Penance of Honor | BOOK 2 ✔️

Chapter: Twenty-Five

Pierce's P.O.V

My head is pounding. Where Josias had hit me still pulses with pain, but I do my best to ignore it and rise. I had fallen for their tricks in the end. They knew I would go back for Cassius. He knew I would go back for him.

Despite Cassius' cruel ways, he was right in his words. I was far too trusting...too naive. And they took advantage of that.

"Pierce..."

I look to my brother who is slumped to a corner surrounded by silver bars causing my eyes to widen. In a quick second, I try to move apart the silver bars, but they only burned through my skin.

"Pierce..." His eyes are bloodshot and swollen, as if he had been crying.

"Where are we-?"

As soon as I try to turn around, Aaron quickly gets up and presses me into his chest.

"Please, Pierce."

"Aaron..." Everything seems to dim down, sharpen, and deaden all the same.

"What is it? Aaron tell me," my voice shakes. "Tell me."

Soon, it begins to crack as I peel away from him. He tries to force me back into his chest, but I move away from him and rush to the front.

Tears begin to mass into my eyes causing my vision to blur. Still, I pressed my hands against the silver.

"No...no-no-no...Please no..."

They drip down my face in cascades only making my grip tighter and the burn worsen.

HIs blood is everywhere, massing all around him. He was lifeless, unmoving.

"Isaac...Isaac! Isaac!" I shout, but still he does not move. His eyes stay closed.

"I am sorry. Forgive me. Forgive me," I cry through my tears trying to bite down against my lips and look away. But it is too hard, too real.

I knew I should have been there. I should have been there no matter what. My voice stays stuck in my throat feeling as if I am suffocating.

"Ah, so you have finally woken," Cecil utters.

The sound of his voice only brought on painful memories from the time before. Soon, a foreboding feeling nestles deep inside of my chest. This was him. From the time before to the time now, this was all him.

He walks across the cages tapping each of them making them rattle.

"And you have seen it." He walks over to Isaac's limp body and turns his head with the front of his foot.

"He was not easy to be rid of...but I thought you might be there, so I came with more, much much more. Still, he did not go down easy... He had help after all."

His green eyes flick to another cage before looking back at me.

"Mates are such precious things, are they not?"

He bends down to my level and forces me to look at him. All of his blond curls are nicely trimmed and tussled. 

"They would do anything for them. Risk their life even. ...Die even."

"Killed two birds with one stone, one might say," he finishes with a grin causing me to snarl and bang my forehead against the cage. Still, I slump back down and begin to fill with nothing but sadness and heartache.

He meant more to me than he thought, and I never had gotten to tell him. I am filling with nothing but regret and remorse and it's crippling. Goddess, no. Tears only cloud my eyes again.