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~Serena~

I will never forget the day the life I knew was ripped from my grasp by the people I trusted and loved. This was the day I tasted the bitter tang of betrayal, leaving me with nothing apart from anger and hatred. This was the day I learned how revenge can motivate a person to endure anything, even death.

~~

The chains linking the shackles around my wrist sang a terrible song of death and agony. It was heavy and cold, leaving bruising marks on my blood-matted skin.

Anton and Mike dragged me by the arms, their fingers digging into my skin. They had been part of my family’s security detail since I was a little girl. Now, they’re the entourage leading me to my execution. They were indifferent. Cold and distant. They don’t see me as the princess of this pack anymore, but a mere criminal who tainted their pack with disgrace.

Everyone we came across through this excruciating walk towards the amphitheater where I’ll meet my end vibrated with hate and anger.

We halted before a metal double door; the hinges groaned as it opened. 

After a week locked up in a dark cell, sunlight finally struck my skin. The daylight blinded me, battering warmth on my pale skin. When my eyes adjusted to the light, a hundred pairs of eyes stabbed me with daggered glare.

I kept my head held high as I walked the aisle cordoned by silver chains, isolating me from the townspeople in attendance to witness my punishment. If they could, they’d hurl stones and throw fists, scream words a traitor and murderer deserved. 

I’ve read about public executions in school. There were a few written in our history. A lesson for children not to commit a heinous crime for their names would ring through centuries and be despised by our kind. I listened well through those stories, not knowing my name would be remembered in the same manner.

Gazing at the clear blue sky, I say a brief prayer to my mother and father, begging for their forgiveness. I failed them. Everything they worked for went to waste because I fell in love.

The odds were against me. My chances of surviving this were slimmer than none. But as I walked, I made a promise to them. ‘If I would be given another chance to live, I would spend my days reckoning my mistakes, punishing the people who gaslighted me into handing over the pack to the real enemies.’

We reached the platform nestled in the middle of the arena. The wood was warm against the soles of my feet. The chains rattled as Anton secured its end on the round steel bar attached to the floor.

I scanned the witnesses in attendance for my judgment, committing to memory the hatred and disgust of the people who’ve known me since I was a little kid. These were the same people who watched me walk with their sons and daughters to school. It’s sickening how they easily believed what they heard before hearing my truth.

Tipping my chin up, I stared at the podium where my husband, Alpha Declan Mitchell, stood. This was the first time I’d seen him since the night of our wedding. I pictured our first week as husband and wife basking in newlywed euphoria, not facing one another on the opposite side of the law.

He was the trump card in his family’s scheme to take away what was mine. Blinded by love, I married him the second he proposed to me, signing over my father’s pack to him without questioning his intentions. They planned everything so well, and, being a foolish girl in love, Declan played me like a puppet.

I prepared myself for this execution, holding onto the mask I practiced in my dark cell. Without it, I knew I would break down and fall into a fit of tears. I thought I could keep it together, but the emptiness in Declan’s eyes was my undoing.

‘Was he really part of his family’s scheme?’ I couldn’t believe everything he showed me was all lies. The deteriorating hope in my chest died down the moment he opened his mouth and addressed the crowd.

“I, Alpha Declan Mitchell, have gathered you all here today to sentence Luna Serena Mitchell for her heinous crime against the pack.” 

I closed my eyes, shunning away the effect of his voice on my aching heart. This isn’t the man I loved. He’s a traitor, a heartless monster who manipulated me to achieve their family’s goal. To steal Embercrest from me.

The noise of the court became a mere buzz in my head. My husband’s icy glare was colder than the cuffs restraining my wrist. I narrowed my eyes at him, blinking the sting of his betrayal away.

‘I won’t cry in front of you. You will never see me cry.’

“She had no motives to kill Alpha Oliver,” I heard someone murmur from the crowd. It was a bare whisper in the wind. No one would dare protect a murderer in front of this crowd. No one was on my side, not even the members of my own pack. 

“... Serena Mitchell, do you confess to killing my grandfather, Oliver Mitchell?” A tense silence fell on the stadium. Hundreds of eyes bore holes into my head from every direction.

I wish I could pretend that I give no fucks to whatever they’re thinking about me, but I do.

It hurts not to have the luxury of telling my side of the story. It hurts to be locked up, waiting for someone to come and hear me out, only to be gutted by the reality that no one was coming. But what hurt even more was the look in my husband’s eyes. An endless abyss of emptiness replaced the familiar warmth in them. 

He doesn’t hate me; he doesn’t loathe me. But he looked at me as if he couldn’t recognize me at all. He’d detached himself somewhere no one could reach him. He had this same look the first time we met when he had just lost his mother to the rogue siege.

“Yes,” I said, and the crowd exploded in anger.

I didn’t listen to any of the words they screamed. I never knew a public execution could be this loud, almost a fiasco.

“Silence!” Declan roared, his alpha aura rolling off him in white smoke.

This execution would be written in history and whispered through time. What was supposed to be a grandiose gathering for our wedding became a memorial of my husband’s grandfather.  

Declan’s brows knitted together, the first genuine emotion I had seen on him, but he managed to mask it quickly.

I met his eyes, stabbing him with the anger boiling inside me.

If only I had my wolf, I would mind link him and say, ‘I would do it over and over again if I could. Oliver’s scream as I shoved the silver dagger in his heart was music to my ears. If I didn’t get caught, your father would’ve been with the Moon Goddess by now, and so are you.’

“Your crime deserves no forgiveness,” he murmured, his deep baritone ringing through the stadium.

I had time to mull over my fate, and I gladly accepted my punishment with my head held high.

His statement didn’t need an answer. I kept my face passive, remembering everything that happened between us.

‘Was it all just a part of their plan to take over Embercrest? How could they?’

Declan’s pack knocked on our doors during the rogue siege ten years ago. My father accepted them with open arms and gave them a new home. Oliver was the alpha then, and he willingly submitted to my father for the safety of his pack. The day Oliver bowed down to my father was the beginning of his plan to take over Embercrest, and my wedding to Declan was the last phase. It made his grandson the Alpha.

Oliver failed to kill me the day after my wedding, but his plan to take over Embercrest succeeded.

His grandson is Alpha now. And the last of my father’s bloodline will die with me.

‘Did you even love me, Declan?’ I wanted to scream at him. ‘What happened to you and me against the world? To the vows we made to one another?’ I pursed my lips when his eyes narrowed to slits. He could feel the hatred I have for him. ‘I take all the love I’ve given you,’ then I met my father-in-law’s eyes, Gerald Mitchell. He stood silently behind Declan. Something dark simmered under those blue eyes.

He never became the Alpha. He was always the sour one, opposing my father’s every decision as if he had the right towards our pack. I knew he had something to do with my father’s accident. And with my execution, his family’s betrayal and the truth about my father’s death will die along with me. This was the perfect way to bury their secret six feet under.

Declan closed his eyes and pulled a huge breath. When his eyes opened, I was stunned. Those blue eyes looked haunted, the same one he had every time he stared at his mother’s tombstone.

I was ready to accept my punishment. I was prepared to die, but nothing prepared me for the sadness in Declan’s eyes as he spoke my name.

“Serena,” his tone soothing the wounds his betrayal inflicted in my heart. “As Alpha of Embercrest, I will pardon your crimes-”

“Declan, what are you doing!?” Gerald hissed. The crowd held their breath, and my heart drummed in my chest.

Declan turned to his father, gold swirling in his eyes. Defiance surged from Gerald, but his son was much more powerful than him. He didn’t have to say a word. His aura was enough to make Gerald lower his head in submission. The older Mitchell shook his head, fighting his son’s power but it was the nature of our kind. Our wolves were created to submit to the alpha. If we fight it, we would be cast away as rogues. 

Gerald lowered his head along with the townspeople witnessing this execution. Untamable power oozed from Declan. Being wolfless, I was the only one who could meet his searing gaze.

“Serena, your crime is punishable by death, but as Luna of this pack, I will pardon your crimes if you repent killing-”

My eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t.” Taken aback, Declan’s eyes slanted, and Gerald raised his head in surprise. “I don’t regret killing Oliver.”

“Serena-”

“Enough!” A huge surge of unfanthomable energy fell upon the amphitheater. Thick silence followed my voice.

I hear my heart beating loudly in my ears.

‘Did that power came from me?’

My father used to say that I would become a powerful protector of this pack. I never believed him since my wolf haven’t awakened. Whatever that power was, everyone was flabbergasted, including Declan. Too bad I won’t be able to know if it was truly me or just some kind of tension in the air.

As I locked eyes with Declan, my anger burned anew. How dare he put this show in front of the pack. It’s a good fucking show. How could I have not seen this cunning side of him? For the last time, I drank him in. I trace those lips that had mapped my body the night of our wedding. His unruly hair that I had the pleasure of tugging while I screamed his name. It was the best night of my life. It was everything that I dreamed of. He was my everything until he wasn’t.

“Save your mercy.” I looked away from him, blinking away the tears gathering in my eyelids.

Silence swelled in the stadium. The tension was thick in the air until Declan spoke. 

“Very well…” He heaved. “I, Declan Mitchell, Alpha of Embercrest, sentence you, Luna Serena Mitchell, to exile from these lands-”

“Declan, what the fuck are you doing?!” Gerald hissed, but his protest died down with the murmur of the pack.

That sentence was worse than a public execution. Nothing awaits outside of this land but death. We are in a time where humans know about our existence and weaknesses. They’ve been hunting us like it was a sport.

“You will be ushered out of this arena directly to the borders of Embercrest. Let it be known that any pack who will aid you will be an enemy of mine.”

This was the worst punishment any wolf could receive, but if I could live another day, I would gladly take it. I looked straight into Declan’s eyes, stabbing him with all the hatred in my heart. 

‘If I survive this, nothing will stop me from taking back what was mine. I will kill you and your entire family, Declan.’