Female ✔️

8: he will be there

My bare feet were dipping into the snow, I walk on my tiptoes against the biting cold. So cold it's just a burn, pins and needles start prickling the undersides. I am demolishing the pristine white, clashing against my skin which looks oddly pink against this sharp lighting.

His hand presses into my back for a fleeting moment, even striking warmth and hope into my chest through the red silk robe draped over my body, too big. My mind is poisoned by him but I can't see that. He's just a boy with bright eyes, guiding me to punishment.

When I look up at him, eyes portraying my hopefulness, he glares down at me and moves away.

"I brought her Alpha, elders, men. I brought my mate to punishment." Said like a confession. His voice isn't quite deep yet, he's only sixteen winters. The Luna hasn't had a hand in his full change yet. She's letting him see more. See me as a pup just a little longer. He doesn't though, just keeps looking on, ignoring Her.

I look up to the night sky where the moon peers from the clouds, shining the full light onto the clear of woods where us wolves have gathered.

It's just the Alpha, four males of high power, a son, and me. The males stand in a half circle around the tub of icy river water. A tarnished silver basin used for answers. They are going to try to subdue my wolf side.

This thought makes me panic, and my tears are still hot on my cheeks, but I have to deal. I looked at another male that wasn't Blu. Shivering, I keep my arms around myself, trying to contain my shame from spilling from my belly.

This was a private shame and these males were going to freeze it out of me, wash away all the poison in my head, willing me to talk to a male that wasn't my own. All because I had spoken to him first.

I broke the laws, I deserve the punishment.

"Drop the robe, female." Alpha Parsim's voice is loud over the empty, stagnant clearing. It has stopped snowing, but I wonder if the sky will cry for me tonight? In pity.

I'm bare beneath, like the trees that line the forest, all their leaves dropped in quiet resignation of winter. I too, might join them in scattered assembly on the ground. Later to be buried.

Stepping forward, I let the robe of bloody silk, slip from my shoulders and drop to the snow in a puddle. I take another step, and another, looking down at the blackness in the basin.

The water is murky and winter like, ready to steal all my warmth and guilt a like. This is my cleanse.

I'm going on my fifteenth winter on Earth, and I think the moon wants me back. I'm already too cold to move my fingers and toes with ease. So I just stay still, watching the water.

"This is your punishment for speaking without being spoken to, for speaking out to a male not your own when my son is right here, he is your mate! You're a slut, filthy scum in this pack. You stain our laws black." Alpha grabs my hair, yanking back, revealing my neck to him. I don't say anything, just keep my eyes shut. My skin is bumped and taut from the cold, my ribs are prominent from days tied to the pole, my teeth are chattering. I can't find it in me to care about this little extra they have prepared. "This is for being a female out of line. For talking so nastily to me and your very own mate. I should've killed you years ago. When your mother disobeyed me the first time. You're a scar on my back."

His last words were only low enough for me to hear, but he has revealed things to me. I am a regret of his, bad blood in his pack. He hates me. He hates females.

Males won't fight females because that is weakness, but they will punish them. How severe that might be? It depends.

Soon I am lifted into the air and placed in the large tub. I hiss out at the cold, the hiss quickly becoming a yell, a cry. I cry for my mate, begging him to help. I catch him looking away, a hard look on his face.