68: Putting down a rabid dog.
**Bane pov**
I doubled over and coughed up more blood, heaving for breaths that my lungs protested.
“You left us,” Kieran hissed, crouching next to me. “You disappeared into that thing and left us to deal with the mess. You let him take over and do whatever he pleases, let him kill your own without batting an eye at the carnage. Are you an Alpha, really? Are you?” He screamed and spat at me.
As much as I wanted to lash out and remind him of where he stood, I couldn’t. I understood he was angry, but so was I and unlike them, I was battling a monster I never wanted to become.
“I couldn’t control it!” I insisted, trying to reason with my own men. The same men who had followed me blindly, trusted me with their lives, and now, looked down at me like I was filth beneath their feet.
“We don’t care,” Thane growled coldly. “We thought maybe you were dead in here. We hoped for the best, men prayed for you to come back. But now-”
Torin stepped behind me. “Now we know it’s just you. That the thing inside is asleep and it’s all your doing. You are no Alpha to us.”
I froze and glanced at Kieran. “What are you doing?” I asked, my eyes darting over their faces as the remaining guards stepped away, leaving me alone with the trio.
Kieran grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back. Torin wrapped something around my wrists quickly, acting as if he was running out of time and the only thing that mattered was to restrain me.
“No, no, no, no, what are you doing?!” I shouted, trying to twist my wrists out of their hold as panic surged through me in waves. They didn’t understand, didn’t realize how important it was to save my mate, to hide her away from the beast that would wake. “I’m not - he’s not awake! We have time, we can fix this, listen to me!” I screamed, my voice hoarse, my throat burning.
“Don’t be stupid,” Thane hissed, forcing his foot against my chest to stop me from moving as the two remained behind me, holding me captive. “You think we’d get another chance like this?”
“You’re talking about killing me!” I gasped, feeling completely helpless and too broken to fight back.
“We’re talking about killing the thing inside you,” Kieran corrected me, his voice dripping with nothing but hatred. “And if that means killing you too? Then so be it.”
I thrashed, screamed, but Torin slammed a knee into my spine and I collapsed. “Don’t do this, don’t fucking do this! You’re my brothers! You trained under me! We fought together, bled together, I trusted you!”
“And that trust got our people butchered,” Thane said.
“I was possessed! I still am! If I could, I woul’ve gotten rid of the parasite ages ago, but I have no idea how to rid myself of the fucking curse!”
“You were weak. You still are,” Thane snapped, looking down at me with nothing but disgust. “You let it in. And now we have to end it before the whole fucking world burns because the monster likes fire.”
They started dragging me toward the barn - far enough from the house that no one would hear me scream. A perfect place to end it all and never speak of it again.
“I saw her!” I kept thrashing against their hold, kicking my legs despite the pain coursing through the broken limb. “I saw her face, her eyes - she still knows me, she knows I’m still here! Don’t take that from me!”
They ignored my screams, attempts to break free and pleas. All three focused on dragging me to the damned barn and their own conversations. Even through my own screams, I could hear Torin mutter to others, “she deserves better than this, our Luna deserves to be safe. If I have to choose between an Alpha who’s becoming a ‘best bro’ with his own demon and our Luna who hasn’t done a single wrong thing in her life, I choose Luna.”
“I’m trying to keep her face!” I screamed over their words. “I’ve never begged in my life, but fuck, I’m begging you, please don’t do this!”
But of course, no matter how loud my voice got, they didn’t stop. I begged, pleaded, sobbed, tried to reason with them that the curse wouldn’t fade if they killed me and it would follow the pack no matter how far they ran, but even that didn’t convince them.
The three of my most trusted warriors were hell bent on ending me, and in a sense, I couldn’t blame them.
The barn door creaked open and I realized that they weren’t doing this because they hated me, they were doing this because they loved me. Or at least, they loved the version of me that was already gone, forever tainted by the presence of the parasitic monster.
In their eyes, killing me had to be viewed as mercy - one the same as putting down a rabid dog.
Torin shoved me into the dirt while Kieran kicked the back of my broken leg to keep me down and Thane knelt in front of me, pulling out a blade coated in something black.
I caught the stench soon after - ash root. What he held in his hand was poisoned silver and my heart tore in two as I finally came to accept that the last breaths I’d ever take would be more painful than anything I had ever experienced ever before. All the injuries during battles combined didn’t hurt as much as this would.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whispered, although I had already accepted that they would.
Thane didn’t answer, only gripped the knife tighter and raised it.
“It’ll come back. Even if you kill me, he’ll still be back. You really think he’ll die with me? He had died many times before and every time, he came back stronger. Nothing has stopped him so far and nothing will. You can’t break the curse by killing the host. He won’t stay dead. He will find someone else and return to seek revenge.” I warned.
Thane’s eyes flickered, his hand trembled, just slightly, but enough for me to notice.
I spoke again, attempting to reason with them before it was too late. “He wants her. I don’t know why, but I know how desperate he is to kill her. I’ve felt it, Thane. I’ve felt the rage and lust for her blood. I read the fucking books, he always only comes back, he never craves blood like this. Not like this, Thane. If you kill me, he will find another way to get to her. He’ll take over someone else, find a new host. You know I’m right.”
My words were choked, forced, but as loud as they echoed against the barn walls, the silence that followed felt louder somehow.
Kieran cursed under his breath while Thane glanced at them both, hesitating.
“You need me to trap him,” I said, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. “I’m the cage, if you break the cage, you set him loose.”
“You expect us to trust you again?” Kieran snarled.
“No,” I whispered and shook my head. “I expect you to make the harder choice.”
The blade didn’t near my throat as Thane stared at me for what felt like hours. Then, slowly, he dropped the knife. “Chain him, drug him, what the fuck ever works. If he shifts, if he twitches, if he so much as dreams about hurting her again - we finish what we started. And next time, we won’t stop until we know there’s nothing left.”
Thane’s face was red with anger, Kieran didn’t look a bit convinced while Torin stepped aside, silent as ever, eyes darting everywhere but at me.
But, nevertheless, they both still followed Thane’s orders like he was the Alpha, not the pathetic leftover shell of a man I truly was.
Without a word, completely silent, they locked me down, drugged me with every herb and restraint known to our kind while all I could really do was stare up at the beams of the barn and let the helplessness overtake my whole being.
I’d seen her, she was alive, and now I had to make sure that thing inside me never got near her again, even if it meant letting the people I trusted the most become my executioners.
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