Word Count: 2156

~Aesira

We emerge out onto the street at a full sprint.

Lincoln remains a step behind me as we race toward the carriage. I can hear guards shouting behind us, demanding our imminent capture.

Glancing over my shoulder, I see a collection of guards in Everin's livery not far behind. Once we get to the carriage, they'll have advanced on us, and there will be no way we can escape.

A dark feeling of realisation shadows me as I dart down an alleyway.

There is no way out of here for both of us...

At the edge of the alley, I stop abruptly. Lincoln almost runs into my back, having to grab the wall to bring himself to a stop.

"Go, Lincoln. The carriage is just up there," I point down the street, breathing heavily. "Get in, and go."

He looks at me, frantic. "Not without you. Come on."

He grabs my arm, but I pull from his grasp. There is only one way to get him out of here, and it's for me to hand myself in. Otherwise, we'll both be brought in, and Lincoln will be executed.

"Go without me. I'll come later," I insist, although the lie tastes like ash on my tongue. "The guards are coming, and if I don't distract them, they'll get us both."

Fierce determination etches into his features. Lincoln is a solider, he's not used to giving up.

But even he must know that there is only one way this ends well for him.

"I'm not letting you martyr yourself for me," he grits out, looking anxiously over my shoulder. The guards are closing in, their voices echoing down the narrow alley.

"If they catch you, you're dead. If they catch me, I should be okay," I exclaim, hoping he doesn't hear the uncertainty in my voice.

He looks pained. "Aesira..."

"Go, now!" I snap.

Time is out, the guards are too close. He knows this is over.

"I love you," he whispers, and then he's off.

I watch him go, my throat tight. I'm not sure I will ever see him again.

The guards close in on me, apprehending me quickly. In their confusion for my surrender, they don't go after Lincoln until it's too late. He will have left, slipping out of the village the way I planned, making his way to a remote location.

The guards aren't kind to me as they shove me into a transport of their own, muttering about my betrayal and how they should kill me for it.

They don't, though. They don't hurt me, and I know exactly why.

Instead of being taken back to Everin, I'm taken to the prisons. I'm shoved in a cell and left alone in the dim, although through the walls I hear the hum of dissenting guards, probably wondering if it's worth it to kill me and face their Alpha's judgement.

Sitting on the stiff cot, hike my legs up to my chest, sighing deeply.

Lincoln is free. I achieved my goal, and yet I'm full of melancholy.

My one chance at escape is gone. Everin will never allow me any freedom ever again, that is, if he doesn't have me executed. He will assume this has something to do with my father, and he will know not to trust me.

If he's feeling merciful, he'll send me to the edge of the pack to spent the rest of my days rotting alone, surrounded by guards with no privacy.

I bow my head, hair falling over my face like a knotted curtain.

I have no idea what I should do. Should I go through with my plan to kill Everin? It would secure my freedom from both him and my father, but...

It's Everin. I'm not sure if I could do that to him.

After a few hours of sitting, wallowing, a guard comes into my cell.

"Your husband wants you home." He sneers at me, gesturing for me to get out of the bed. "Aren't you lucky, Ashwood scum."

The urge to bite back isn't as strong as it usually is. Instead, I simply stand, resigned.

The guards continue to refrain from touching me, but they taunt and tease me the entire ride back up to the manor. It's easy to ignore them as I stare off out the window, a pit in my stomach.

I'm not ready to face him. I didn't think I would have to.

Shoved from the carriage, I'm forced to walk back into the clutches of the manor I've called home for several months now, a horrible feeling of foreboding settled on my shoulders.

There is every chance Everin kills me. These could be my last breaths.

I'm left by the guards outside of Everin's office. The room is dim as I crack open the door and glance inside, only a few candles lighting the space.

It's still night — it will probably be dawn soon. I doubt I'll ever see the light again.

Everin is sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair. Shadows cloak his large form, and suddenly, I feel the urge to close the door and run.

Instead, I slip into the room, closing the door softly behind me.

He looks up at me, and for a moment, there is just silence and his stare. He looks exhausted. I doubt he slept all night.

I feel a little ill. I thought I would come in here and see the Alpha I have been raised to see as my enemy. I thought I would fear him more than I would feel this guilt. Instead, he looks like the male I've become intimate with, who I've felt myself growing closer to recently.

"You can't be mad at me," I whisper.

He slowly tilts his head. He's completely unreadable.

"I can't?"

"What else did you expect?" I take a step closer to his desk. This will be the only opportunity to I have to plead for my life, for his mercy. "You were going to kill him. I had to do something."

He lowers his head. It's the first hint of emotion I've seen.

When he looks back up at me, his gaze is soft.

"You were running away with him, weren't you?"

I blink, a little stunned. That is what he cares about? Surely that is the most predictable part of the entire night.

"I wasn't running away with him, Everin. I was helping him escape," I explain.

Lincoln and I may have stuck together while we found a safe place to settle, but after that, I doubt we would have stayed in each other's proximity for long. What existed between us no longer does.

Everin looks over me, and he looks...sad.

"And guaranteeing your freedom as well," he murmurs.

I swallow thickly, my guilt palpable. He's not supposed to be reacting like this. He's supposed to be angry, ready to punish me for this.

Instead, he's resigned, like he's given up. I've hurt him.

"I can't stay here. There are so many—"

"Do you despise me that much?" he breathes, voice tight.

I shake my head. He won't understand why I had to do this because he will never know what my father is truly like, and what he would be willing to do to ensure I pay for not completing the mission.

"It's not about you, Everin," I insist. "It's about my freedom, about my father...I can't be here."

His jaw hardens, and he looks away.

"Why do you think I keep you here and don't allow you leave?" His voice is so soft, I almost don't hear the words.

I shift uneasily. "Political leverge?"

"I keep you here, because there is nowhere else where I can gaurantee your safety. Not in my pack, and not anywhere else. Both because of my people, but more importantly..." He looks up at me. "Because I fear what your father would do to you."

I let out a shaky breath. "I wasn't going back there. I never would."

"I couldn't care less about you returning to share my secrets, or the embarrassment of losing my wife back to the very male who gave me you," he says slowly. "I found myself only caring that you were willingly returning to a male who inflicted so much pain on you. I found myself hating that I could no longer protect you."

I look down at my feet, unable to bear the weight of his pained stare.

"If it isn't already obvious, Aesira, I care about you. A lot. More than is reasonable given our circumstances." He lets out a heavy sigh. "I can forgive you for running from me. In fact, I understand completely. But I cannot forgive you for Lincoln."

I look up, startled.

"You should know that he is gone. Escaped." The anger I've been waiting for all night is finally leeching into his expression.

I don't speak, wetting my mouth. Lincoln is free. Maybe all of this is worth it.

"Why do you think he was on death row?" He asks me.

I straighten, steeling myself. "For being a member of my father's army."

Something flickers in his eyes.

"Plenty of those in my prison are your fathers soldiers who committed atrocities against my people," he levels. "What do you think elevated Lincoln to being on death row?"

I frown. Father told me every solider captured by Everin is executed, which is why he does the same to Everin's soliders in his prison.

"I...I don't know."

"No, Aesira. You don't," he mutters flatly, massaging his temple.

I shake my head. Lincoln wouldn't have done anything more than being a solider. He was a good male the entire time I've known him, and I've known him a lot longer than I've known Everin.

"Whatever he did, it was in service of my father. He received commands he had to go through with," I exclaim.

"So your father commanded him to torture Tarnia?" Everin asks softly.

I frown. "What?"

He shifts in his seat, taking a moment to respond, like the words are hard to say.

"The night I found Tarnia, she was broken to the point I didn't recognise her as the priestess I knew." He grimaces, recalling the image of her. "She had been beaten and tormented within an inch of her life."

I shake my head, panic rising in my throat. "No..."

"Lincoln was assigned to guard the temple that night. She was in neutral territory between borders, and he accompanied her," he tells me grimly. "Apparently they were in love, but he turned on her."

"He didn't love her. He barely knew her." This can't be true...this has to be another lie to manipulate me.

"He was often assigned in her area. Not just as your fathers guard," Everin reminds me. "She told me this all herself. She wore the evidence of his crimes all over her."

I'm breathing so heavily, the sound fills the room. I'm choking on my panic, because while this is too absurd to believe, I know can tell that Everin is not lying to me.

Lincoln was often assigned to the temple. He was hurt by her betrayal of our pack, but what if his hurt came from another place entirely?

What if he really was in love with her? What if she betrayed our pack because he had been hurting her?

"This can't be real." I lay my hands over my stomach, feeling the painful urge to throw up.

Everin looks at me solemnly, but he forges on.

"That night, I took her to a physician to be treated. She screamed for an hour straight, until she almost lost her voice. I took her to an inn, and just held her. She cried the entire night. Not once did she sleep. It was a horrible, cruel cry I will never forget." He lets out a shuddering breath, recalling the cruelty in vivid detail.

"Everin, I didn't know," I say hoarsely.

Had I known...I would have happily watched him hang.

"I know, and I realise I should have told you what happened to her much earlier," he murmurs. "But he's free, and I'm going to have to figure out how to tell her that."

I need to make this right. I need to reverse my actions before it's too late.

I step closer again. "You need to let me—"

He rises from the desk, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Aesira. I cannot hear it tonight."

He brushes past me and out the room, leaving me standing in all my guilt in shame.

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