2. Final betrayal

Liberty pov

The footsteps come closer, I hold my breath in anticipation of who it is. 

“Oh dear, what a pitiful sight you are,” Candy’s nasal voice echoes against the stone walls. 

“Candy!” I whisper yell. Candy can help me. She and I go back to our teenage years. We weren’t close friends but we had a lot in common. Both alpha’s daughters from powerful packs we met in the academy. 

She crouches in front of the bars and I frantically crawl towards her, tears running down my face. Everything will be alright I tell myself. It has to be. This can not be happening, not to me. 

“Candy, you have to help me. You know I’d never commit treason. Everyone I love is dead or has been set up against me. You know me. You have to help me get out so I can find who is responsible for this.” A searing pain courses through my arm as I accidentally touch the silver bar causing me to scream. 

“I need you to take Blake and MacKenzie to somewhere safe. I need you to help them get away before they are killed too. They can prove my innocence,” I plead with her. 

A cruel smile paints her thin lips and a hard cold look comes in her eyes as she leans closer.

“MacKenzie is already gone. Exiled for being your accomplice. Last I heard she's been caught by the rogues. And we all know what they do with weak omega’s….”

My eyes go big in horror, “No! not MacKenzie, she's innocent!” 

“You had it all, but you deserved none of it. Now it’s all mine for the taking. Only Blake needs taking care off. But he’s already tainted by you and your treason. No one wants a king born from a treacherous bloodline. All I need to do is give Hartley a son.”

Candy rises, looking down she spits on me, “It took years of planning but it’s all worth it. I’ll ask Hartley if you can be present when I am crowned as his queen. My belly will be round with a true heir.”

Candy fakes a compassionate expression, “You have no idea how long Hartley and I have been planning your family's downfall. In the end it wasn’t even that difficult. Viera and Verity were very helpful. Their father will be rewarded with the Alpha title. You see you never earned anything. That made you an easy scapegoat with no real friends. Hartley never loved you. He only wanted you because you were his fated mate.” 

/She smells like Hartley/ Naveah’s voice sounds broken. Our fated mate, the one we loved, we gave ourselves completely too has betrayed us for Candy? 

“You’re the lowest kind. Honourless, heartless and cruel,” I growl out.

“But I worked for what I have and I won’t be losing it because I'm taking it for granted” she sneers as she turns and leaves. 

Disbelief, anger and sadness battle each other. Days pass in which I do nothing but think back to see if I missed signs. 

Numbness finally settles over me. I stop eating and drinking only to be forced to drink. The guards start getting rougher with me. Calloused rough hands wrench open my mouth pouring in liquids to keep me alive and weak. Whatever they’re forcing down my throat is cutting me off from Naveah but is nourishing enough to keep me alive. 

Days pass by and the rough treatment slowly progresses to sexual harassment and general torture. Neither Hartley or Candy come to visit me again but countless others do. Confessing things, making fun of me taunting me. I don’t care for them. But that my son Blake never comes to see me does hurt. I spend most of my days in a semi conscious state waiting for the next guard to take whatever is bothering him out on me. Or the next person to rub my downfall in my face.

“Oh my, you look terribly neglected,” Candy’s nasal voice sounds. I didn’t hear her enter nor did I smell her. 

“The smell down here is… potent?” she continues, “But I guess you get used to it if you spend a lot of time down here.” 

Knowing she is trying to get a rise out of me I decide to ignore her, it’s the only power I have. To not give in.

“I just came down here to inform you that Blake unfortunately died in a hunting accident. The funeral pyre will be tonight but it seems you aren’t in the right headspace to attend.” 

A cold settles in my heart. I have no one left. Everyone I cared for and that cared for me is now murdered by Candy and Hartley. I don’t know why they are keeping me alive. 

“Please Candy, let me go. I have suffered enough.” I rasp my voice barely audible. 

A harsh crackle is all she gives in return and she leaves me alone. 

I didn’t feel Blake’s death because I was cut off from Naveah. I have nothing and no one to live for any more. I sit up and tear the remnants of my clothing into strips that I tie together into a noose. I can only hope that it holds me and they don’t find me before I’m well and truly gone. 

I tie the noose to the silver bars burning my hands in the process. Cursing Hartley and Candy I drop myself to my knees, the noose tightens but due to the lack of height I do not break my neck. Slowly I am strangled, begging Naveah for forgiveness and cursing Hartley and Candy until everything is black.

I open my eyes, immediately being blinded by the whitest brightest light I have ever experienced. 

“Rise Liberty,” an ethereal voice sounds. 

Panicked, I sit up and stare at Selene the Moon Goddess. I fall to one knee showing respect. 

“Moon Goddess…” I stammer unsure how to address her.

“Liberty,” she curtly answers. Her voice is somewhat cold, causing a shiver to run up my spine. 

“I gave you everything and you took it all for granted. You were complacent and ungrateful. You never worked for what you had. You never realised that things could change. You let it all happen. And then you didn’t fight it. You never tried to escape. You wallowed in self pity. Feeling sorry for yourself, never reflecting, never looking back. Placing the blame on everyone else.” 

I swallow hard. 

“Instead of cursing Hartley and Candy as you wanted me to do, I will send you back. If you really feel that injustice has been done to you you can put things right. Prove that you are not a spoiled little alpha's daughter. Show me that you deserve to be queen or luna.”

“Please don’t send me back! I don’t want to go back,” I hear my panicked voice feebly cry out before everything goes black yet again as I seem to fall.