Academy Of Mates novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Chapter 74

The feeling of abandonment creeps back to me and I desperately push it away, swallowing back the worry, the thoughts that pulled me to the woods where there was no one, where there was only me.

stand from the couch, refusing to let this get to me, and ran to the bedroom to find clothes. In a haze of fabric and huffs, I aced back down the front doors, completely dressed and determined to see… determined to know.

My hands hesitate at the doorknob, staring at it for a long time. I was torn. Incredibly torn. It felt like I was about to break a lirect order as I turned the knob, but the need to know Sebastian fully seems to trump everything else and before I know what I’m doing, I’m already out the door.

or a split second, I worried that I didn’t know where to go. For where would I find Sebastian in this big valley? But I houldn’t have worried because the smell that hit me was nearly impossible to miss… the smell of death.

t was pungent.

I was repulsive.

I scent that makes the air on my arms and neck stand up at its ends.

lood and sweat and something sour was in the air, thick and burning. My feet knew where to go, following the scents that nade my stomach turn. I stayed off the paths, slipping between the gaps of the houses until I made it to the center of town idden behind someone’s laundry.

s I peeked between the sleeves of someone’s shirt and the crotch part of someone’s pants, I was greeted by a sight that early had me on my knees. There was a pile of bodies, a mountain of them stacked high, but they weren’t even bodies. It ras parts of bodies, pulled apart and swimming with blood. Both of human and wolf. There were chunks of fur, innards and hore. I saw fingers without nails, toes missing from the foot, arms out of the sockets and knees ravaged like they were hewed on.

ut there was one body part that I didn’t see.

he head.

here was not a single head anywhere, the bodies completely decapitated. I didn’t want to know where the head was and I on’t think I want to know what they did with it- what my mate did with it.

now explains the blood on Sebastian’s face, the one on his clothes. How there was so much of it.

ecause from the beautiful town center from this morning, it was now a blood bath, the floors bleeding and painted a dark

nd the smell, the smell was something else..

ut that wasn’t the worst part. They were burning it, a bonfire made from bodies as thick smoke filled the air, but the smoke melled of death.

The sight was something out of a nightmare. It was horrifie

The people surrounding the fire didn’t even flinch, tossing even more body parts into the pile and laughing as they did They were all drenched with red, their hair matted with the blood of their enemies and faces dripping with thick liquid

Sile rose up to my throat as I braced myself against the house to keep myself steady just as I think I might pass out a hand akes me by the shoulder.

14

2.35 pm P

Chapter 74

Baby blue eyes stared down at me.

“What are you doing?” Benedict demanded, pulling me a few feet away from the mountain of body parts. Upon seeing my reaction, my horror, Benedict wraps an arm around my shoulders and uses his body to block what was happening in front of us. “You’re not supposed to be here, Vareesa.”

Apart from a few splotches of blood on his shirt and face, he was relatively clean.

“You need to get back to the house before he sees you.” Benedict warns me, trying to herd me out of the center of town by using his arm to move me backward. “I mean it Vareesa. He won’t like it if you’re here.”

“What’s happening?” I dug my foot against the ground, fighting Benedict’s push. “Are those bodies the city pack from the border?”

“Yes.” He answered distractedly, looking around discreetly. “We have to go—”

I stopped him, holding his arm tight and silently pleading for him to answer my questions. “But why are they so… butchered? Where are their heads?”

Benedict’s stony expression softens, letting out a tired breath. “We’re at war. This is what happens. Everyone expected this. We’ve all wanted this. The city pack will fall.”

“The heads, Benedict. Where are the heads?” I was asking, but a big part of me knows I wouldn’t like the answer.

“Hanging on tree branches a few miles away from the borders.” He answered flatly. “To warn everyone away.”

I couldn’t forget the blood, the body parts that were merely tossed aside. “But why, why do the bodies look like that? Why are the heads made into deOdettetions?”

“Vareesa, I’m serious,” Benedict whispers, urging me further away. “I’m already in so much trouble with the Alpha. If he catches you here, it’ll be over for me and I’ll join those body parts.”

“Benedict, it’s… excessive? Or am I just, am I just naive?” I tried, thinking that I might be the one at fault, that I’m the one not understanding.

“It is excessive.” He says without shame. And there it was again, a simple word from him and it felt like everything else was so small, so easy. “I told you that not all the rumors are false. Some of them are true. We are monsters and he is a monster. but someone has to be.”

Where I live, war was unimaginable. Our people barely had food to eat, barely had enough wood to make a fire to keep us warm. War was just not possible. Seeing this now, it was different and I never felt farther from home. “But why is there a war? I don’t…”

“The Alpha has wanted a war with the city pack for years. He was supposed to start it in the Academy, remember?” Benedict kept looking behind him, using his body to cover me. “The city pack has taken a lot from everyone and we’re just here to return what’s not theirs to take. Now, please. Go back to the house.”

I held onto him tightly. “Sebastian is after Moira

Benedict did not look surprised by this. “I know”

“Is he going to kill her?” I already knew the answer but I just needed to hear it from him.

But Benedict doesn’t answer.

Ever so loyal to his Alpha.

2/4

pppp.

12:36 pm p p p p

Chapter 74

Until the very end.

I pulled at his arm. “Benedict, please. Is Sebastian going to kill her?”

“Yes.” He finally answers through gritted teeth.

“And you’re just going to let him?” I pressed, unable to let this go.

“Yes. Why would I stop him?” Benedict challenged, without so much as a sympathetic word towards his pack member.

It seems I have to remind both the Alpha and his Beta of their fellow officer. “She’s the Delta.”

He shrugs like this doesn’t mean anything. “She disrespected you. I would have done the same.”

I didn’t know what to feel, how to react. I felt like I was leagues and leagues away from what my life was like before this. “But,”

Benedict pulls me to him, staring into my eyes and willing for me to understand. “Nothing will change his mind and I think he’s doing the right thing. You are the Luna, Vareesa. No one is allowed to do that to you. The Alpha has his way of doing things and the people respect that. Everyone knows what they’re getting into when joining this pack.”

Except me.

I didn’t know.

At least, not everything.

“Benedict, I began, wondering the story, how this all came to be, how all of them came to be. I’ve noticed for some time now how all of them seem to be from every part of the world, strays coming together. The best of the world, coming together.. Powerful and determined and ready to take vengeance.

They take loyalty so strictly, putting it above everything else.

And the way everyone just agrees to it.

Benedict stands a little taller, lips tightly pressed together. “Go home, Vareesa.”

I refused to move, standing taller as well. “Take me there. Please.”

He frowned, unamused by how difficult I was being. “Why?”

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