Murder

Family dinners of the House of Albagard was always tense, always had been and Scarlett had gotten used to it, learning to just mind the food on her plate and ignore the headless squabble between her father, Lord Fallon Albagard, Alpha of the Oshea pack, and his wife, her step-mother Lady Ramona Albagard, and the out of control chirping in of her step brother, Leander. The squabbles were always ever about him and tonight was no different - or so she thought as she focused on finishing the food on her plate when her step brother snapped finally.

She shot upright from her seat  in horror and with a blood-curdling scream, her chair toppling behind her, as Leander, with his face twisted in a snarl, plunged a silver table knife into the back of their father’s neck.

“Father!” she called out, overturning goblets and platters as she ran to her father who staggered forward, a guttural choke escaping his lips as his blood flowed down across his tunic. Scarlett caught him as he crumpled, her arms wrapping desperately around his broad frame, lowering him to the cold stone floor. Blood pooled beneath them, warm and slick against her palms, her gown instantly drenched in the spreading crimson.

“Father, no—stay with me!” she begged, her voice breaking as she yanked the knife free with a sickening squelch and pressing both hands to the gaping wound, her fingers slipping as the blood continued to pool out.

His eyes, once fierce as a winter storm, fluttered, locked on hers for a heartbeat. “Scar…lett…” he gurgled, a final cough spraying red across her cheek before his eyes rolled back, a final breath rattling in his throat before his body went limp. She clutched him tighter, burying her face in his blood-matted hair, cradling his head against her chest, her tears mingling with the blood staining his beard as wrenching cries tore from her soul.

Her head snapped up, eyes blazing through tears at Leander who stood rigid, “Why?!” she screamed, her voice raw with grief and fury. “What have you done?! What demon possessed you to murder him?!”

Before he could answer, her stepmother’s scream cut across the hall from her place at the table, her face a mask of calculated horror, “Guards! Treason!”

The doors slammed open, and Skye, the Beta and captain of the guard, charged in with his guards, steel glinting at their sides. Ramona rose, one hand pressed to her breast, the other trembling and jabbing accusingly at Scarlett, who knelt in her father’s blood and cradling his corpse. “Seize her! She murdered him! Scarlett stabbed her own father—Alpha Fallon is dead by her hand!”

Scarlett’s head snapped up, from her father’s lifeless body, her honey-brown eyes wide with disbelief as her stepmother’s accusation rang in her ears. Shock kept her rooted to the spot, her blood-soaked hands trembling as she stared at her stepmother. Her gaze darted to Leander, who now lounged in the high-backed dinner chair at the table with chilling nonchalance, one leg crossed casually over the other, his hands wiped clean of guilt, a faint smirk playing on his lips as if he savored the chaos he had sown.

Scarlett’s breath hitched, and she shook her head frantically as she looked down at her own bloodied fingers trembling. Desperate, she looked to Skye—her Skye, the Beta whose quiet strength had been her anchor, the one soul she had trusted above all in Oshea.

“I didn’t do it!” she choked out as she cried, her voice raw, pleading, the words spilling from a heart already fractured by grief, her eyes searching his for the warmth they had shared

But then Marissa, her stepsister, who had sat silent as a shadow throughout the meal, stepped forward with deliberate movements. Her silken gown whispered against the floor as she reached Skye’s side, rising on her toes to press a lingering kiss to his cheek. With her lips curving in a smile that held no warmth, she slipped her arm through his, her fingers curling around his in a gesture that felt like a dagger to Scarlett’s chest. Skye’s face remained impassive, his storm-gray eyes avoiding hers, but he made no move to disentangle himself. The hall seemed to tilt beneath her, the air thick with betrayal.

Her lips parted, a broken whisper escaping as the weight of this new treachery crushed her. “Skye?” His name was a question, a plea, a shattering of every promise they had whispered in the moonlit gardens. The guards closed in, their armor clinking like chains, and Scarlett’s world narrowed to the sight of Marissa’s triumphant gaze and Skye’s silence, the man she loved now standing with her betrayer, as her father’s blood cooled beneath her knees.

“Drag her away!” her step-mother’s voice cracked like a whip, her earlier theatrics hardening into cold command. “Lock her up in the deepest dungeon for the murder of her own father—Alpha Fallon Albagard!”

The words dripped venom, each syllable a chain forged to bind her fate but she looked up through tear-blurred eyes, searching Skye’s face for salvation. He met her gaze for a single, agonizing moment—his jaw clenched, his storm-gray eyes devoid of the warmth she once knew.

Then, with a voice as hollow as the crypts beneath the keep, he commanded, “Do it, obey the lady. Take her.” he ordered, his voice flat as the blade that had ended her father’s life.

The words struck Scarlett like a second death, her heart splintering as the guards surged forward, their rough hands seized her arms, hauling her upright with such force that her father’s blood splattered across the floors. She stumbled, her cries lost in the rattle of armor as they marched her toward the doors, her bare feet leaving crimson prints in her wake.

“Wait!” Her step-mother’s sudden cry stopped them. She stepped forward, her velvet gown trailing like a shroud, her face a mask of sorrow—tears cascading in artful streams, her hands clasped in mock despair. The guards parted as she closed the distance to reach Scarlett and without warning, her hand lashed out, the slap resounding through the hall as her palm connected with Scarlett’s cheek, snapping her head back and drawing a gasp.

Ramona leaned in, her voice dropping to a hiss loud enough for all to hear: “You will suffer for this, you filthy traitor, you will rot in darkness for this. I will make every moment of your miserable life a torment for stealing my beloved from me.” Her eyes gleamed with triumph beneath the tears, as the guards resumed their march.

Scarlett’s voice failed her, words choked by the crushing weight of grief and betrayal. She let the guards haul her through the hall, her bare feet dragging across the stone, but her eyes—honey-brown, shattered—never left Skye. He stood rigid, Marissa pressed against him like a second skin, her arm looped through his, her lips brushing his ear in a whisper that mocked every secret vow they had shared. Scarlett’s heart splintered with each step, the sight of her lover’s indifference a wound deeper than the dungeon awaiting her.

Her tears fell unchecked, mingling with her father’s blood on her cheek, the weight of betrayal—from her stepmother, her lover, her pack—crushed her spirit as surely as the iron doors that awaited below.