chapter 6

Are you ready Lilliana?” Alpha Richard asked getting up from the chair. I nodded my head and together we walked down to the square, leaving the Luna behind to clean up after him. I smirked internally at that.

On our way, I could feel the stares and hear the whispers of the people who had gathered to come and delight in watching me suffer; this pack was full of sadists. The pack square was an elevated stage, and just for me, a stand to which I’d be chained was placed there.

Stopping before it, Alpha Richard pointed with his head, “Go.”

I walked up the four steps it had, then one of the sentinels grabbed me as though I’d run away at that moment, and chained me up.

“Today, we watch the punishment of Lilliana Masters; she disrespected the future alpha of our esteemed pack and claimed the Luna lied.” There was a collective gasp from the crowd who looked at me with such malice in their eyes, the sentinel continued, “By order of Alpha Richard she is to be given forty lashes.”

“That’s too tame!” a voice called out from the crowd.

“We shall begin now.” Turning to me, the sentinel said, “Let us hope that this will be enough to teach her a lesson.” Then he grabbed the whip, raising it as high as his arms could go, and he cracked it on my back.

“Mmmph!” I cried refusing to give them the satisfaction of watching me scream or cry. By the twentieth lash, I had passed out, and when I came to, I was in the pack clinic, belly down on one of the beds.

My back felt raw and hot. I cried out from the pain hitting me all at once.

“Shh. Shh.” A voice said soothingly, it was Helena and she began applying some sort of ointment on my back that instantly lessened the pain. “There you go. That’s better.”

I sighed in relief, “What happened?” 

“You passed out while you were being lashed, and after the punishment was complete, you were dragged here.” She explained.

“Dragged?” I asked, “What do you mean dragged?”

“I mean, no one wanted to carry your bloody body, so they dragged you here.”

“Even though I was wounded and unconscious. Wow.” I said in shock. I thought this pack would not be able to surprise me anymore but I was wrong.

“If you’re worried about your wounds being infected, I cleaned it up; I haven’t wrapped it up yet though. I’ll do that in a bit so no funny movement.” She admonished.

“Helena, does it look like I’d even be capable of moving at all?” I asked slumping my head back down into the pillow. It’s been forever since I last used a pillow.

“Ok, you rest up now, I’ll return in about ten minutes to dress up your wounds.”

I muttered a response, too tired to speak, as my eyes were drifting off to sleep. The clinic was so peaceful; there were no wolves who wanted to see me in pain just so they could feel better about themselves.

When I came to Helena had just finished wrapping up my wounds.

“You’ve woken up, saves me the trouble of waking you up.”

“Why would you need to wake me up?” I asked eyes still bleary from sleep.

“Adrian and his friends want to see you. Said they were friends of yours.”

My eyes widened in fear. The last time I was in a room with those people, I ended up beaten.

Noting my expression she said, “I take it you don’t want to see them.”

I shook my head as furiously as I could.

“I’ll go come up with some excuse.” She said but just then, her assistant walked in.

“Head healer, the Alpha’s son insists they want to come in to see her, he said he could hear she was awake.”

“I see.” Helena responded, then turned to me, “I could stay here with you.” She offered.

As much as I wanted her to, and I really, really did, I didn’t want her getting into trouble because of me. I couldn’t risk the only semi-ally I had in this pack. 

“Thank you for that, but it might be better if you didn’t.”

“Alright then. They can come in Shelia.”

Shelia so that was the evil one’s name, she looked like a Shelia.

Adrian, Cameron, Casey, and Beatrice trooped in. Beatrice held a gift basket, and they all held solemn looks on their faces, looking almost sorrowful. Like that could fool me. 

“Oh my Lilliana!” Beatrice exclaimed dramatically rushing to my side, “You look terrible.”

“I’ll remind you all that she is a patient here.” Helena said, “So watch yourselves.” With that final warning, she walked out of the room.

“Ugh, who the hell does she think she is?” Casey said asking no one in particular.

“Yeah, she’s always walking around and acting like she is better than us. We’re her future leaders.” Cameron said in agreement.

Something told me that the day these people became the leaders of the pack would be the day Helena would resign.

“So how’s our resident freak feeling?” Beatrice asked poking me in the chest. I had sat up on the bed as soon as they entered; I refused to appear more vulnerable than I was to them.

“I greet the future Alpha and his friends.” I said in response, “I’ve been worse.”

“Someone’s learnt her lesson,” Cameron said, a smug grin plastered on his face.

“I’m quite sure it was the whipping that did it.” Adrian finally spoke up, he had been watching me since he entered. His gray eyes followed my every movement. I didn’t like this new attention he seemed to be giving me. Not one bit. His attention only seemed to bring me a world of pain. “Not you breaking her arm.”

“You broke her arm?” Beatrice asked Cameron eyes wide, then she turned to me and pouted her lips, then proceeded to pinch my cheeks and speak to me like a baby, “Oh, did Cameron break your arm? That was bad of him, yes it was. Cameron is a bad person for breaking your arm.”

“What on earth are you doing?” The person in question asked angrily. I could ask her the same thing.

“Oh come on,” she said voice returning to normal; “It’s just a bit of fun. Don’t you like having fun with us, freak?” She added he last part as if it was an afterthought.

I didn’t want to answer that question, our ideas of fun differed greatly.

“Spoilsport. Anyways, look what we brought you.” She said shoving the basket in my face, “A basket of fruit.”

The basket made me gag, its content rotten and the stink filled my nose. I tried pushing it away but she held it firm.

“Now, don’t you know it’s rude to refuse a gift?” Casey said, “We went through so much to get that for you.”

“Yeah, the dumpster,” Cameron added.

“You shouldn’t let all our efforts go to waste you know.” Beatrice added sweetly, “So eat it.”

I stared at them in shock, “What?”