Jessamine
For the most part of the journey back, I was bleary-eyed, exhaustion taking a hold of me like never before. Kier said my body would demand rest from me, and I could barely walk without keeling over.
Moira’s sobbing when we reach the courtyard, and I’m amazed by how quickly it’s all been set up; the pyres upon which two bodies lay—I’m assuming Kier’s and Randale’s—the torches and the fucking crowd. There are people wailing, and if I didn’t already know how much they loved Kier, this would be a testament.
There are children here, hiding the behind the skirts of their weeping mothers. Never have I seen so many pack warriors in one place at once. They all hold a fist to their hearts, their solemn faces turned up to the sky as the priestess sings an awfully sad song that manages to get goosebumps crawling up my skin. If I wasn’t already so tired, I may have started sobbing too. The atmosphere is just…sorrowful.
We remain hidden in the shadows, until Moira begins to speak, her voice shaky, and there are so many cuts in her speech that it sounds so sincere. Her cries. I see Asher standing by her side, his face equally grim and rage spreads through me at the display. Kier’s hands holding the under of my thigh tremble with restraint, but he says nothing.
“How can they not feel that you’re not dead?” I whisper.
It is Randale who responds, even if I have made it clear that I am not speaking to him. “The pack is spread too wide and Kier’s influence too thin. The wolfsbane cut off might have gotten rid of that significantly enough to mimic the Alpha’s demise.”
Between sobs that wrack Moira’s body, her voice rises, a choked cry carrying over the crowd. “My heart…it bleeds.” She clutches at her chest, fingernails digging into the dark fabric that’s askew. “Not for the king, not for the Alpha, but for my love.”
Someone kill me now, I can’t watch this. Darrock is laughing so hard, he’s begun to wheeze.
Her eyes, wild and tear-filled, scan the gathered crowd. “Killed by the very woman he sought to defend, protect. Killed by…” Her voice cracks. “The woman he…he…” A new wave of sobs steals her voice, and she drops the torch in her hands nearly falls. She collapses to her knees, gripping the sand and her father comes to stand behind her, holding her shoulders as he murmurs soothing words that everyone can hear.
I stare up at Kier, but his eyes are already on mine. I want to ask what he’s waiting for, why we have to watch this, but my question is answered when soft footsteps hit the ground beside us. “Alpha.”
Turning my head, I see Gerald. He’s extending a bloody parchment towards my mate. His hand shakes as Randale takes it from him instead and his voice is thick with emotion as he says, “Bless the Goddess that…” He shakes his head, and straightens, becoming all diplomatic. “As you suspected, Asher’s men surrounded the castle. The troops from Dawn contend with them as we speak, seeing as ours are…” His eyes flick to the warriors lined in a form to pay respects to the bodies on the pyre. “…grieving.”
Kier nods absentmindedly. “Extend an offer for surrender. It’ll be such a waste to kill them all.” His eyes are more green than brown as he peers down at me in his arms. “Ready? Think you can walk?”
I can, but I shake my head. He laughs a little before setting me down on wobbly feet. I clutch his arm to steady myself. He waits until I straighten before taking my fingers, letting them slide and settle along mine. And then, he’s pulling me forward.
The first woman who sees us—a maid—screams. The sounds cuts across the yard, startling even Moira out of her speech, and what follows, as they start to notice us is a variety of expressions that can all be classified under shock. Widened eyes, gaping mouths, cries of relief and fear, confusion.
The crowd parts, giving us wide berth, and my heart beats so fast with…I don’t know, but it just does.
Kier’s shoulder straightens, and his expression shifts into an unreadable mask. It’s a transition too swift to get attuned to. This isn’t the man who held me through the entire journey back, refusing to let me go for even a second. No, this Kier is the Alpha who killed those men without a shred of mercy, and he has a debt to collect. He moves with purpose, his head held high, and every tight line of his body manifests the anger his face does a great job at hiding.
I lift my chin, reveling in it all, and when we reach the platform upon which Moira and Asher stand, it’s almost comical how the latter’s lips part and his eyes widen, several emotions flitting across as they skim over us, noting that not one of us died. Not one.
But Moira…something in the way she looks at us disturbs me deeply. She looks like…she didn’t know. The shock in her gaze is genuine and the tears that well up in her eyes at the sight of Kier, it isn’t forced, or pained. It is…relief.
Or maybe she’s just very good at acting.
“K-kier,” she breathes, but Kier doesn’t stop on her account. He lets go of my fingers and hedges on, towards the pyre. He pulls off the white garments covering both bodies and the dinner he’d fed me an hour ago turns to lead in my stomach. Everyone gasps, because…how can they not? The bodies are broken and mangled, like some berserk animal fed on them. They are the right height, though, and the first has red hair that’s nearly as vibrant as Kier’s, and Goddess, the stench is repugnant.
Kier scoffs, returning to Moira’s side to grab the torch and set fire to the bodies himself.
Which gives Asher more than enough time to realize he’s been caught, and when he begins calling for guards, no one responds, much to his dismay. His eyes flare with panic as he again, understands that he has somehow lost control of the situation and he is wholly, deeply, fucked.
That’s when he lunges for me, no doubt to use me as a bargaining chip to get out of the very mess he created. But even that too is thwarted when Randale steps in front of me, shielding me and his claws are poised so close to Asher’s throat, blood dribbles. “Stand back.”
“Father!” Moira cries, and she grips Randale’s arms, her eyes a blood-shot red. “What are you doing? Let go of him!”
When Randale doesn’t budge, she turns to me, her face twisting vehemently. I’ve never seen his so confused, ruffled and disheveled since we’ve met. She looks miserable, like she’s truly been grieving, and when she asks, “What is happening?”, she sounds so little. So lost. “I thought…”
“I’m not buying your horseshit,” I tell her, because her perfect little act is starting to get to me. “What was it you said to me on the stairwell? He’ll be cut down? I can’t believe I didn’t think for a second that you’d be crazy enough to go through with it. You ask me what’s happening one more time and I swear, I will hurt you.”
Her black eyebrows furrow, a stark contrast from her pale skin, and she blinks severally, as though, it’s taking her a long time to process my words. She turns to Kier as he takes the last step down the platform. She grabs his wrist and I snarl in warning. She let’s go, but doesn’t let up. “They brought…bodies and…your clothes from earlier, your scent…They said she had her men in the wilds, laying in wait.” She points at me, but her eyes search Kier’s and they are wild, frantic. “The reports were clear and…and…I don’t understand anything, Kier.”
Kier tilts his head to the side, studying her. I feel his uncertainty down the bond; the question. Could Asher have worked alone without telling Moira of his plan? Highly unlikely.
He takes Moira’s arm and pushes her aside. She stumbles, but she doesn’t fall, and she watches in frozen horror as Randale hands Kier the bloody paper and steps away from Asher. Kier doesn’t bother unrolling it, and the air seems to grow chillier as he directs the full force of his stare on Asher. The male suddenly appears smaller, his face redder as Kier asks, “Do you admit to misleading the people with fake news of my death, as well as trying to commit treason to make it so? After which you would have your men extract a vow from me to name Moira the sole ruler and you, her advisor, dissolving the council of Alphas and Elders?”
Asher’s face slackens. “You are such a disappointment, Kiernan, a fool. You do not deserve the title of king.” Moira is crying now, and whispers from the crowd around grows louder and louder. “You are no different from your father—”
A cruel smile tilts Kier’s lips, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Extend my greetings to him if you must.” And then, it happens.
The paper slips from Kier’s fingers and it is barely halfway to the ground when Kier’s fingers close around Asher’s cheeks, and he twists his head all the way around, breaking his neck. Moira screams, but Kier is not done. He pushes, and his muscles bulge as skin and bone rips, and…I swallow the bile that rises up my throat as Asher’s head comes off his shoulder and Kier throws it into the fire.
Asher’s body drops in the same moment the paper hits the ground, soaking in his blood.
Kier turns to the people gathered and a hush falls over the crowd. He says nothing. He doesn’t need to. The blood dripping down his cheeks is message enough. The death in his eyes is clear as day. I see Kytos shrinking into the shadows, his face deathly pale, and I think he’ll think long and hard before picking sides again.
Moira’s gone rabid, screaming, snarling, roaring, crying. Randale pins her to the ground with his hand holding hers behind her back and the other pressing her face into the dirt. She doesn’t look like a Luna anymore. She doesn’t look like a queen either.
She looks like a traitor’s daughter. She looks like the daughter of the man who almost succeeded in taking what was mine from me permanently.
But...somehow, when Kier turns to her, his movements stoic and methodical, I reach out to take his fingers and he pauses. “She…” I can’t believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe I’m stopping him from taking her head off as well. “She is not her father. I don’t think…she was in on it.”
He stares at me for some time, unblinking, and I understand he needs a moment. Killing, I realize, is something Kier detests as much as I do. It requires from him, a sense of detachment, to go through it, and I see that when I look at him now.
I reach out through the bond, stroking his palm softly and I do the same for his mental walls, trying to get Zephyr to relax. It works, because Kier squeezes my hand once before he falls into a crouch before Moira. He catches her chin between his thumb and index fingers, and he raises it, so he can look in her eyes. Her pupils dilate as his aura stretches around us like a warm blanket. “Tell me what you know.”
She does, and it is all a variety of tea parties, gossips and being told nothing by her father when she kept drilling him for answers. She also mentions how she knew Renae was meeting with Atticus and said nothing. She mentions knowing about Renae’s plans to kill me, and aiding in the preparation. She’d handpicked the flowers herself. She says she wants me dead. She says she loves Kier and hearing the news had broken her.
Kier releases her from his thrall, and her face crumples once more, tears and snot streaming down her porcelain skin. “While I may pardon you and not extend the punishment for your father’s wrong towards you and your family, you understand the laws and consequences that follow for the severity of your actions.”
Moira sobs. “I hate you both. I curse you both—”
Kier merely reaches for the clasp of the crest on her neck and declares as he yanks it off her neck, “You are hereby stripped of your title as Luna and all titles previously bestowed upon you. For willing associating with a traitor and failing to denounce her actions, you have harmed not just me, or my mate, but my pack and my kingdom. You have harmed the lives of those you have been entrusted with. You are hereby, banished from the Sunfire pack and from Neredia and are not allowed to return under the penalty of death. Should it be found that any of the packs take you in, they will come to face my wrath.”