CHAPTER 158: Rot
ARON
There are only so many days you can spend in prison before you begin to hate the walls. Before the darkness becomes too dark and the light seems too far away.
It’s only been a month, but I feel like it’s been longer.
My mind’s far from reality as the day and the night blur into each other. The time stretches on forever, yet no moment passes. I don’t know how to put it, how to describe the feeling of this place, but I do know that it feels strange.
“Aron,” A knock on the main door of the cell startles me, waking me up from the sleep that’s starting to become a little
easier.
I turn on the bed and look at the man who stands now right in the front of my cell, holding the metal bars,
It’s one of the guards.
“You’re in for a meeting,” He informs me. “Eight. Have breakfast and come to the visiting area.”
“With whom?”
“The council.” With that, he turns and leaves the room.
I groan and roll back onto my back. I close my eyes, and for a moment, I feel a rush of strength running through my veins, through my body. It feels familiar, and it also feels like nothing.
It has been like this for a while now–more like since the day I left here, and fled to find Rhea.
The only way I can describe it is that there’s a piece of Kael that isn’t dead. That my wolf isn’t entirely dead. That for some reason, for some very fucked reason, he’s still alive and living within me.
There’s no way I can tell. I can’t shift, that’s for sure. Neither do I have his strength nor his instincts. But there is something
there.
A part of him.
A part of my wolf that still exists.
Perhaps the poison wasn’t enough, perhaps it wasn’t enough to kill a wolf like mine, like him. After all, I was a pure blood alpha, and that does make me–us, different in a sense.
I head into the visiting room after the light breakfast and find Councilman James waiting for me. He’s one of the eight that I haven’t really had the chance to know, to get familiar with, but I know his name.
“Aron,” He greets me as he gestures for me to take a seat. “It is a pleasure to see you.”
I take a seat in the metal chair opposite to his and lean back against it.
It’s certainly questionable that someone from the council would come here.
Someone like him.
He has been on the council for over three decades. One of the oldest, if not the oldest of all.
“How have you been?”
“Well.” I nod. “Considering my imprisonment.” I almost want to roll my eyes, but I avoid doing so.
“I came here to discuss a matter of great importance.”
“Which is?”
“A few things,” he says, looking down at a couple of documents. “In the beginning of the month, we had sent a few representatives of the council to the north to inspect the packs and the pack lands there.”
I tilt my head and wait for him to continue.
“One of our representatives was found missing, and two more returned with a report that suggested a threat to the council itself. They reported that some of the wolves from the north have an intent of uprising.”
“And that is my concern how?”
“These were wolves from packs you ruled and controlled.” He cocks a brow at me, “You know the northern territories like no other and that’s why I’m here.”
“I have no control now, do I? The council is in charge.” My voice is low, almost a whisper as my gaze pierces him. “How would you think I have any influence on those packs or the wolves anymore?”
“I do believe you still have a say in them, Aron.”
“I’m here,” I raise my hands up, showing the small area we are in. “Locked away. So if there’s an uprising, that isn’t my
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CHAPTER 158 Rot
problem.”
“But you know it.” He says. “If you can tell us more about the northern packs, their weaknesses, and how they can be controlled.”
“Wolves cannot be controlled,” I chuckle. “You of all should know that, councilman.”
The words get stuck in his throat as his expression twists a little at the tone of my voice, at the truth.
“If they’re planning an uprising,” I pause and watch him. “Perhaps the council shouldn’t have interfered as much as they already have and maybe you shouldn’t have fucking imprisoned their Alpha.”
His jaw tightens. I can see the muscles flexing underneath his face, and the anger that’s starting to seep into his features. He knows they made a mistake.
They all do.
They think wolves can be controlled, and whichever men they put on the throne of those packs, the wolves will never listen to their commands or their rules.
I stand up from my seat, ready to leave.
“You’re wasting your time. Go tell your council they better pray their puppets are stronger because if not, then it’ll be a bloodbath.”
I glance over my shoulder, just once, to see the horror on his face.
When the wolves rise, and when the blood starts to spill. It won’t be me they’ll be afraid of. It’ll be the rebellious wolves that‘ Il bring them down.
And the best part, I won’t even have to do anything.
I start walking back from the visiting area and across the outermost section, and then toward the tower where I intend to spend the remainder of my day in.
The guards barely look at me anymore.
They know better.
From my time here, I’ve learned about all the prisoners that are in, and the guards, and those robed men who are the true keepers of this prison. Barely anyone comes here–even visitors. It’s rare.
I haven’t had a visit from Kovas in over a few weeks. Though I suspected it’s because he knows something that he doesn’t want me to know.
About Rhea.
When she was split, the witch promised her other self wouldn’t wake until her former self died. And having that knowledge, that she’s alive, is going to send the council into a spiral. Because she isn’t Rhea, she’s part of her only, and the remaining part of her is shaped by dark magic, which has consequences.
The witch also told me what would happen if she did wake.
For a while, it would be the same, it would be her, but then it would descend into madness, into everything Rhea locked away–her pain, her grief, her primal instincts, her darkness.
There’s no timeline for when she’d descend into madness. The witch didn’t give that. She just warned us to never rise her shadow, to never let Rhea die.
But now, her shadow is alive.
It has to be.
And there’s no telling what she’s capable of doing.
