Soulless Mate

Sixteen: Scorpions

Birdie could have sworn something was watching her.

Turning from the gaping window, her gaze focused on the body on the large bed. The Beta, he called himself. Always sneering and taunting but look at him now. He was passed out from a fight that he clearly had no business starting.

What a fool. She had a fool of a master.

Shaking her head, she moved toward the sleeping lord. Black hair, olive skin, and an arrogant snarl even when he was sleeping. Go figure.

Her shadow fell over him. He was limp on the mattress, but his limbs were sprawled out almost in an attack position. Birdie frowned. That wasn't right. She had readjusted him after the warriors left him half dangling off the bed. But it seemed like he'd been fighting against something. She looked around, finding nothing out of place. But her palms grew clammy. Although his chamber was just as she remembered, all impersonal and cold, the walls suddenly started to close in on her.

"What in the devil?" she hollered, suddenly seeing double vision. Her knees started to give out, and she found herself holding tightly onto one of the columns on the bed. Her ears rang and she heard a faint buzzing sound that she knew too well. The scorpions. The stingers. The blue venom. Her stomach lurched involuntarily. She was going to be sick—

The doors to the chamber swung open. In came the mother Luna looking wild and unkempt. In an instant, all the nausea was gone. Birdie, shocked out of her wits, just stared at the Luna like she was seeing her anew.

"Don't look at me like that," Sayora said. Her voice was hoarse, and she quickly brushed back her unruly black hair, but it didn't smooth out anything. Birdie couldn't look away. She'd never seen the Luna like this before, with a dress torn to rags and bruises all over her body.

Clearing her throat, Birdie moved free from the bedpost and rubbed her palms over her trousers. She suddenly felt cold, and she wished she hadn't taken off her castle clothes. But she had to bring out her scent and slit her wrist enough to let her blood waft around the room. "What happened?"

"Pay no mind to it." Sayora shifted her attention to her son. To Birdie's shock, he finally began to stir. That seemed to jolt the Luna into action. Now she looked frenzied. "I'll go and bring up some food. You watch over him."

"No, my lady," Birdie interjected. "I can get him food—" She was about to move and leave her in the room with him, but Sayora raised a hand.

"No Bertha, you know how to deal with him." She seemed almost lost when she said it. "While I...I really don't. A shame, isn't it? That I don't know how to handle my own son?"

"It's not your fault. Wraythe locked you up for most of Raymond's life." And he did a number of other things that made fire rage in her blood. Things he did to her lady were unspeakable, and she'd been there to see it ever since she was five years old.

The former Alpha of the Soul Pack had been a heinous excuse of a man. He'd plucked his entire family apart, keeping his Luna away from her sons. He'd trapped Sayora in her chamber whenever he could. When he was off to battle, he'd made his Beta reign over her. The Luna couldn't meet her sons, she was forbidden to. But with Birdie's help, she'd snuck out of Wraythe's notice for many nights to see her sons. And when she knew her time was over to see them for that night, she would return back to her chamber with tears in her eyes. She'd wept so many times, holding Bertha close, screaming sometimes to end her life. But Birdie had always brought her back to reality. If she died, what would Wraythe do to her sons?

"While that might be true," Sayora began. "It's also my fault Raymond has been treated the worst out of all his brothers. It's my fault and I don't know how to repent, Bertha. I can't protect him like you can, and I know he needs it the most. He fears himself and he doesn't know how to show it. He acts arrogant and infuriating, but he's...he's just a boy who was traumatized by his own parents. And I hate that I was powerless and daft enough to let his father have his way with him. I hate myself for it."