Chapter 83
Reuben
She had forgotten me.
She was scared of me. She hated my very existence.
Closing my eyes and spreading my arms out wide, letting my body fall back into the river behind me. With a splash, my body dropped and was pulled deeper under the water. As I remembered that day six years ago when I failed her completely. Could this be my punishment?
Standing in front of Willow’s house, I stared at the wide open door in a daze. No matter how much I tried I could no longer smell her scent or sense her presence. She was gone…
My whole body was paralyzed, frozen in place until I realized that the mind-link I shared with Willow had been
severed too.
My heartbeat had grown slower as if I was close to my death and my mind that was as blank as a white sheet of paper was consumed by a panic attack when I realized exactly what Willow had done. She had rejected me…
“No…” I shook his head, my muscles finally easing enough to move as I walked towards the woods. How could she leave me? I could not imagine the next second without her.
“Willow…” I had to stop her. I had to get her back. I had to be with her…
She was both my destiny and destination. Without her I was nothing. If she was not here, where would I go? I had to follow her wherever she was going.
“Willow… take me with you…” mumbling under my breath, I increased my speed ready to dash into the woods only to be grabbed by two sets of hands and pinned to the ground.
“Catch him!!”
“No.. let me go… let me go. My Willow… she is leaving… WILLOW!” I roared, struggling in their hold as all of those hands forcefully twisted my arm behind my back.
She had forgotten me.
Pho was scared of me.
She hated my very existence.
Closing my eyes and spreading my arms out wide, letting my body fall back into the river behind me. With a splash, my body dropped and was pulled deeper under the water. As I remembered that day six years ago when I failed her completely. Could this be my punishment?
Standing in front of Willow’s house, I stared at the wide open door in a daze. No matter how much I tried I could no longer smell her scent or sense her presence. She was gone…
My whole body was paralyzed, frozen in place until I realized that the mind-link I shared with Willow had been
severed too.
My heartbeat had grown slower as if I was close to my death and my mind that was as blank as a white sheet of paper was consumed by a panic attack when I realized exactly what Willow had done. She had rejected me….
“No…” I shook his head, my muscles finally easing enough to move as I walked towards the woods. How could she leave me? I could not imagine the next second without her.
“Willow…” I had to stop her. I had to get her back. I had to be with her…
She was both my destiny and destination. Without her I was nothing. If she was not here, where would I go? I had to follow her wherever she was going.
“Willow… take me with you…” mumbling under my breath, I increased my speed ready to dash into the woods.
I only to be grabbed by two sets of hands and pinned to the ground.
“Catch him!!”
“No.. let me go… let me go. My Willow… she is leaving… WILLOWI” I roared, struggling in their hold as all of those hands forcefully twisted my arm behind my back.
“Don’t let him escape!” Dad ordered his men as they tied my wrists behind my back.
“LET ME GO” I growled, using every bit of my strength, I was close to breaking free before Dad’s Beta, Vin sent more men to pin me down.
“Don’t let him go or he will kill all of us!” Vin ordered them.
“WILLOW!” I yelled again and again staring at the woods hoping to catch a glimpse of her. I had to go after her. I believed with every fiber of my being that she could not have gone far. I could catch her. “AHHH….” I shouted, summoning my all strength ready to shift into my wolf.
The warriors flinched at the sight of me half shifted. They broke into the cold sweats, looking at Dad for the next
order.
Vin gazed at Dad’s emotionless gaze that was fixed on me, “you want to abandon your family, your pack, everything for that woman? It is not happening while I am alive.”
Vin ordered next, “Inject him before he shifts, quick!”
“WILLOW!!” my face turned red as blood from all the screaming as my head was held down by two sets of hands before the injection made its way into my veins.
“WILLOW!!!” I called her one last time before the injection worked its way into my system and I slowly slipped. into the darkness. Even as my vision blurred I was still looking at the woods hoping to see her but she never
came…
I had lost her…
“Lock him up in the underground prison on the edge of the territory. He will not be allowed to come out until he accepts his fate,” dad ordered.
That was the last time we saw each other before the Alpha King came to visit me, when I made that deal in exchange for the cancellation of the imperial decree against Willow. At that time cancellation had seemed like an impossibility, the law refused to let her escape so I accepted a punishment in her stead, receiving a hundred whips with a silver whip for six consecutive months. It meant nothing to me as long as they did not go after Willow.
I was locked in a dark prison where life and death, day and night, days and months had no meaning for me, especially without her.
“No matter how much torture we meet out, he does not move a muscle or sign those papers!!” the warrior tossed the whip aside in anger, “it is already over six months. The Alpha is losing his patience. If this continues, we will be killed. Quick go and inform Beta Vin about this.”
Tied and beaten, every second I thought about if I had not left her alone that day or if I had returned a little earlier, would I have not lost her? If I had wiped away her tears, embarrassed her and our child instead of acting the opposite of my emotions and going to meet my father, would we have been together now?
“Don’t overdo the doze. If he dies then the Alpha will kill all of us,” Vin ordered the warriors, in the wall behind the cell. From the small gape their panicking eyes came to my half dead state.
“But Beta Vin, what we are doing is unbelievably wrong and a great crime. No matter how much intoxicated he is given he never lifts the pen or presses his thumb to the paper even though the drug is supposed to make him forget about that Omega. He does not even speak, it’s almost as if he is dead. I even doubt that he had lost his ability to hear. I am afraid that if we continue to keep him in this condition he will die. If the Alpha finds out about the drugs that have been given to Alpha Reuben then…”
“Do as I f ucking say!” Vin barked, punching them. “The Alpha just needs his son back! It has been almost a year yet he is not willing to give up on that woman. Everything will be fine as soon as he signs the papers, becomes Ella’s fiance and our pack’s Alpha. No one will find out.”
“I… I understand but what if… he still does not sign…” the warrior stammered.
“Then that Omega bi tch will be killed and that’s how this matter will end. Once she is removed he will have nothing to be stubborn about,” Vin stated.
As soon as I heard him planning to kill Willow, I opened my eyes. The next day, Vin came to visit me with papers like the day when I was high on drugs.
“Alpha Reuben, can you see me?” Vin, squatting in front of me, asked carefully. I just gave him a blank stare.
A slight panic rose in his heart as he moved on to his next question, “Alpha, do you know who I am?” He desperately looked into my eyes but only got silence in return.
‘Did he finally forget everything?”
“Is this all coming to an end?”
The other two warriors whispered to each other. Listening to them, a smile came over Vin’s lips as he pulled a
‘Alpha… sign it! Agree to this marriage and you will become the Alpha of our pack. Who would willingly pass up such a golden opportunity?” his eyes shone when I did not reply this time either. “Open these silver shackles!” Vin loudly ordered the two warriors in the room. “The Alpha is ready to sign!!”
“Just sign this and you will be free to leave…” he put a gold cast fountain pen in my hand that belonged to Ella’s uncle, he had been the one to initiate the marriage proposal between Ella and I. Ella’s uncle had planted the idea in my father’s brain suggesting that it was the only way to remove Willow from my life completely.
Everyone of them were my enemies, I was going to finish them off beginning with Vin. I practically stabbed the paper with the pen as I signed the contract to get my freedom but tied myself to an unwanted marriage contract with another woman.
I could not protect Willow if I was in a cage so I had to get out and signing papers was the only way to achieve that. As long as Willow was safe I was willing to tie myself to someone else no matter how suffocating it was for
me.
But… it did not change the fact that I had lost her. Walking out of the dark prison after a year, I felt no life inside me when I stared at the Willow’s house that had been destroyed. The place that I had once called home, where I had found peace, our small nest where we spent our love life, and my memories with Willow, all of it had been stolen from me.
I had lost
everything..
“Reuben,” dad’s voice entered my ears after a year. The moment that my thumb was pressed to the papers and the magic was broken, he was immediately informed. He frowned at the sight of me staring at the pile of rubble that was all that was left of the destroyed house in front of me. “Come back home with me and take over your Alpha position.”
“I don’t have a home,” I murmured, staring at our broken nest. “She took it with her…”
“You are still thinking about that woman!” he growled, walking closer to me. “A year has passed. After enduring all that torture you still don’t understand a thing! That woman is gone,” he paused and put his hand on my shoulder, “Everything I have done was for your own good. That woman was bad luck for you. Now focus on your fiance and forget about that woman or her baby. Focus on giving the pack an Alpha heir.”
“Alpha heir?” I turned to look at him. “So you did all of this for an Alpha blood heir?”
He frowned at my question, “Only an Alpha female can give birth to a pure Alpha child for you…”
“I will kill you,” I remarked, my eyes emotionless.
“What?” He looked at me in shock.
“Just now I have killed you in thousands of different ways in my mind. Now I want to kill you in real life,” I revealed.
“Have you lost your f ucking mind? You want to kill your father over that woman?!” he growled.
I ignored him and continued what I was saying, “But then I thought about how it would make a difference? Killing or sparing you will not bring Willow back to me. I will not get what I have lost…”
Dad’s eyes flashed with worry as he got closer to me, “Reuben, what are you talking about? Talk like a sane person! You have not lost anything. You…”
I turned around to leave without listening to him. “Reuben, where are you going?” he yelled, panicking over my silence. “REUBENI COME BACK HERE!” He chased me, trying to stop me.
I shoved his hand away again and again until I made my way to the clearing where Oran, Bix, Ella had gathered.
“Reuben!” Oran was shocked to see me after a year, the same shock was reflected in Ella’s eyes but Bix remained frozen.
“Bix…” I called to him, stopping in the middle of the clearing. “Do it,” I stated, my voice barely audible.
He shook his head, “I can’t.”
will do it,” I
“You are the only one I trust, it will be the first and last thing I will ask of you. If you are my friend, you remarked, my voice and eyes dead. As soon as I had exited the prison I had mind-linked him about what I wanted him to do.
The clearing fell into a dead silence as everyone’s eyes came back and forth between Bix and me. Bix’s eyes got wet and red slightly. He did not move from where he stood for a long time, hoping I would change my mind but he could no longer refuse me. He slowly stepped closer to me, his eyes full of guilt.
“Stop me,” he begged.
5/7
Witnessing this exchange between Bix and I, dad’s heart nearly failed as he sensed something extremely dangerous going to happen. “WAIT A MINUTE! WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE DOING?!” he growled, demanding an explanation.
“DO IT!” I yelled at Bix. He focused back on me then called upon his magic.
“WHAT THE F UCK YOU ARE DOING?! STOP! STOPI SAY!” Dad yelled, racing over to me to interrupt. I glazed at the warriors who immediately pinned their former Alpha to the ground..
Ella and Oran’s panicking faces moved back and forth from Bix’s shining eyes to my wolf’s eyes.
“What is going on? Why is Bix) aiming at Reuben’s heart…” Ella stammered.
“This will hurt like b itch,” Bix remarked, his eyes filled with tears. “I am sorry!!” with that Bix aimed his magic at my heart, it felt like someone had stabbed me with a sword.
“NO… STOPI!” Dad screamed along with Ella, Oran froze in place when they all recognized what kind of ceremony Bix was performing for me.
I slowly dug my half shifted hand into the middle of my chest, as I declared.”I, Reuben Emerald…”
“STOP, REUBEN!! DON’T DO IT!!” he shouted like crazy.
None of his screaming or crying was going to stop me as I continued, “I, Reuben Emerald, destroy my fertility from this point forward. In this lifetime, I have had only one woman who is pregnant with my child, she will be the only woman to ever carry or give birth to my child. In this lifetime she is the only one that I will be with, there is no other woman for me. If there comes a time that I sleep with another woman that is not her… that will be
the end of me.”
I choose my own death in this life.
The clearing fell into dead silence as dad stopped struggling in horror. The wolves holding him down moved away in shock.
“What the hell did you…” Dad broke into tears, sitting there miserably on the ground. “You ruined your own life…”
Vomiting blood, I turned around and left for what remained of Willow’s house. “I banish Alpha Louis from my life,” I declared, without bothering to look back at him.
Dad kept sitting in the clearing devastated for hours. He had lost the war even though he had won the battle. That night he disappeared from the pack and from my life.
Upon reaching the debris of the house, I dug deeper and deeper into the rubble. My nails bled as night came. After reaching the ground below the debris, I slept in the nest I had made, seeing Willow beside me like always…
In reality I was alone. She was never there…
I let my body relax as the river water pulled me down into its depths.
neverthe
I that my love had given her so much pain. Even now…
I clutched at the torn handkerchief in my hand. I had to disappear but still I could not let her go, “Willow…”