Hers (#1)

04| spine shivering

Betrayal.

This wasn't a joke this time. Not a prank, not a ruse, definitely not a mistake. She had been betrayed by a pack member. Her pack member. A wolf under her care.

He betrayed her.

Daniel Chan of Central C3, residence 104 is chained to the Wall of Punishment. He is unharmed and whimpering in front of an audience of at least 4o warrior wolves, 10 station guards, the Gamma, Beta, the newly appointed Jaci Marcus Johns and the Great Alpha.

"I had to do it!" He pleads, trying to melt the thin layer of ice that had frosted in the Alpha's eyes. "He made me--he said he'd kill my family if I didn't."

A sigh escapes the lips of the Beta. "You know the rules, Daniel. Any act of betrayal is punishable by death. We can't help you."

I looked on at the ghoulish scene. They weren't really going to kill him, were they?

Deep down, I knew that they would. They were to serious to be bluffing and I first hand know what Lana is capable of. "Will you shoot him?" I blurt out , blushing at my suddenness.

Flame shifts her head to face me. "No. Gunshots don't kill werewolves. He will die slowly."

"Why? What did he even do wrong?"

"He stole from her."

Time seems to move slower as Lana's slow, deliberate and almost predator like steps drag against the stone earth to reach the captive. Daniel visibly sweats with every clack of her heel. "Great Alpha, 发发慈悲 Fǎ fǎ cíbēi!" I shiver at his cries but Lana takes no heed.

And as if Fate slowed this moment to seem more poignant in my memory, I watch as her hand slowly moves down from the back of his neck to the low edge of his spine and emit a sickening, crushing sound.

Her fingers dug painfully into the taut flesh of the wolf. The most agonizing scream I had ever heard was echoed around the corners of the forest. Ignoring his pain, she digs deeper till her entire forearm is buried deep in the abdomen of the captive. The she begins to pull. And slowly, her arms tinted with blood, her fingers reveal a white object, something like a fence, covered in gauzy strings and dark blood.

His spine.

She ripped out his spine.

Then she ripped out his rib-cage; one by the one the cracks of the feeble bone rang through my ears. Ripped out his diaphragm. Ripped out lungs. Ripped out his femur. His heart. Piece by piece she emptied his body till nothing was left but the stained red grass, mutilated flesh rotting and the somber silence of death.

She ripped him apart.

I don't know when I began running--all I knew was that I had to escape. Escape the horrifying sight of a man physically torn apart, escape the evil that was the crowd around him, mute as a man was killed so brutally in front of them. They watched like they had done this sort of thing before. Of course they have. They aren't human, they are wolves, beasts, monsters.

And that woman, that murderous, despicable woman, was the most evil of them all.

With the blood pounding in my ears growing too much to handle and the soreness in my ankles too painful to bear, I sink down to the earthy forest floors and sob in front of a pair of patent leather boots.

My eyes slowly rise to spot a pair of caramel legs, a sunflower dress, warm hazel eyes and wispy blonde hair. She was beautiful.

Without awkwardness of hesitation, she slowly wraps her arms around me and begins to rock me back and forth. At this point my cries grow into sobs and I am near hysteria.