pack, and she’s your daughter.”

“How dare you speak to our Alpha? I’ll have your head for that.”

“Simon, wait.”

The Alpha's icy voice bounced off the mirrored walls of the hall for the first time, and the crowd fell immediately silent. Every werewolf and Lycan held their breath as they watched their leader promptly and silently rise from his seat and stand next to the Beta. His eyes briefly lost their eerie glow as he ordered the guards and spectators out without a word, and seconds later, the great hall was emptying as smoothly and quickly as he had moved.

“Langley?” The half-shifted beast wondered to himself before turning his attention to me. “Is this true?” He asked me.

“It’s true,” Gisele answered instead. “This one is in love with her, but she has a mate, the Alpha of her pack. Benjamin's a murderer who killed my son in front of me. We both want him dead. That is why we’re here.”

“Aaron? You don’t believe any of this, do you?” The pale-skinned second-in-command asked Alpha Parrish.

“I'm not sure, but I'll find out. Take these two to the dungeons, and with a few warriors, go to Blackwoods. Bring this Mina Langley back to me. Kill anyone else who gets in your way, especially her mate.” He answered without taking his eyes off me.

“You’re in luck, Delta. Soon I’ll grant you your wish and make you the happiest man in the world.”