Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 22

There is not a moment in time where the injury of others becomes less meaningful to a man. One can grow numb to it in the heat of battle, they can begin to think around it as war wages and the necessity to survive takes over. Then, slowly, it begins to flood back as it is only human nature to want to prevent the suffering of others. What I had not been prepared for was the bloodlust that came so strongly with my newfound breeding. 

The desire was stronger than any I'd ever felt, a deep red pulsing with my pounding heart in the back of my mind that sought out vengeance, not for me, but for the threat of my family. I asked Verando to do this because I knew that, deep down, I would not be able to serve justly. I knew what my wolf wanted to do, this was no time for rookie mistakes. 

I had never been good at hurting people and knowing what I had asked this capable man to do would be a grave decision that I would live with for the rest of my life. We may envision the torment of others in our darkest times, yet seeing them coming to fruition before your very eyes, executed with surgical precision, I knew what I had requested would be carried out with the utmost care and thought. 

He did not like to see beings suffer, either. 

When it came to the protection of our family, every resource was a viable option. I had chosen the deadliest of weapons of this justice.

When I had met Verando, he was an incredible force of nature. Darkened by a past that my parents had tainted with their curse, his capability to produce punishment never ceased to amaze me. Gentle, charming, and undoubtedly cunning, the masterful mind of a born Alpha bore the harshest of consequences behind the veil of domestication. 

The weight of his father's influence lay heavy on his shoulders. The darkness that had been hidden away since his return from Spain would once more come to the surface. 

Seeing, knowing, what would occur, often lead me to wonder what the man saw in Helen as far as a future leader. I could hardly imagine her capable of my own capture, let alone that she would be able to enact punishment on others. The bloodline seemed to have this fatal flaw, an inability to step up to command until it was thrust upon them. Perhaps an overcorrection for Verando's own sire who sought nothing but power. 

He was nearing forty when I met him, and yet Sota still saw him as young and untested. Helen, only in her mid-twenties, paled in comparison with her soft upbringing. 

Using every ounce of my training, I sit, poised, at the table as I quietly finish my breakfast. The uneducated eye might believe it to be I'd hidden from the horrors of a trial but in fact, I wanted to display a lack of consideration. It was deserved, I remind myself. Think of the boys.

Echo was first, much as I had hoped this wouldn't take place in our home, we weren't back in our own time where a public sentence would be willfully accepted. It was a crime to do what we were set to commit though the penalty for lycan on lycan violence was a gray area given our status. I flipped through the potential laws we'd be breaking, trying to combat each one with a justifiable reason for retaliation. 

Each line justification dotted with another bite of fruit, not much longer and this would be behind us. I just had to be patient, think of our out and what we'd tell any unlikely witness should one of our many government-bound charges bear witness. 

As I formed my list, I watched as Leo entered, dragging a battered X uniformly bound. Behind him, Steffan followed clutching Keeta by the throat. I hear the slight inhale from Tiberius, yet he doesn't dare move. She was expendable, much as he might enjoy her company, she and X had been the ones to begin my involvement in the cause that lead to my kidnapping. 

"Your plan is to threaten me with strangers?" Echo spits, jerking against the iron grasp of the siren. Much as she probably could have outmatched him, the siren song lowly hummed in his throat kept all of our captives anchored in place.