Moon Bound

(59) Live And Die|Scarlet's POV|

They dragged me back to the center of the clearing, to where my mate stood like a man of stone, to where that woman had snaked her fingers around his hand.

They held me so I would not escape as Cole gave his speech. The wolves couldn't escape just like I couldn't. My heart sat heavy in my chest. My voice was loud in my ears. Screaming, begging just to be let free.

"Will you follow me ShadowFang?" he shouted out to the crowd of pack wolves, his voice rising above the screams, his face triumphant, his eyes taking in our misery and defeat.

No one dared to move. A few violent shudders passed through the crowd but no one moved or tried to flee.

He laughed. It was that kind of laugh – mad, eery, frightening. "Well? Who's going to be first?" Cole chuckled. That woman was watching, amused by the show. His brother held me against his disgusting body. Another two of the wildlings had joined him in my capture.

I saw Regan stir. A tremor passed through his body. His hand then ripped free from the woman, pushed her away from him.

Cole spun around his attention once again to my male.

"I will... but... please.... Cole..." He sounded like he'd run miles when he spoke, his voice breaking on each word.

"I beg of you... let her go...." He fell to his knees.

Marking another, now asking Cole to let me free, what was this man doing?

An Alpha on his knees begging for mercy, letting go of everything that should have mattered to him for someone who may never love him, why?

"I will do everything.... You just let her go. Please."

Why was he breaking my heart again and again? What was I supposed to think of his actions? What was the reason he was doing it now when all he should think of was the other?

For a long time, Cole just stared at Alpha. Regan just stood on his knees in front of him. I couldn't see Cole's face but I could see the woman. The corners of her lips tugged up as if she was barely holding her laugh.

"Anything?" Cole made a step closer to where my male was kneeling, looked down at him.

"Anything," he said in a broken voice. He was thinking of me. He was pleading for me. Giving away what he had taken from me, giving it back to someone who deserved it even less.

"Everything," he said with tears in his eyes, barely glancing at me, barely able to move his eyes away once they met mine.

I struggled against the hands holding me in place. The claws stuck deeper in my flesh. He was the first and the last thing I saw every time I blinked. Trying to make sense of it all, trying to find reason where there was none, I didn't know why – why I had to do the things I did, why I kept rejecting him, why I caved in...

Why was I now surrounded by my enemies? Why was I standing against my friends who had turned into enemies? Why did I have nothing when I should have had it all?

Everything had changed so quick, in the split of a second, another claimed the place and the mate that belonged to me, but now he was back. He looked alive. Broken and alive.

Giving me reasons to hate him and then throwing me reasons to love him.

Connecting the dots backward, it was the only way for me to see the whole picture and I was ready to see it. The way this man had kept me from becoming a monster, the way he never gave up on me, the way he stood against his own pack just for me, the way he tried time and again just because he wanted us to have a future.