Chapter 11

ALPHA TRISTAN 

"We have what we came here for, I think we're done here." Yvonne said as she grab Sara and headed out the door, handed her over to me and together, I left with my team. 

The weight of the girl in my arms was nothing compared to the crushing weight of my own pride. As we crossed the borders of the Twilight Zone territory, a sense of confidence settled over me. Nothing can go wrong at this point. I wasn't carrying a mate; I was carrying a trophy, a piece of property I had reclaimed from the jaws of a wolf far more dangerous than I cared to admit.

"I'm tired." Sara murmured just as we drew closer to the mountain part of the city.

"There's no peace for the wicked. If you have the strength to talk, then you definitely have the strength to walk." I set her on her fit and dragged her. 

"Alpha, could we be a little be careful with her? She's just coming out of coma." Harlan intervened but I scowled at him.

"Do you want to carry her then?" I spat angrily, he understood the implications and recoiled into his shell. He who was not with me was against me. 

I didn't lead her gently. I dragged her. Sara was a ghost of a person, her feet stumbling over the jagged rocks of the mountain path as we bypassed the main gates to avoid early detection. She was shivering, the remnants of the wolfsbane infection making her limbs twitch sporadically, but I offered no comfort. Every time I looked at her, I saw Claudia’s lifeless eyes. Every time she gasped for air, I remembered that Claudia would never breathe again.

"Move," I growled, jerking the silver-lined shackles that bound her wrists. The metal hissed against her skin, a reminder of her status.

We reached the bowels of the pack house—a place where the light of the moon rarely penetrated. The air here was stagnant, smelling of salt and ancient stone. Twilight Zone pack house was an ancient relic, the new city had grown around it but it's structures still retained the same ancient feel. 

I shoved her into a makeshift cell, a damp, cramped space that had once been used for rogues. She hit the floor with a muffled thud, her pale hair splaying across the grime-covered stone like silk in the mud.

"Stay there," I spat, locking the heavy iron gate with a final, echoing clank. "The darkness is a fitting place for a murderer." I don't know why I wanted to do this myself, I could have have delegated the responsibility of locking her up but I wanted to have that satisfaction, that feeling when she realizes that she's in my power. 

"Tristan, please. I didn't kill Claudia..." She pleaded and I became even more angry that she'd say her name. 

I left her, and found Yvonne and Harlan waiting for me in the corridor. The tension between them was so thick it felt like a physical barrier. Yvonne’s eyes were bright with a frantic, vengeful energy, while Harlan looked as though he had aged ten years on the trek back from Mari’s clinic.

Whatever was happening, I didn't want to know. Yvonne and Harlan always never got along, they never agree on anything. If there was tension between them, it means that they are arguing about something. Sensing their mood, I carried on without slowing down.

"It’s done," Yvonne whispered, her voice trembling with excitement. "She’s back where she belongs. Tristan, you must end this now. Tonight. Draw the blade across her throat and let Claudia finally find her peace. The pack needs to see that the blood of a Luna is not shed without a price."

"Tonight?" Harlan snapped, stepping forward. "Are you insane, Yvonne? We stole her from under Alpha Rune’s nose. If we execute her now, we are essentially sending a signed invitation to the Conqueror to come and level this pack house to the ground. We aren't ready for that kind of war. We might never be."

"So we keep a murderer as a house guest?" Yvonne hissed, her face contorting in rage. "You speak of mercy and leniency as if she didn't rip the heart out of this pack! You’re a coward, Harlan. You’re more afraid of a ghost from the Crescent Moon than you are of the injustice done to your own Alpha."

"I am not a coward; I am a realist!" Harlan thundered, his voice echoing off the damp walls. "Tristan, listen to me. Rune is not a man who forgets. If he finds out we have her—and he will—he will use her execution as a pretext to annihilate us. You possibly can't tell me that you've forgotten about the all-pack war, and the lengths alpha Rune went to demonstrate his might. We must show mercy, or at least, we must show restraint. Keep her alive. Use her as a bargaining chip if we have to, but do not spill her blood yet."

I stood between them, the two halves of my soul at war. Yvonne represented my grief, my need to see Sara suffer for what she had taken. Harlan represented my duty, the cold logic of a leader who knew his pack was vulnerable.

"Enough!" I roared, the Alpha command silencing them both.

I stopped and turned back towards the cell where Sara was. "Did we destroy the cameras at the clinic?" I asked calmly.

"Yes, I made sure of that." Yvonne bragged. "There's no way alpha Rune would ever know that we have are." 

"You are not that dumb, alpha Tristan is the easiest target. He has people that can identify us" Harlan argued. 

 I looked through the bars at Sara. She was curled into a ball on the floor, looking so small and insignificant. I may not like it but both of them were right. Could this broken thing really be the cause of so much chaos? I felt a surge of loathing. To kill her now felt too quick. Too easy.

I allowed her to stay in cold dampened cell for two days, I was sure that word had spread that I had the my vengeance. But it was a rumor without evidence, Harlan adviced that making a public show was the fastest way for AlphaRune to know of her location. "I know you want the satisfaction of telling the world that she's captured but I'd beg that you don't." He adviced and for the first time in a long time, Yvonne agree with him.

"The Conqueror most certainly has his people searching for her right now. Lets not make it easy for him. One photograph from the crowd is all it would take to bring him here." Yvonne argued in support.

So instead of a public show like I wanted, I called a meeting of my most high ranking members after swearing them secrecy and sat on my throne. The small crowd gasped when the soldiers brought her. Some spat at the ground; others watched in a stunned, fearful silence.

 "The woman who brought darkness to our gates has been returned to us." I began in a strong and firm voice. "Sara Lockwood, the murderer of your Luna, thought she could find sanctuary in the arms of our enemies. She was wrong."

A roar of approval went up from the little crowd, led by Yvonne’s supporters. I held up a hand for silence.

"Many call for her blood," I continued, glancing toward Yvonne, who stood in the shadows of the doorway. "And by the laws of our ancestors, she deserves nothing less. But a quick death is a mercy she has not earned. She has stolen a life of service from this pack, and so, she shall pay with a life of service."

I looked down at Sara, forcing her to meet my gaze. Her blue eyes were wide, filled with a mixture of terror and a strange, haunting hollow.

"As of this moment, Sara Lockwood is no longer a member of this pack. She is no longer a wolf in the eyes of the law. She is a domestic slave," I proclaimed. The word hung in the air like a lead weight. "She will serve in the kitchens, in the stables, and in the halls she once desecrated. She will be the dirt beneath our paws, performing the tasks no wolf of honor should have to touch. This is her atonement."

Harlan let out a long, slow breath of relief, while Yvonne’s face darkened with a simmering fury.

"She will serve," I added, leaning closer to Sara so only she could hear me, "until I decide upon a punishment that is truly fitting for your crimes. Until then, you will wish for the death I am denying you."

I stood and walked out from there with pride, leaving both both her and the crowd stunned. I had saved my pack from Rune’s immediate wrath, and I had satisfied my need to humiliate the girl. But as I walked, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just lit a fuse that would eventually blow us all to hell.

The Conqueror would come. I knew it in my bones. And when he did, a slave's life would be the least of our worries.