Chapter 25

Klara woke up and cuddled closer into Marc. She wrapped her arms around him tightly feeling so many emotions for him. It didn’t hurt, and Adelaide was right. Everything had felt so right, her world had slotted right into place as if she’d always been off a few degrees until that moment. She tightened her arms around his waist while he slept. “If you’re trying to stop me breathing, the neck is more effective,” he muttered, his eyes still closed. He enveloped her in his arms, regretfully knowing he would have to get up soon and get to work. They both smiled in each other’s embrace.

“Marc?” Klara mumbled.

“Yes, little one?” He kissed the top of her head.

“You didn’t hurt me.” Her baby blue eyes peered up to him. He smiled, a warmth spreading in his chest. He pulled her so she was eye level with him. “You trusted me enough to show you,” he murmured back, cupping her cheek as he pressed his lips to hers. She’d watched enough romantic movies now to know what she was feeling in that instant.

“I love you,” she spoke as she broke from his lips. A wave of adoration, happiness and elation washed over her. And she knew before he spoke that the feeling was mutual. “I love you too.”

Marc strode between the guard training ground and guard bunkhouse. Following a path that was well-trodden. He was struggling to keep a bounce from his step after the early hours of the morning. Part of him never believed the day would come, but it had. A small smile graced his lips; he had made her moan. And her words upon waking.

He dropped his smile as he approached the grey stone single-story dwelling. The two guards bowed as he approached, opening the door for him. He stepped into the apparent two-roomed building. “My King.” The three guards instantly leapt to their feet from their card game.

“Who checked the Silversmith prisoners this morning?”

“It was me, my King,” a sandy-haired man a little older than Marc spoke.

“No-one out of place, Charlie?”

“No my King. The wolves have been attempting escape. Do you wish to see the prisoners?” Marc nodded curtly.

Charlie moved to a thick heavy wooden door, bars making a window to the darkness beyond, unlocking it, he went through. Marc descended the worn stone steps behind the guard, his eyes adjusting to the gloom slowly. They descended deep into the ground, the air becoming dense with the smell and taste of dirt. The chill gripped at Marc’s warm skin as his feet reached the final step, the compacted soil as hard as the stone of the steps under his shoes.

He noticed Charlie shiver slightly in front of him, guessing it was the silver that laced to walls. The few candles dotted along the corridor glinted off the metallic strands. Marc opened a cupboard, laying eyes on what he wanted straight away. He gripped the coiled whip tightly. His jaw set. “Gamma Jesse ordered the Alpha to be injected with wolfsbane,” Charlie spoke as he stopped in front of a cell. Marc turned, striding to where he had stopped.

“Why?” Marc asked while he turned to look within the silver bars, Alpha Silverblood sat on the iron cot, his head lolled a little against the rough stone wall. “He was using his command on his wolves, my King.”

“That shouldn’t work, the silver prevents it.” Marc eyed the guard.

Charlie shrugged, “I’m sorry, my King… The others were injuring themselves in the attempt to escape… One of the young ones died.”

“Very well.” He wasn’t happy about it, but if it was necessary. He squinted, looking a little closer.

“Charlie?” a growl rumbling through his words.

“Y-yes, my King?”

“Why is his leg broken?”

“I-I don’t know-” Marc spun, glaring at the man about to lie. He squirmed a moment before straightening, a hardened look on his face. “He raped the Queen, your majesty. A few of the guards took it into their own hands.” Marc had to stifle an eyeroll.

Bloody rumours.

“And who gave the order?”

Charlie fidgeted again.

“So you took it upon yourselves to deliver your own justice?”

“Not me… I just… he was like this before I got here for my shift.”

“Stand there, don’t say a word. You’ll all be punished for this.” Even in the low light, his golden eyes flashed.

“Yes, my King.”

“Keys.” Marc thrust his hand out for a set of keys to promptly be put in his hand. He didn’t know what to do with the information Charlie gave… although… he couldn’t blame them, not really.

He unlocked and went straight into the Alpha’s cell. His head rolled to the side, obviously to get a look at who was interrupting him. “N’ah, 'e King.” Marc had to look closer, the Alpha’s words were almost incoherent. His jaw was slack and unmoving, bruises littered the side of his face. Marc sighed, this wasn’t helpful. “You will pledge loyalty to the crown, your pack under my rule.”

“Bah!”

“You will stay here as long as necessary. It seems my guards are quite happy to beat you.”

“You ne’er get a’way!”

“And who’s coming to save you, dear little Alpha?” Marc mocked. His blood was turning to lava, but he had to reign it in. It would do no good to kill the Alpha. Not until he had laid his loyalty.

“I ha’ allies!” determination and fury burnt in the Alpha’s blue eyes… much like his daughter’s.

“You have no-one. You deserve no-one. What man? What father does what you did to their little girl?”

“She no li’le girl!”

“She was when you started whipping her.” Marc stepped back one step, allowing the silver tip to chink against the floor. “How old was she?” He felt the weight of the tipped whip he had in his hand, ironically the handle designed for comfort.

“I don’ know wha’ you talk’in’ ’bout.” The whip swung through the air, slashing over the Alpha’s arm, he hissed.

“Maybe I can jog your memory?” Marc swung again, and again until the Alpha was slumped on the cot. “I ne’er whip ’er.”

“The scars on her back says otherwise!” Marc approached and with the toe of his boot, flicked the large man onto his front. “State your loyalty to me.”

“Ne’er!”

“Very well, your back will look like hers.”

“S’he lie!”

Marc stilled.

“Did she lie about you watching?” it was a whisper, a cold, calculating, menacing whisper.

“Don’ know wha’ you talk’ing ’bout.”

“How did you do it? Did you just turn up in the middle of the training ground? Asking who wants a go on your adolescent child?”

“She… whore.” The whip sailed down, splitting the man’s skin through his t-shirt.

“If all my men rape you, does that make you a whore?”

“No’ rape… she begge’d!!”

“‘Daddy let me go’ ‘Daddy, no… please, no’ ‘Get off, daddy help’ ‘Please daddy!’” Marc pitched his voice higher, his chest tearing with his own words. They weren’t Klara’s words… some were his sister’s when she screamed in the night after she got back from being kidnapped… her screams would forever haunt him.

“She ne’ver… no,” despite the protest, there was a tiny crack in the man’s voice.

“She begged you, begged to be released, begged for no more males. What did she do to deserve the punishment? She was a child,” he hissed. The whip sailed again, landing another bloody line over his back.

“Run ’way.”

“Running equates a life of hell, does it?”

“I lo’ve her.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

The whip cracked through the air again and again. The Alpha barely made a sound, the only indication of the pain was a hiss through his teeth. “Pledge loyalty to me,” Marc demanded.

“No.”

Marc’s arm swung, the silver glinting through the air before hitting true.

“My King.” A voice snapped his head around. “Too much silver.” Marc blinked, seeing the man’s back covered in blood. His shirt mere rags falling from his body. He swallowed, slumping slightly before straightening. “Thank you, Charlie.” He approached the Alpha, checking his pulse before leaving, handing the whip to Charlie. “He will be whipped daily.”

“Understood.” The cell was locked.