Chapter 2 – The Execution

The morning air was so cold that it felt as though it cut into my lungs with every shallow breath.

It was a beautiful day, a clear blue sky, bright sunlight, as if the day were mocking what was about to happen.

Two warriors entered my cell, dragged me out of the damp, stinking dungeon, tightly bounded my wrists with a rope woven with silver threads that burned like fire against my skin. My bare feet scraped across the gravel, each step sending a new jolt of pain through my legs.

When I finally saw the light outside, it felt like I was being stabbed.

Despite my trembling knees and the open wounds on my back, whip marks I could still feel, I held my head high. I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing me weak. No, I wouldn’t do that.

The square was packed, more than I had expected.

Hundreds of packmates, faces I’d known my whole life, stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for my demise. Their eyes were angry, wild, twisted by unfiltered rage. I felt it roll over me in waves, heard their voices swell into a storm of screams, each of them condemning me.

“Blood!” someone screamed, and I recognized the voice as that of a young warrior I had once trained in my spare time.

“Justice!” cried another, a woman I had helped through a harsh winter a year ago.

The noise grew, a relentless demand for my death.

I kept my face expressionless, as if I had already been erased from the world. I stared at them, my pack, the people I had fought for, the friends for whom I had given everything, had dedicated my life to protect them. The bitter irony was hard to bear.

I had lived for them.

I had given them my youth, my health, my nights bent over the books to check the funds to feed us, my days negotiating with rival Alphas over land and power. I had done it all to keep them safe, to keep the pack strong, especially while Vance was at war.

But now?

Now they saw me as the enemy.

The woman who couldn’t produce an heir was worthless to them. They turned against me, whispered behind my back, and then shouted it out loud. They called me broken, flawed, a failure.

Because I couldn’t give them a son to succeed Vance, I was useless. They accused me of jealousy, of murder, and even of treason.

The whispering turned into shouting, and then into a frenzied chorus of bloodlust.

I couldn’t help but think back to all those diplomatic dinners where I had swallowed my pride, all those negotiations with rival packs where I had traded my comfort for theirs. Vance despised politics, found it dull and beneath him, so I shouldered the burden myself. I was their shield, their strategist, their Luna in every way that mattered.

I remembered a night two years ago, when the pack was on the brink of starvation. I stayed awake for three days straight, driving from territory to territory, begging, negotiating for grain. I sacrificed everything for these people, and in the end, they abandoned me at the first sign of trouble, gathering in the sun to watch me die.

My eyes shifted to Vance.

He stood in the center of the platform, his ceremonial armor gleaming in the morning light. His face was cold, distant. His hand rested eagerly on the hilt of his sword, his gaze like blue ice. He was there, but he looked right through me, as if I had died long ago.

Then the Eldest of the Council stepped onto the platform, his fierce, confident voice booming over the restless wolves.

“Amani, Luna of the Eclipse Star pack, you have been sentenced to death for treason, murder, and witchcraft.”

The crowd roared again, a hideous, bloodthirsty sound. My stomach clenched, but I felt nothing but a numb emptiness inside.

The verdict was final. My fate was sealed.

The Elder raised his hand and silenced everyone with a single gesture.

“Alpha Vance,” he commanded, his voice echoing across the square, “carry out the sentence.”

Vance stepped forward, his face a stony, unreadable mask. He moved with that same predatory grace I had once admired. His gaze was fixed somewhere behind me, distant and indifferent, as if I were no longer there.

Then he drew his sword.

The steel scraped as it slid from its sheath, catching the pale morning light in a cruel flash. The wolves fell silent, waiting in an oppressive stillness.

“Vance,” I whispered, my voice trembling despite my efforts to stay strong. “Please. Don’t do this. You know I didn’t do it. I was your mate. I bore your burdens. I lived for this pack. And now you see me as nothing?”

He didn’t answer.

His jaws were clenched tight, a muscle in his cheek twitching. His eyes were dead, hollow. He raised the sword, determined and confident.

Then suddenly, chaos erupted.

A storm of screams, shrieks, erupted from the corner of the square. The guards were pushed aside like rag dolls. From the shadows, a figure stormed through the chaos, eyes wild and panicked. He forced his way past the growling guards, ignoring their claws and snarls, and ran straight toward the platform with an anguished scream.

“Stop! Stop!” he roared, rage and despair pouring from him. “You can’t do this!”

I blinked, trying to see who it was.

A man with golden hair, his face contorted with pain, struggling to reach me. I didn’t recognize him, but his voice, his scream, felt like a lifeline.

But he was too far away. And too late.

Vance didn’t even look up at the disturbance. Without hesitation, he swung.

The blade pierced my chest with gruesome precision.

Pain shot through me like a flash of lightning, sharp and distant, merely a memory of a nightmare from which I could not awaken. My heart gasped and stopped, the warmth of life ebbing from my body. Blood pooled around my torn dress, dark and sticky, spreading silently in slow waves.

                Time stretched out, broke, warped.

The sky darkened, swirling with shadows that seemed to swallow the daylight. The screams and shouts faded into a dull sound, as if I were underwater.

My knees buckled and I hit the wood of the platform with a sickening thud. My vision blurred, reeling from the shock of the wound.

And then, in those final seconds, I saw something strange, a drop of warmth, a glimpse of someone I didn’t recognize at first.

He stood at the edge of the platform, frantic and desperate, running toward me. His features were distorted with anguish as he cried my name again and again, reaching out his hand as if to pull me back from the abyss.

“Amani!”

His voice was the only thing I could hear now.

But it was too late.

The execution was done swift, final.

My head lolled to the side and darkness crept in like a heavy fog.

The last thing I felt was no longer the sword or the pain, only that strange warmth in the eyes of this man, reaching out to me across a sea of hatred.

So this is death.

This is betrayal, I thought one last time as everything grew blurry and faded into black.

A heavy silence descended upon the land.

The crowd stood frozen, some in shock, others relieved, saturated with bloodlust. My body lay there, ashen against the spreading blood, a grim reminder of the merciless injustice I had suffered at the hands of my own pack.

And then… silence.