Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)
“I stand in representation of my Alpha,” Galen stated, clenching his jaw as he looked at Jackson.
‘He’s not here? Good,’ Jackson thought.
“I stand for Whiteridge,” Fiona said casually.
“I stand for Shadowcrest,” Saul announced.
“I stand for my daughter, Renee.”
“We stand of the southern wolves of Winter.”
Jackson felt more and more irritated by the voices speaking,
‘None of this matters…’ he thought. ‘All that matters is–’
“I stand for Selene,” Corrine smiled, locking eyes with Jackson.
Jackson’s eyes widened, and his heart pounded heavily in his chest. Then, clenching his jaw, he looked at her with fury.
“Where is she?!” he demanded with a snarl.
Axel turned with a speed that none could see, raising the whip and bringing it down again.
Crack!
Jackson fell to the ground and howled in pain as a red gash appeared on his face.
“And I stand for Winter,” Axel growled.
Jackson took in deep painful breaths. His sweat rolled down over his body, causing even more pain as it moved into the open gashes that littered his body.
He had been bound to the gallows post by his hands tied together over his head. His shirt was removed, and his back received every crack of the whip for the first thirty lashes. The flesh had torn until the bone was exposed.
So much of his blood had soaked the ground beneath him that when they turned him to receive the other twenty lashes on his chest, the guard slipped and fell.
Jackson felt tired, weak.
There were only two lashes left.
Every crack of the whip had cut him, bled him, burned against his flesh. Yet, he had still managed to keep his mind clear enough to search for her. To look into the crowd at every chance he got.
Crack!
Jackson cried out. He was amazed he still could.
One lash left.
He thought of her. Of the times they had shared. Picnics in the snow. Moonlight walks.
Crack!.
Jackson fell to the ground with a heavy thud when they finally released the bindings.
Movies on the couch, running through the trees.
He was lifted off the ground. His legs were stretched out before him. Axel said something, but Jackson didn’t hear. His mind was trying to slip away, to dive into the dreams of memory.
Her smile the first time they met.
“AAAAHHHHH!!” Jackson screamed as the pain shot through his foot into his calf and the rest of his body.
His eyes settled on his foot. There he saw the hook that had been pushed through the back of his ankle. In between the tendon and bone, just like an animal after the slaughter.
He screamed out again as the other ankle received the same treatment. This time his mind won the battle, his vision swirled, and the darkness claimed him.
“Wake up!” Saul shouted, holding an inhalant below Jackson’s nose.
Jackson’s consciousness returned slowly, he shook his head, and the pain filled his senses as the soft breeze ran over the open wounds of his chest, back, and ankles.
“He’s back,” Saul said softly.
“Good,” Axel replied. “Put him up.”
Jackson opened his eyes as his body began to move. He saw the moon above him, staring down as though the Goddess really was there, watching. Witnessing.
‘You gave her to me…’ he whispered to the Goddess. ‘Send her to me now!’
“The traitor has paid his pound of flesh,” Axel announced to the wolves of Winter. A howl of victory went out. “Now, all that is left is to purify his soul for his return to the Goddess.”
Jackson didn’t know what they had planned. But, of course, every traitor’s judgment he had heard of before ended in the traitor’s death during the lashing. But then again, the lashings he had been given were half that of the stories he had heard.
He cried out as he was suddenly lifted up and turned upside down. He screamed as he was hung by his ankles from the gallows. His arms fell down over his head. The weight of his body pulled on the torn flesh of his wounds.
He opened his eyes. The crowd was upside down. But still, he searched.
‘Selene…’ he called to her in his mind.
Two men stepped toward him; they carried a barrel between them. They walked past him, and he heard them climbing on the gallows.
A moment later, the cold rush of liquid, followed very quickly by the burning sensation across each of his fifty wounds, forced a cry from his lips.
The cold liquid fell into his open mouth. Gasoline. He sputtered and coughed, trying desperately to spit it out.
“Now, we return him to the Goddess, cleansed of his crimes,” Axel announced, raising the bow in his arms, a flaming arrow pointed directly at Jackson.
Axel released the arrow.
Jackson screamed out as the arrow pierced his stomach.
The fire spread over him in a flash. His skin tightening and cracking. The gasoline they had poured over him had seeped into his wounds. The fire chased the trails left behind by the flammable liquid.
Consuming everything in its path.
His wounds bubbled and blistered. The heat spreading within his body felt like he was boiling from the inside out.
The screams that escaped his lips were no longer in his control. At this point, he didn’t know if it was from pain or simply because he couldn’t find her anywhere that he looked.
Where was she? Why wasn’t she here with him? She wouldn’t let him die… she couldn’t.
His mind fought to keep hold of her image. The way her hazel eyes sparkled in the moonlight. The flush that spread across her cheeks when she received a compliment. Her smile.
He screamed out again as the impact of another arrow hit him. He turned his eyes just enough to see Corrine holding the bow, her arm still outstretched from where she had released the arrow.
The fire reflected from her eyes like green flames. She smiled at him. Lowering her bow, her eyes burned brighter.
He saw her lips moving and then a soft sound like a whisper in the wind.
‘She was never going to come. You are nothing to her.’
‘No…’ he growled inside his mind. ‘No!?’
He screamed and cried, but his mind had already pulled away from the pain his body suffered. He chased after their bond, following it hungrily, searching for her.
There was a soft tug, a pull in the distance. He felt her. Her heart was racing, her breathing ragged.
‘She must feel my pain… I knew it! She’s coming… she’s coming for me!’ he told himself desperately.
He forced his mind further into their bond, and then for the briefest moment, he felt what she actually felt, where she actually was.
His screams in the fire stopped as his mind slammed back into his reality.
“No,” he whispered. “No!”
And then it happened.
The bond he had held as a lifeline, the feeling of connection. His entire reason for being, it all just fell away.
Jackson knew at that moment that Selene was no longer his mate.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?