Chapter 36

Chapter 36
I prayed to the Moon Goddess that any second I would hear her heart start-up again, that it was all just a big prank and she was going to jump up from the floor laughing in the way that I love so much. I longed to hear her voice, talking away about boys once more. I dropped to the floor on my knees, not registering the pain that had jolted up and down my legs from the hard impact.  

My best friend was gone, dead. I never thought that this day would have come so soon, and now that it has, I felt lost. Afterwards, I barely noticed a thing happening as I stared at nothing, feeling completely spellbound in my grief. 

I hardly noticed when Corbin moved onto his next depraved idea of punishing people, but the terrified, pain-filled screams that came in short bursts pulled my attention to them for just a little while.  

Our Beta female Gwen, Beta Pete’s mate, was tied to a post with some rope that was stained with old blood. Corbin was circling her like a predator, a shiny bayonet in his hand that already had blood dripping from the sharp tip.  

“Lingchi - death by a thousand cuts,” he sliced swiftly but shallow at her leg, “I would say it’s a painful way to die, but it is absolutely necessary for me to do it; to stop any of the other little sluts from thinking they can get away with shit in my pack.” 

As soon as Corbin stopped speaking, he slashed at her again, but this time at her chest. I noticed that Gwen already had an assortment of cuts littering her body – they must have been done as I stared into space for longer than I thought, distracted by the death of Poppy. She shrieked from the cut just as I tuned back out, unfocused on my surroundings, and despair eating away at my soul. I only semi-took in what was going on when the noise from the joyful crowd escalated; they sounded almost euphoric.  

I risked a glimpse of Beta Gwen and wished that I had not. She was covered head-to-toe in cuts that were barely noticeable individually – there were so many that her whole body looked like one substantial open and bleeding laceration. Her hands were still tied behind her around the post, previously keeping her bound as Corbin had carried out his sick fantasies but now, she hung lifeless with a lot of blood pooling at her feet. 

A familiar but pained howl sounded in the distance; Beta Pete must have felt the death of his mate and the sudden end of their bond. I could only imagine the pain that he was going through after all the talks we had in school about mate bonds. 

From then on, everything passed by in a blur. The beatings and deaths went on for hours, with plenty more jovial behaviour and booing from the congregation that had gathered to watch. The number of people that were here to see those that were suffering had grown to almost double of what it was this morning when we had started, but still, they were nothing more than fuzzy blobs in the background to me.  

I saw things that were going to leave scars and stay with me forever; one woman had been sentenced to weekly inflictions for her penance. She had been getting them for a few weeks now, and all for apparently trying to cheat on her mate – which I did not believe. Repeatedly she had to endure a crooked incision made on her face with a dull serrated blade, then have it stuffed with rotten food and stitched back up. All of it was with the intention of permanently disfiguring her face with periodic infections to deter any males that were not her mate. I watched someone getting all their nails ripped out from their fingers and toes, another woman was sentenced to fifty whips; her back started off with just red welts but ended up with wounds on top of wounds. One woman was decapitated for being involved with the omegas that tried to run, someone else had parts of her skin flayed and wolfsbane rubbed into the wounds.  

The horrendous disciplinary actions did not stop; they went on continuously and to excessive points, all for petty reasons. But then again, Corbin was a simpleminded, conceited, egotistical son of a bitch with a superior complex who lived his life excessively. He even halted the punishments midway through one to set up a table and chair so that he could have his lunch, just gawking at the suffering woman and relishing in it as though she was just a bit of entertainment to him.  

Sick bastard. 

I was preoccupied, staring over at Poppy’s dead body, unable to tear my eyes away from her. Her face had gone white and waxy, and her eyes had stayed open and had glazed over with a film. 

“Let’s go.” 

“What?” I was still on my knees and had been in a complete daze, like I was stuck in a daydream, until a gruff male voice was directed to me. I looked up to find Reid glaring daggers, clearly unhappy with me not giving him the correct response. He grew restless and impatient waiting for me to do something, so he grabbed my arm and dragged me up to my feet. 

“I said, let’s fucking go. Is that too hard for you to understand?” Reid barked his orders at me, and without waiting for a reply or giving me a chance to of my own accord, he pulled me to the steps and down them. I struggled to keep up with his pace, too weak and sore to be able to. 

Reid’s pace and rough handling did not let up; Into the back of the car? The same. Getting out of the car? The same. Up the steps to the packhouse? You guessed it. All until some lackie pretty much ran up to us as soon as we walked through the doors to the destitute building.

“Alpha, sir. We have a problem.” He tried to usher Reid away after eyeing me up and down, as though he did not want to speak in front of me, and as if my vagina did not qualify me being able to hear the ‘men’ speaking. 

“Don’t worry about her, just speak.” 

Ok then, he probably just could not be arsed to go anywhere with the over-achiever.  

“Well, there’s been an issue with some of the ummm ... prisoners.” The guard paused, he seemed to fear telling Reid the very reason that he had flagged him down. 

“Spit it out, you spineless twat.” Reid was losing his patience with the idiot, but the nitwit did seem to have a death wish if he was going to interrupt Reid and not get to the point.  

“Three of the prisoners from Moonlight have been kicking off down in the dungeon. They’ve not been taking their beatings lying down.” All he needed was a verbal kick up the arse and the words spewed out so quickly that I only just caught them. Once he finished speaking, he panted as if he had run a marathon, which I highly doubt that he had done before, the fat fuck. It seemed like not a lot of wolves around here took the time to work on their physique. 

“How so?” 

“They tried starting a riot, and they managed to take out a few of us before we got all three back under control.”  

Reid had turned to glare at me as if it was all my doing, so I thought I would at least try to defend myself, my hands raised in surrender. “I didn’t do it.”  

He just rolled his eyes and went back to the conversation with his guard.  

“I’ll be there shortly; I just have to take Olivia back to the bedroom first and show her the new sleeping arrangements for her.” Reid grumbled his reluctance to take me anywhere, but my curiosity was peaked. What on earth has he done now?