Page 35 of The Warrior's Captive

When he was younger, he’d wondered why his father hadn’t challenged for the position of alpha, Alexander Phaethon was one of the most physically imposing wolves in the pack and was unbeaten in fights. It was only as he’d gotten older, he realized that as the alpha’s right hand he held more power. Alphas may come and go, and their time in power was usually short. But the man in the sidelines who had their ear? Well, he remained an unchallenged Machiavellian figure, like the kingmakers of old, able to subtly mold the pack to how he wanted it to be.

It was laughable to think that he loved Castor because he’d fathered him. He loved nothing more than his position in the pack. They’d all subscribed to the warrior ethos and dogma for so long that not one of them had ever known softness. To them, softness needed to be rooted out, it was the source of all unravelling, a great evil.

“Boy. You’re going to say those words before the night is out, even if I have to tear them out of your corpse.”

Castor didn’t blink. He didn’t make a sound and remained motionless. He’d already vowed that he would die silently. He’d die as a warrior would, and that alone would prove that his father was wrong. Unfortunately, he’d be on the wrong side of the turf to ever get to ream any satisfaction from the action.

Like he prepared himself for battle, he prepared himself for death. He’d go boldly and bravely. He’d shut everything else out.

Alexander cracked his knuckles, the pops echoing in the cave. The sound of his fist smashing into Castor’s right cheekbone, breaking open the cut like an overripe apple, echoed as well.

All Castor felt was a dull ache even though he knew that his bones had just shattered. He could feel the hot salty blood flowing down his cheek. The whole cave reeked of salt and metal, but the scent of fresh blood was so much riper than the dried sweat and blood that had already soaked into the packed earth at his feet.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift back. Back to Briar May. Back to her honey soft eyes, shining bright with wonder and happiness. She laughed so easily. She wore her emotions without shame. Briar May wasn’t evil. She was perfect.

As long as he was here, then she and her pack were safe. He’d die, probably hacked to pieces after another week of long, drawn-out torture, but she wouldn’t have to know. She’d think he was free.

“It doesn’t make sense! You think I’m a fool?”

Castor’s body swayed as a series of brutal blows pummeled him in the ribs. He would have doubled over out of instinct if he hadn’t been bound. He wouldn’t have been able to remain stoic and not fight back. It was difficult to breathe past the damage to his internal organs. It felt like at least two of his ribs were broken, jamming into his lung. His airway rattled when he breathed, and he spat out a froth of saliva and blood.

He forced his swollen eyes open and glared at his father.

It rankled that the older man looked so much like Pollux had. He was harder, with lines and wrinkles that a brutal life carved into his flesh. He wore them with pride and honor. He’d cropped his hair short, almost down to the skull, but his long beard was threaded through with visibly silvery strands.

There was nothing human about his eyes, and now they were dark and crazed. Castor breathed out, realizing that the men he killed often looked him in the eye. His light, ice blue eyes were the last thing they saw before they died. He exhaled shallowly, until his ribs pressed in again. He inhaled just as tentatively.

He hadn’t betrayed his pack, but his father had reneged on the promise made between the Nightfall Pack’s alpha, and his own pack. A promise that once broken could usher in a new era of bloodshed. That was the betrayal. He was the one betrayed. He was the one wronged. He should be the one taking his revenge.

In the past, he would have. Even if it meant harming his own father. He might not have killed him, but he would have beaten him senseless and left him behind. He wanted to pummel Alexander until barely a breath remained in him and then walk away. He’d turn his back on his pack. Make a fresh start somewhere else.

But it wasn’t possible.

As long as he was out there and alive, Briar May would be in danger. She certainly wouldn’t be safe if he ever went to her pack. He couldn’t go and claim her. Couldn’t try to live a life worthy of her. He couldn’t do what he’d scoffed at before and try to change.

He couldn’t think that he’d lost her. He didn’t want to relive the knowing that he’d never see her again. She hadn’t been in the crowd when he was released. He’d die here in this cave, far away from her, knowing that he’d never had her in the first place. She wasn’t his. He wasn’t worthy of her. She was innocent and sweet. She had the capacity for great love. He was polluted with a blood-stained soul. He didn’t know anything about love. He knew attachment, duty, obligation. In some cases, people used cruelty as a shield for something worse, but not a single one of them in his pack had ever tried to hide what they were.

For the first time ever, he felt like he didn’t fit.

He no longer wanted to channel inside himself, numb to life, numb to feeling, numb to the endless loss. He wanted to howl and scream and fight and tear his way back to the one woman who ever made him feel like he was worth the life in his body. She made him want a forever he didn’t have.

***

A hissing sound forced Castor to open his eyes again and he wondered if he’d blacked out. Alexander met his gaze steadily. He was standing right in front of him, waiting for him to see and knowwhat was about to happen.

“That’s right, son. I’ll flay you alive. I won’t stop. Not until you’re dead. I’ll make it last days. Weeks, if I have to. You’ll break in the end. No true son of mine betrays his own people. You’re no wolf. You’re unworthy of the Phaethon name. You’ve shit all over your own flesh and blood, so I’ll strip your flesh from your body, and I’ll bleed the blood from you until there’s nothing left. Unless…” He uncoiled the whip and lashed it against the ground, kicking up a fine layer of gritty dust. “Unless you tell me why you didn’t avenge your brother.”

Castor studied the crags and juts in the cave wall, staring fixedly ahead. He didn’t have to worry about breaking. He could die with a clean conscience. It didn’t rankle that his own father refused to believe him innocent. He didn’t recoil from the violence and the pain coming for him. He barely felt it anymore, and not just as a defense mechanism. He’d been trained as a child to be robotic like that. No amount of torture was going to undo the years he’d spent perfecting that skill.

Alexander stalked around to the back of him. Castor had immediately been stripped naked in the cave, as if that humiliation would force him to feel the sting of shame.

His father tested the whip, letting it sing through the air, crackling like a jagged lightning bolt. He didn’t brace. It would only hurt more. He closed his eyes and went to that place he’d carved out inside. Tunneled into his own skin so that when the first ripple of air shifted in the cave and the first stripe of fire peeled his flesh from his shoulders and cut all the way down to his ass cheeks, it was no more than a minor sunburn.

He counted the blows like he was outside of himself. By the tenth, he wondered how much skin actually remained to flay off his body. Everything from his shoulders down to his calves had been opened. The floor beneath him was stained red, his blood pooling until it was soaked up by the thirsty earth.

“Say it!” Alexander’s screamed command echoed through the cave. “Fucking say it, or I won’t stop until there’s nothing left to bandage and repair. I won’t stop until you’re cut into pieces, your body burned and the earth you were scattered on is sown with salt. Your spirit will have no rest. This is no warrior’s death. This is the death of a man too afraid to admit to his shame. This is the death of a coward.”

Castor almost wished he could make his thick tongue work in a mouth that was all metal and salt. He would be able to get the words out past his broken, split lips. Through the thick, dry paste of days without water. He almost, almost wished he’d break the vow he’d made to himself to stay silent no matter what happened, just so he could inform his crazed sire that kindergarten taunts weren’t going to work if tearing half the flesh from his body hadn’t already. He might goad Alexander into finishing the job early. It only rankled that the loss of control would indeed feel like the coward’s way out, and that wasn’t for him.

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