Bend The Rules , Stiles Stilinski ² ✓

[ 28 ] don't you ever feel guilt?

DON'T YOU EVER FEEL GUILT?

ASPEN decided to ignore the warning from her old acquaintance, Theo Raeken. She didn't accept help easily, and one thing she hated more than anything was anybody assuming she was weak.

So after their encounter in the town square yesterday afternoon, Aspen walked away from the boy without another word.

But today was a different story.

It had been a while since Aspen's last kill, so this morning when Ace informed her how was off yet again to either recruit or torture some new innocent werewolf, she decided she was going to tag along this time.

The three vicious werewolves held a routine for when they'd do stuff like this. Since Deucalion's powerful alpha pack was destroyed in Beacon Hills, he needed new recruits. They'd heard that New Orleans was crawling in werewolves, and all it took was one sniff of a scent to find out where they were.

This time, it was a teenage boy, he looked a year or two younger than Aspen— not Deucalion's first choice, but he didn't have much room to be picky anymore.

Since Aspen only ever joined on occasions, her brother and father decided to leave this one to her.

"Go get him, tiger." Ace said encouragingly, as the two siblings exchanged a devious smirk between them, before Aspen took off to chance the innocent supernatural boy.

The brunette didn't have to run for very ling before she'd cornered the boy by an empty alleyway. He was evidently scared— Aspen tended to have that affect on people recently.

"Listen up," she said to him, "I'm gonna give you a choice here. You either come with me, say hi to the family, and join our pack. Or— I kill you right here, right now."

"I already have a pack!" the boy cried out in defense.

"Well now you can have a new one." Aspen spat, "A better one."

"Over my dead body will I leave my pack." the naive boy responded.

In this situation, Aspen figured she was supposed to be disappointed with that answer. Besides, the whole point of doing stuff like this was to find people who would say yes to the ultimatum, not no.

But she couldn't help it when a devious smirk broke out on her lips when this innocent boy declined the offer; because that meant she got to kill him.

"Fine," she said devilishly, flashing her electric blue eyes, "have it your way..."

The bloodthirsty brunette brought her hand up in the air, brought out her sharp claws, and was about to bring it down to slash the boy's throat, before he yelled out a beg of objection.

"Don't you feel guilt?!" he screamed, and for just a moment, Aspen paused as she slowly tilted her head to the side, listening to what he had to say.

"Guilt?" she chuckled, bringing her arm down and carefully tracing her claws along the flesh of his neck.

"I-I'm— just a kid!" the boy cried, "A-and you're j-just... gonna kill me? For n-no reason?"

Aspen threw her head back in laughter, truly finding amusement in his words.

"Listen, kid." Aspen mocked the word, "I used to feel a hell of a lot of guilt. Hell, I felt guilt over things that weren't even my fault. Then one day, something came over me, and I've never felt guilt since. And as for there being no reason... believe me, you're serving a great cause."

"Y-yeah? What— what's that?" the nameless boy stuttered as he still felt the tips of Aspen's claw trail over his skin.

"You see," said Aspen, "Every time I kill a beta, it adds to my strength. It doesn't just happen with alphas, a beta can take another beta's power too. So, by killing you, it makes me stronger..."