Grahams POV
Where the hell did a freaking vampire come from? He was so quick I never even saw him coming to be able to step back away from him. His nails were digging into my neck, and I could feel the strength coming from him. This was no freshly turned vampire. This one had rank, and he was angry. Very angry, and I had no idea why. I have done nothing at all to him. Cheryl is Blake’s mate, and he should have been the one to jump in to protect her. My eyes slide to where Blake was standing, and he is pissed off as he glares over and sees what this bloodsucker is doing. I wish I could smile, but I cannot take a breath to fill my lungs. I almost wished he would end me, so I don’t have to live through the punishment that Blake was going to be giving me, so I am fine with how this is turning out.
Blake was growling at Anton for defending Cheryl before he could, and it seems like this vampire might be interested in her. What the hell has happened in less than a week? But here I am lifted in the air about to meet the Goddess with the rousing defense of this vampire, all for the sake of Cheryl. The vampire suddenly lets me go, and I dropped to the floor, with my lungs filling with the precious air I needed to breathe. I have to grab my neck to check and see if I am bleeding. I am struggling to breathe and I swear it feels like his hand is still wrapped around my neck. He was strong, and I my mind was telling me to move, that I need to get away from the bars, but my body was frozen in fear at this sudden attack. I do not want his nasty undead hands on me again.
He let go of me to go and grab the chair at the desk for Cheryl. He then gently assisted her onto it before Blake could stop leaning against the wall. I started scrambling back and crab-walked away from the bars. I didn't care how stupid I looked, I just didn't want him to be able to reach me again. He wanted to kill me, and I could tell it was because he liked Cheryl. That is ridiculous, we do not date those nasty creatures. They are not worthy of us at all, even Cheryl's stupid self. They are dead for the Goddesses' sake. But I could tell he was angry at my threat to her, and he was not playing around. My throat hurt, and I was done with this fucking visit.
“I want them to leave. I deserve some sort of protection from this kind of filth, Blake. How could you let a dirty bloodsucker on our packland?” I managed to get out, but that freak show had hurt me, badly. I already know that my throat was bruised. I swear it felt like his handprint was going to stay imprinted on my throat because he grabbed me so hard.
“Please leave my mate alone, Anton. She only needs me to take care of her. Thank you for defending her, but I will do it in the future” Blake told the vampire. I cannot stop my smirk. I think I will get him fired up at the vampire and see what happens then. I am safe in here, so it won't be me getting hurt, it will be one of them that will get hurt when the fight starts At least I can get one more dig in between him and Cheryl again.
“Yes, she is Blake’s mate. There is no need for you to ever touch her again. No self-respecting she-wolf would ever consider dating a parasite like you. You need to leave her alone before Blake has to force you to leave. You are not welcome here at Black Moon pack” I told the vampire with a smirk. I was going to give this leech as hard a time as I could, so I can get Blake fired up again. Cheryl looks better than she did when she left here, but she is still clearly frail, and I will not let this opportunity pass me by. It is the last chance for me to hurt her again, and I am going to be taking it.
I was surprised to see that he acted as if he could care less though, and he gave me the same smirk I had given him back to me. He didn’t seem concerned at all about what I had said. He then opened his mouth and said, “So are you speaking as a member of the pack? Or as the mouthpiece for Blake?”
Blake’s whole demeanor changed at that moment. It went from me firing Blake up, to the leech letting Blake know that I was taking over again. Blake’s eyes narrowed on me and he took a step towards my cell. Before he could open his mouth, I could hear several voices shrieking out about being brought back to the cells. Why in the hell are they back here? Didn’t they get used as prey to lure the bloodsuckers in? They were all supposed to be dead now. I could not contain the groan of frustration as they got brought back down to their cells. They are going to be just as annoying as they were before, and I didn’t want to hear it. Goddess, he should kill them all now, because they are not worth storing down here with me. I will mention that to Blake, but not as if I wanted them to die, but in an "I see you are letting them live after disrespecting your Luna" kind of way. Blake is easy to manipulate, he hates disrespect of any kind, just like I do. He will take care of them soon after that, and I try to calm back down. I will take care of it later, no hurry now. Clearly these women in front of me, all have something they want to say. Well too bad for them, because I am done dealing with the lot of them.
We all heard it when the one in front of the group being put back into their cells caught sight of Cheryl. That was all it took for her to start up, “What in the fuck are you doing here? You are the one who should be in a cell, not us. You killed three members of the pack, how in the hell do you still have your freedom?”
The others were quick to look over to see her too, and the nasty comments started up. They did not stop until Blake walked over to their cells and started yelling at them, “You can all shut the hell up. She was the one to beg me to spare your worthless lives. She was the one who said that you shouldn’t be used as prey. She even pointed out that you were all used by Graham, just like we were. She advocated for you, and you are just so vile that you attacked her right off the bat. I will tell each and every one of you, that you have one week to live. You are still going to be put to death, but feel free to take it out on Graham each and every day, of your last week until your sentence is carried out. Do not forget that Kara was not an innocent victim either. She just got her punishment a little earlier than you are getting yours. I will tell you now that if any of you speak to Cheryl like you just did again, I will get the pack doctor down here. Each of you will be donating some blood to the vampires that are here right now. I promise you that if the words you speak are as ugly as what was just said that I will have him drain you dry, and you can die today. Am I clear?”
They must have nodded to him in response, as none of them spoke again, but he seemed content with what they had done to respond to him. Blake walked back to my cell and looked me dead in the eyes as he said, “Your days of speaking for the pack, or for me, are over and done with. Your punishment starts tomorrow, Graham. I will spend tonight thinking of a good start to it, just so you know how serious I am about your punishment. You will not be getting out of this. There will be no easy death for you. I plan on making you suffer each and every day until Cheryl forgives me for what I did to her. I plan on making sure that I make the punishment fit the crime you committed, and that Kevin gets his justice from you too. I will never come down alone, and if I go too far and they think I am going to kill you, they are supposed to stop me. I will make sure that the pack doctor keeps a crash cart down here, for just such an emergency. because I do not want you dead, Graham. I want you to suffer, over and over again, until you welcome the comfort that only death will provide you. You will get used to seeing me, down here to tend to you each day. You will get no break because you never gave either of them one. I want you to know it, and I wanted Cheryl to know it too. I want her back. I need her back with me. If I start to lose it because of your heinous plans, then thankfully I will just come down here to take it out on you. Know this though, no one will be coming to rescue you. You will stay here until you die, even the council is good with the plan I have submitted to them. Thankfully, Cole and Raven supported my plan, so I have every right in the world to carry it out, as I see fit.”
“We dropped our charges of you being wanted for trial, for you to be punished here at Black Moon. Both Raven and I were alright with it. You have earned every bit of what you are about to receive. The best part is that we both know that Blake will not let you get away with any of it. Each day as he slips further down that slippery slope, you will be his whole focus. You made your cruel plan up so well, that there was no coming back from it. So, congratulations to you Graham. You kept improving your cruel plans until you finally ripped a family apart. For no reason other than you are the most spiteful person I know. You should be disgusted by all you have done. I only asked you for one thing, when you took Cassandra away from me, as your own. You couldn’t even do that. Your current situation is all because of the bad choices that you made and continued to make” Cole said to me, and my anger pours out before I can stop it.
“Meeting Cassandra was a happy accident. You were the one who messed up there. You slept with her, and then left her alone? You should have marked her, so that was on you. If you had just taken another minute to do so, none of this would have happened. You need to accept some blame here too, Cole. You act like I put her over my shoulder like a caveman and ran away with her. That is not what happened at all. You made bad decisions too that fateful night too. Stop acting like I was the only one who messed up” I fired back at him.
Yes, I screwed up. But he left one of the most beautiful she-wolves that I have ever seen in my life, just sitting there alone. She was sitting there crying, and clearly upset. How could I not take a shot at trying to pursue her and make her mine? It is not my fault that she immediately fell for my charm. Did Cassandra and I make some bad choices, yea, we did. But we did love each other. I just wish it didn’t leave me at a severe disadvantage, especially with a powerful neighbor. The chance of him finding out what I had done was always looming over my head and causing me concern. But I will never admit that I was worried about it for a minute.
“Stop blaming others for your own mistakes Graham. You always have an excuse for everything that you do, and try to provide a reason for it. For once in your life, admit that something is your fault because in this case, it is. You would not be in this situation if you had just given Raven to me after she was born. You would have then raised Reagan as your heir with no rivalry between them. Reagan might have learned to be more like her mother, than you, which would have been better for her. Because I already know she buttering up to you because she wanted that Luna position. She knew you could give it to her, she knew where the power lay between you and Cassandra. Maybe the Goddess wouldn’t have prevented you from having another child. You could have had a son who was over your pack right now. So many opportunities were missed all because of you, Graham. You were the main factor in all of it. The Goddess knew what you had done, and she was angry. She had plans for Cassandra and me, and you enticed her with all you were going to do for her, to win her over. I still find it amusing that she fell for it. I have always done better in business than you. I had a bigger pack, more money, more pack members, and more businesses than you. You must have been frantic to keep her from realizing her mistake in picking you, over me. She picked you to get “stuff” and she would have had everything she ever wanted in life if she had decided to stay with her true mate. I mentioned this because I want you to get the point I am trying to make. It doesn’t matter how well your plans are laid out, or how brilliant they may be. You cannot outrun the penalties of your actions. You probably think you can, or come up with a logical excuse for it, to try to wiggle your way out from under it. But karma is a bitch. The Goddess was never going to let this go, and your ignorant ass keep racking up the payment that you were going to receive from it. That payment got to be so large, that your mate ended up having to pay some of it too. She had a part in all of this as well, she was not innocent, and she allowed you to go too far. She may not have been as bad are you are, but she knew better than to make choices like she did, all for monetary gain. She turned her back on Raven being abused, she should have taken her and left. She knew where I was, and could have brought her to me at any time. I would have taken care of both of them, but she didn’t. She stood back and watched. She watched my innocent daughter who was a child be hurt, repeatedly. You may not have physically hurt her yourself, but you allowed others to do it. Don’t think that makes you noble, or innocent of it, we both know that you kept your hands off of her because you knew it would be certain death for you if I ever found out that you had hurt her. So, just in case you were wondering. Yes, you are indeed the reason for Cassandra’s death, Graham. All the bullshit that you spew cannot negate that fact. Cassandra knew it was wrong too, all that she did, so I know why she allowed poor Cheryl here to do what she had to do. Cassandra probably knew that Cheryl needed to escape the nightmare that her life had become. You caused it all, it started when you took Cassandra, you did get this whole thing started” Cole told me.
I have never been spoken to like this before in my life. Normally this type of blatant disrespect would have resulted in death, but we both know in a fight, I wouldn’t have been able to beat him. He is unbelievably harsh in what he was saying, but it suddenly hits me that he is right. That night when I met Cassandra started off a chain of events that did start me doing others dirty too. He did have more money than me, and I had to make sure I kept my money strong, or she may find out what a huge mistake she made. I started changing up contracts, and hiding clauses so I would always come out on top. I never really cared for others much anyway, but for Cassandra, I was willing to do anything. But I will never admit it, I will die first before I will accept the fact that I was the very reason that I was in this cell right now. I did what I had to do to win, but I was never able to be more successful than Cole. I still hate that, it makes me angry to think about all the blessings that he was given, that I wasn’t. All the ranked true mates that he received, while I was only given a lowly warrior, who was not acceptable at all to me. He has wonderful children, who have taken over his pack, and the transition was seamless. How did he get to be so blessed, and I have nothing now? That was not right at all, It was not fair to me. I deserved more, I deserved to be better than him. I hate that he stands there like he is just waiting for an epiphany to hit me. I will never admit that any of my life choices were bad, or wrong. They are over and done now, and there is nothing that I can do about them now.
“Actually there is” I heard someone say to me from outside my cell.
“What are you talking about?” I asked with a frown on my face. Why in the hell did they just pop up with that comment when no one here was speaking? Who was he even speaking to?
“There is something that you can do now, Graham,” I watched as that freaking vampire stepped back up to my cell. Shit, he can read minds. I suddenly realized that I got played. He wasn’t here to take care of Cheryl, he was here to help them when they spoke to me.
“Blake, I am done here. Please make them all leave. I refuse to speak to any of them any longer” I said as I laid down on my cot with my back facing them. It didn’t matter if they left or not. I am done with the lot of them.
Cheryl speaks to Graham