Denied by Destiny: Trapped in the Shadows of the Mate Bond

Cleo -

"Freya?" I bend down, trying to gain her eye contact but she was in so much pain...her eyes were hardly focusing.

To my astonishment Zane fetches another rope soaked in wolfsbane, preparing to put it on her. He had thick leather gloves on, it might not be causing him harm but she was in excruciating pain.

Why was he behaving like nothing was wrong.

"Stop...stop it." I aggressively push Zane's hand away from her, blocking her body from him with mine. "What are you doing?" I growl out, my voice demanding.

"She wants it, she needs it."

"Needs it?"

His eyes dart between me and Freya, before moving to the ropes in his hands.

"I'm not...do you think I am doing this to her?"

Am I the only one that is truly seeing the depravity before me. Did I accidently take a sip on the hip flask without remembering. Why was everyone acting like this wasn't severely wrong.

"You were putting the ropes on her."

"Yes, but without me...

"Without you what?" I seethe out, my jaw tense as it takes a lot of my strength to not act out and throttle him with the ropes in his hands. Give him a taste of his own medicine.

"It's her punishment, for helping the lunas."

"Lunas?"noveldrama

"She helped Luna Alora escape, then sided with Kaia."

"But that was twenty years ago? Have you been doing this to her for twenty years?" Now the red scars upon her arm finally make sense.

Scars that had been painfully reopened. Scars that were struggling to heal under the impact of the poison, blood continuing to drip down the chair's arms creating a small puddle on the basement floor.

"Without me helping her she would be dead. It was her punishment set by the alpha. Without me, she would have taken it too far." He looks at me as if I was the delusional one, as if I'm the one that has gone insane.

"Twenty years ago?" He could be speaking a different language for what good it was doing me to understand what was happening right now.

"I want you to remove the ropes from her, take her upstairs and let her rest." I powerfully command out. "..."

"You don't want to get on my bad side Zane!"

"Yes Luna."

A fiery fury was alight within me, how could Freya still be paying for her choice from almost twenty years ago.

I follow Zane upstairs to the top floor, where he gently places a sobbing Frey la onto the bed, before fetching warm water and soaking her wounds clean.

Knowing she was at least safe for now, I storm out of the beta household, entering the alpha house with a venomous anger surging through me.

"What the fuck was that?" I scream out, not waiting to be granted entry into the alpha office, I

barge in not caring if he was alone or not.

"Cleo...calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down. You better start explaining..."

"It's simple, every time Freya does or says something that would be detrimental to this pack or to me as an alpha she self harms as punishment."

"Self harms? No Zane was standing over her placing the ropes on her."

"No, he was helping her. He found her doing it to herself.."

"so rather than stop her, he helped?"

"She has to keep going until she summits to it."

"Summits to what?"

"The alpha command." He calmly responds, his hands moving and resting openly on top of his desk. "Alpha command? You commanded her to do this....for all this time?" No, that's not possible.

"No, not for all this time. It started

again when you arrived here... I guess you triggered it again." He shrugs

out at me, not at all bothered by what he had just walked in on..unlike me

en

I'm utterly disgusted by not only

what I had just seen, but the fact et

that he was allowing it...not just allowing it... he had instigated it a lifetime ago.

"Oh my god...you are a monster." I seethe out, my eyes finally awaking to the male in front of me.

"No...I'm not a monster. She was a traitor of the pack, I granted her clemency to return...her punishment is self inflicted."

"Yes because of the alpha

command, she's the female

beta...she will do whatever you ask her to do. You could have released

her from it.." But why does she keep

doing it, why is she

fighting it.