Chapter 34
Chapter 34
It felt like I had jumped ten-foot in the air, had a heart attack and landed a few steps away from him. I glared at Corbin’s leathery and wrinkly face, terrified at his inability to respect the personal space bubble. I stayed silent, not wanting to hold a conversation with the piece of shite whilst my heart worked hard to slow down.
“You need to learn to respect your superiors, and you can start by responding to them when they speak to you.” He challengingly inched closer to me as I stepped further back, trying to keep my distance from the perv, but I felt the floor begin to disappear from under my feet. I stopped moving, allowing Corbin to close the distance between him and me.
“Dad, enough. Leave her be. We need to get this thing started, now.” Reid cut in, interrupting his dad and surprisingly saving me. The mate bond thrummed with appreciation at the small gesture that it was most definitely misinterpreting.
I heaved a sigh of relief as both intimidating figures moved away from me to the front of the so-called stage and Reid called for the crowd's attention in his deep and booming voice, with a hidden Alpha aura forcing them to be quiet and making my pussy clench just as everyone quietened down.
Corbin stepped forward and took over speaking without a microphone needed because of the captivation that the Alpha held over people, the intense focus of those gathered and the sheer volume of his voice.
“Good morning, everyone. Today we will start our Monday morning as we would usually do, and that is with our punishments for the people that have done things that need to be addressed.” He paused for an added dramatic effect as he looked across the sea of stoic faces on the packmembers, all of them hanging onto his every word. He stood casually, his feet nearly a shoulders-width apart, hands in the pockets of yet another cheap and dull grey suit, and a shit eating grin on his face because of the excitement that he felt at seeing some gore soon.
“So, as you all know, we attacked the Moonlight Pack on Friday night during their Mating Ball for both them and the nearby packs.”
The crowd suddenly cut Corbin off by cheering so loud that they could be heard for miles, hurting my ears even when I covered them with my hands and waited for them to settle down again. The cheers seemed to fire him up more than he already was; amping up his swagger as he swayed, appreciating being in the limelight, even if it was for awful reasons.
“Yes, yes. Settle down; it was a good night for us all. And as we have always done when we take-out those packs that are less worthy, we bring a few back to use for...any purposes.” His subtle hint made bile rise incredibly quickly, burning my mouth, and more people hooted at the sexual innuendo. “Well, some of them don’t seem to appreciate our hospitality.”
Corbin paused for the group to react by blowing up in loud boos and a low chatter before continuing and having them fall back into silence once again.
“Last night, a few of the unappreciative cunts decided that they would try to run away but were foiled in their attempt. They were all caught within the vicinity of the woods surrounding the Packhouse. Since then, they have been held under observation and questioned, and the ringleader was identified - she will be up first.” He stopped to indicate to the first person in the row of degraded women; a guard used that as his cue and shoved the woman to the fore-front and on her knees. Her head hung forward as if in shame, her mangled and unkempt hair covering her features, but I knew that it was Pops.
A hole opened up in the bottom of my stomach; it felt like all my insides had fallen out and as if ice was running through my veins. I was suddenly terrified for the welfare of my best friend, but there was nothing that I could do; everyone here was calling for head to be served on a platter.
“It took quite some time, and a lot of discussing, but we eventually came to an agreement. And I think that it is something that you are all going to love.” Ever the entertainer, he paused one more time for the congregation to whoop and cheer again, and for the first time since I met them all a few days ago, I actually heard him laugh. “She has been sentenced to death. But, death alone is not punishment enough, she won’t have learnt her lesson before departing this world.”
Corbin turned to look at Poppy, “Do you have any words to say?”
With her hands bound tightly behind her back, the ginger-haired guard pulled her further forward, closer to Corbin and the edge of the concrete display of doom. Poppy glared at him directly in his eyes, hocked, and then she showed her usual defiance by spitting the biggest green lump of flehm in his face that I had ever seen someone do. Surprisingly, Corbin did not react in the angry way that I thought he would; he simply pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the stringy greeny away and threw the used cloth to the side.
“I think that first we’ll have the ripper.” He growled in Pops’ face, now showing his displeasure at what she had just done.
Someone stepped up to the duo staring each other down and handed Corbin a strange set of metal tongs that were curved and pointed into two sharp tips at both ends. The same person that had been pushing Pops around, reached with his arm to the front of her chest, gripped the neckline of her dress and ripped it down, tearing the material away from her chest and exposing her pale perky breasts for everyone to see. Poppy straightened her back and stood proud, not caring that she had been stripped and left on view for everyone to see.
Corbin stood at side-ways stance, looking at the tongs in his hand as though they were his lover; one that he idolised, and a sick smile on his face. He turned to stand face-to-face with Poppy, running the cold iron over her naked tits seductively, leaving an angry red burn in its place; the tongs must contain wolfsbane to harm her like that from a mere touch. I saw her tense from the pain of the blistering, but she continued to hold her head high and kept quiet.
I was clueless to what Corbin was planning on doing to Poppy, unitl it looked like he was lining it up on her left tit and the realisation started to hit me like a ton of bricks; one side of the tongs was hooked onto the top of her large breast, and the other ran parallel on the underneath.
“Such a shame to waste these.” Corbin disappointedly muttered just before he used both of his hands to clamp the tongs closed, tearing into Pops’ breast.
As soon as the dirty, aged metal pierced her skin, her eyes went wide, her body tensed and the veins in her temples bulged from how tight she had gritted her teeth together. She went to step back, away from the man standing before and her inflicting this medieval torture, but she seemed to think about what she had started to do and moved forward again instead. This time she was closer to Corbin than she had been before and growled low and threateningly. He was amused by the sass that she still showing, even as she faced agony, torment and death by his hands.
Corbin responded to her brazenness by ignoring her growls of warning and pulling the tongs away from her whilst they were still clamped shut together. He tore away considerable sized chunks of her breast tissue and left shredded flaps of boob remaining, as if it gone through a paper shredder. At once, deep red blood began to fall perpetually from her gaping wounds.