Chapter 33 A boy tied to a chair
Tristan's POV
He was tied to a chair, the ropes carving into his flesh like serrated blades. Blood oozed down his arms, pooling beneath him, the air thick with the metallic scent of pain. His eyes bulged, flickering with a mix of fear and defiance.
“Who is he?” I asked, my voice cutting through the silence.
Jude sank into his seat, while Finnian and Micah stood like statues. To them, this was routine. Maybe because I had always done this. But that version of me should have stayed buried with the others I’d broken.
“His name is not important,” Finnian said.
“I wasn't asking for his name, why is he here? Where is he from?”
They exchanged glances between one another. I didn't care to know what that meant, all I needed was to know about this boy, brought to the council hall without my notice, and already undergoing torture, torture for what?
“Would anyone say something?”
I was starting to lose patience. Just a little while, and I'd have lost the little respect I had for these council members, and start growling at them. Zara’s words already triggered me.
“He’s a spy,” Micah said.
“Spy?”
“Yes.” Jude confirmed.
My eyes fell on the boy again, and I thought I'd met him even once. I hadn't. A spy. Spies were always in all packs, even if one was caught, then you should be sure that there were others hiding in plain sight.
“Where is he from?”
“He wouldn't say,” Finnian said.
I got to my seat, and watched him from that spot. I couldn't help but remember the last man I'd brought in here for questioning if he’d met the former pack healer of this pack, if he knew his whereabouts or if he was an accomplice.
If I should really define that, that wasn't questioning. Questioning had to do with “if”, but there was no “ifs”. We assumed he knew all these things, and then forced the answers out of him. It was that simple.
But I could no longer do that. Not at this time.
“We need answers from him.” Jude passed a whip and knife to me.
“I’m not doing that.”
They exchanged glances again. They'd talked about this before calling me in here. They'd started the torture. They'd put the marks on his body.
“It’s better you do it,” Finnian said. “You’ve done this before now, and are more skillful in this… than anyone else.”
“I’m not skillful. And I've stopped the torture. I no longer do that.”
But the bloody mess on the floor was calling me to it, just like those times, calling me to embrace brutality, again. The dark feeling was coming alive again. I’d ignored it for too long, but now it was coming alive again. Maybe I shouldn't have stopped.
If I hadn't, I wouldn't have given Celine that insane privilege to refuse me.
If I hadn't, the neighboring packs wouldn't have had such boldness to send me a letter for war.
I took the knife from Jude. I felt cold in my fingers. I’d used the same knife.
“It has to be concerning the war they've brought upon us.” I got close so I studied his eyes.
I saw fear, grief, and disappointment.
“Please…” he said.
But his pleas were like tunes in my ears. My ears had evolved that way. I’d never felt guilty doing this, but empty. Emptiness and guilt could never mean the same thing.
I placed my fingers on his forehead, directly on an open wound. He winced in pain.
Everyone always had their fair share of pain. My parents did, and mine wasn't physical, but psychological and continuous, except that for now I had a break from it—the curse.
“I… I was just passing by.” His voice was a groan, his face contorting like he was going to turn into his wolf form.
My presence was enough to stop that from happening.
“Really? You were simply passing by?” I brought the knife closer to his cheeks so he knew I wouldn't hesitate the slightest bit.
“Just a passer-by before the gammas caught me.”
“Caught you… You don't catch a passer-by.”
He went mute, only his breath was loud as his eyes searched the hall for a way to escape. There was no possibility for that to happen. If he thought of that, then he was delusional.
“I didn't mean to.” His eyes were wet.
“But you said ‘caught’.”
He nodded, swallowing the lump down his throat, thinking of a better lie to tell. He still struggled with the ropes, but the more he did, the more it dug into his flesh. Soon, his bones would come to sight. He should have understood that was not an ordinary rope.
And to think I was doing this because of Celine.
That dream still clawed at me.
I had such a dream before my parents were murdered.
If war was coming, and this boy was an aid to it, then he was a threat to Celine. The war was a threat to Celine.
But Celine wouldn't know all these were because of her. Even if I wanted to put her in place, break her shoulders down, that didn't mean I should care less. Even if I used all the time before I became feral.
It was crazy that I barely thought about escaping the feral state. I should get intimate with her in order to prolong the time I had before the feral state. But something deep in me told me I would overcome the state.
There was no proof of that, so that was invalid.
“Alpha Tristan?” Finnian’s voice pulled me back to the boy.
I cut a sharp line on his face. “You have no secret to hide, but even if you do, it's no use…”
“I’ll speak… I'll say everything I know.”
“Gammas!”
The door flung open as the gammas marched in.
“Take him to the underground prison!” I commanded.
They dragged him along with the chair, and the ropes dug deeper into his flesh, his blood creating a trail as the chair was displaced.
“”I’ll tell you all I know! Please hear me out!” He screamed.
“Too late.”
I didn't know why I acted this way, but I knew that darkness that I'd been trying to avoid had started taking control of me. This time, it didn't seem like I was ready to stop it.
\---
I washed my hands in the bowl in the bathroom of the large room. Zara was on the bed, waiting for me to get out.
I stepped out. She was in a hurry to speak.
“The boy in the council hall, what about him?”
I furrowed my brows. “You watched us?”
“I saw the gammas drag him out. He wasn't in good shape.”
Of course she did watch, but that shouldn't be her business.
“And what if he wasn't in good shape, what do you have to do with that?”
“I… I didn't know you would do that with your own hands, and what if he was innocent if whatever you were accusing him of?”
I sighed. “Why do you care?”
She averted her gaze from me, rubbing her palms like they twitched.
“Hmmm?”
“I thought…”
“Thought what?”
She forced a smile, but she wasn't good at making it look real.
“Hmmm?”
“See… it's nothing. I just thought you wouldn't do that.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “You told me… You wouldn't spill another blood, that you’ve stopped that quest.”
I didn't know what to say about that. That promise I made was years ago. The crazed passion of it never left me.
But I was no longer about that.
“You mean revenge?” I asked to confirm her thought.
“I think so.”
“War is coming,” I said, my tone low enough to make her flinch. “That boy wasn’t just a spy… he was a warning.”
Her expression faltered. “War? How?”
I reached for her, my restraint snapping. Enough of war. Enough of Celine haunting every thought, every breath.
I needed something to drown it out. And at that moment, I chose her.