>>Matthew
(Trigger warning - Child abuse)
"Anyone!!!" She screamed and I panicked, pulling my hand away from the baby in a hurry.
The yanking of my hand woke him up. He blinked his eyes open and then right the next moment he started crying.
My heart fell to the pit of my stomach as I stared at the crib. People burst into the room and Ruila began to cry as well. She slumped on the floor and placed her hands on her face, covering them as she pretended to cry.
"Luna!!" The guards came over, followed by the servants and they all looked at me. The sound of the baby crying was loud in the quietness of suspicious gazes.
"H-he," Ruila did a great job at acting as she choked on her words, "He tried to kill my baby." She continued to sob and I stood there still.
This was the first time she had pretended to act like damsel in distress. So, it was hard for me to grasp it. But the suspicious gazes of the other werewolves turned to anger.
The guards came and grabbed me, lifting me from the air as they held my arms.
"W-wait!!" I came back to my senses then, "I didn't do it!!" I tried to reason with them, "I just wanted to see the baby!" I looked at the guards standing on either side of me, "I'm telling you the truth, I have no intention of harming him!"
The guards looked down at me with suspicious gazes, unsure what to make out of it.
"Shut it boy!" Ruila glared at me, "If you didn't try to kill him then why is he crying?"
!!!
"I-" I glanced at the baby, "I-" I looked back at her, "I don't know…"
The grip on my arms increased, the fingers of the guards tightening around my thin arms. I could feel the grip, it was hard enough to make my eyes go wide in pain.
"Throw him in the dungeon," Ruila sniffled, "I can't be sure he won't attempt something like this again." She managed to get a fake tear out.
"What?" I was flabbergasted.
"Luna…" But the servants were too, "The dungeon is for traitors or rogues,"
"Isn't he a traitor if he tried to kill the next Alpha as soon as he was born?" Her words made everyone shut up. Not because she was right but because my father had not said that Ruila's baby would be the next Alpha.
Instead the servants had heard him when he said I would inherit his genes and will be a powerful wolf.
So many people in the pack house had thought that perhaps I would be the next Alpha. So now that she made that statement, a turmoil popped in everyone's head.
"I said I didn't harm the baby," I took the opportunity to speak, "I only wanted to see his face."
"See his face?" Ruila asked, "For what?"
For what?
"Just to see how he looks like!"
"Lies!!" She accused me,
"I'm not lying!!"
"If you're not lying, why would you choose to see the baby in the middle of the night when there's no one by his side? If not to kill him, then why??!" She pointed her index finger at me, "I saw your hands around his neck!"
"What? NO!" I looked at the guards, "I didn't do anything!" I said, "You can take a look at the baby if you're not sure!"
The guards looked at each other, but before they could move, Ruila spoke again, "You still didn't answer my question boy, why were you here in the middle of the night?"
"Because I didn't want to disturb anyone, I was going to look at the baby and leave."
She scoffed, "Liar, you could do that in the morning as well, but you chose the darkest hour so you could get away with your treachery." She glared at the guards, "Did you not hear me?" They flinched, "Throw him in the dungeon."
"You can't throw me in the dungeon! I'm the Alpha's son!" For the first time, I actually proclaimed that, "And I didn't do anything wrong! You have no proof!"
"The Alpha's son?" Her face twisted into an expression of disgust, "The only son he has is my child." She pointed at the crib, the baby had gone quiet now, "Not you." She held her head high.
"I was here before you," I replied.
She gave me a nasty smirk, "He doesn't believe you're his either." Her words stung but I chose not to show it to my face, "And my words would be proven when he won't get you out of the dungeon even when you're getting reprimanded."
"What?"
She ignored me, "Put him in the silver bar cell."
The servants all murmured amongst themselves. Silver bar cell???!! Is she out of her mind? Silver is deadly to werewolves!!
"Luna," Even one of the guards was concerned, "We should see if he's telling the truth-"
"Are you saying that I'm lying?" She looked dead into his eyes and he immediately shut up.
"No," He looked down, "We'll take him there right away." The guards dragged me out of the room as the people around us talked.
"I didn't do it!" I was scared. I was a kid myself and they were throwing me into a deadly place, "Anyone!" I didn't have a name I could call since in all my time here, there was no one who I felt was actually on my side, "You can check the baby!" I pleaded, "He's fine! She's lying! I wouldn't hurt a newborn!!!"
Why would she make such absurd lies? Hurt a baby? Why would anyone want to hurt a baby!?!?
The servants didn't move. They just looked away, not meeting my gaze as the guard dragged me to the end of the corridor. I still kept my eyes on them, my head turned to the back as I looked for some sort of hope. My pupils were shaking in fear when right before they turned the corner Ruila spoke again.
"Wait," We stopped and the guards looked back at her and a subtle flickering hope appeared in my heart that she might call it off, "One more thing," But it died as soon as it came, "prepare a leather whip, laced with silver." She looked into my eyes, "I will come and see him get punished for treason myself."
No one spoke.
Everyone doubted her words at this point but no one spoke and I was dragged away.
***
Whatever I couldn't understand about Ruila and her lies didn't matter, because my confusion went away the moment I was given a punishment that gave me lasting scars.
Like how she always has, she sat on a comfortable chair while I was locked in the cell and she watched as the guards stripped away my clothes and whipped me.
She enjoyed each stroke that hit my body, making the skin fall off of me, making me bleed. She smirked every time I burned and she loved it when I screamed.
"That's more like it," She eased into her chair after she heard me whimper. It was like her long pending wish had been granted and that was hearing me be in pain.
The hate I developed for that woman always came from when my eyes were watering due to the pain and she watched. But this time, it was malice. She watched my body bleed and burn and I just wanted a chance to get my hands on her and kill her.
I was probably going to die anyway, I wanted her to die with me
But unfortunately, for a kid who was going to pass out at any moment, I couldn't do anything.
No one came to save. No one came to protest that what was happening was wrong.
And just like she had said, my father did not come to see me.
Not until everyone was gone and I was lying almost dead on the ground. That's when I heard the sound of footsteps. Heavy steps, clearly belonging to someone big.
It took me a lot of effort just to open my eyes, because that alone was painful. But I managed to do it as soon as he arrived at my cell.
I could feel his gaze on me and I moved my face a little to look up at him. I could feel my body crack with just that but I had to look.
"Father…" I don't know what I was expecting from him. Maybe it was an apology, maybe it was repentance but he had no such thoughts.
He let out a sigh,"Just leave," He opened the cell door with his bare hands, not minding the way the silver burned his skin, "Because I won't ever step in to help you." His words shattered me but he didn't care.
"I have nowhere to go,"
He let out an annoyed sigh, threw my clothes at me, then grabbed me by the back of my neck, lifting me off the ground.
"You're a bastard," He whispered those malicious words in my ear. "Your wolf won't even evolve, like all the other bastards."
It was a blow to me.
I thought things might get better since I had my father's blood. He said so himself! So why? Why was he throwing me out now?
"Don't ever try to show your face here again." He dragged me out of the dungeon and then out of the pack. He was fast. I've said this before too but my father was an exceptional werewolf. Big, strong, fast and a menace.
Before I knew it, which was probably because of how injured I was, we were at the edge of the pack area.
"You're making me into a rogue?" I asked softly, by that time I had pretty much accepted my fate.
"You never should have been born," And he threw me over the boundary, "Don't ever think about coming back."
I couldn't say anything in return. Because when he threw me and I hit the ground, my whole body jolted in pain and I fell unconscious.