I rushed the last three whips in a row to get this over with and threw the flogger whip to the ground as I felt it burn my hand from what I just caused her to go through. Her shirt was stained with five thin streaks of blood. Her skin was definitely cut. I wanted to hurt myself for what I just did. I felt like a heartless monster.
To my utter surprise, I noticed that she didn’t open her mouth the entire time. How did she manage to suffer through all that pain so silently?
“Stand up and turn around Ella” I ordered in a very tight voice.
It took her a second to move, as she shakily got up and turned around to face me.
When I saw her face drenched in tears and agony, I felt something I have never felt before, shame and disgust at myself filled every cell inside me. I wiped away all my emotions and focused on getting this thing over with, so I could put it behind me and never think about it again.
I took out the knife she tried to kill herself with, and made a cut inside my palm. For the submission ceremony, my pack needed to mix my blood with theirs and drink it. For a pack that has about 200 people, it would take forever to keep cutting my palm over and over for each person. Because as soon as I make the cut, it will start to heal in a few minutes and I would have to keep cutting over and over. So to save time, I had a blood draw this morning. There was probably still some blood left. I don’t know why, but I wanted to do the original ritual with her.
I handed her the knife and watched as she cut her palm as well. Her hands were shaking so much trying to hide the pain she was feeling from her face. My heart was screaming at me but I ignored it. She put the knife down and held the cup that had both our blood. She cleared her throat and looked up at me. Her face hid her pain so well. She was just like me, only hurting on the inside without letting anyone know.
“I, Ella Forbes, submit myself fully to you alpha Klaus Morgan” her voice came out loud and surprisingly steady. She swallowed the contents of the cup in a single shot and put it back on the table.
“You are dismissed” I said to the pack loudly.
I wanted to see the damage I did to her back but at the same time didn’t want to. If I see the cuts I made to her back, I was afraid to break down and beg her to forgive me. I can’t have that happening. I cant let her see how much I regret my decision. An alpha never admits to making a mistake. An alpha never shows his pain. I was so torn, I felt like screaming. I was torn between checking on her and making sure she is fine, or ignoring what just happened and act like it didn’t hurt me to see her like this and be the main cause for that pain.
Everyone was leaving the auditorium, and she was about to leave as well, when I stood in her way and involuntarily asked “Are you o…” I cut myself off cursing myself. I can’t ask her that! What is she going to say, fine? She is obviously anything but that.
“I want you to go see a doctor at the pack’s hospital, Ella. You are bleeding through your shirt. I know it will heal, but until it does, it should probably be sanitized so you don’t get an infection or something” I said tightly barely controlling myself from asking to see her back or apologizing for what I just made her go through, in public.
She was looking at me in astonishment. Making me realize she didn’t expect my concern for her at all. Ok, she definitely thinks I am a heartless monster. I don’t know why I cared, but that realization made my heart hurt a little bit more.
She only gives me a nod, and waits for me to let her through. I push myself to let her go even though that is the opposite of what I wanted. I look at her stained shirt again as she heads for the exit, and my blood starts to boil.
I was left alone with Joseph, I turn to him and explode at once.
“How the hell did she bleed so fucking fast Joseph? I didn’t expect there to be blood at all!”
Joseph stares at me with his eyebrows pinched and says “Honestly Klaus, I was just as surprised as you. You were hitting her so hard, but still it shouldn’t have made these cuts with this kind of flogger”
I look down at the whip I threw on the ground and get a closer look. It was a normal flogger whip. There was no way this could have happened from just 20 lashes.
“Something is not right, Joseph. I feel it” I told him. “I wanted her to lift her shirt up, so I could see what happened to her back, but I was afraid she’d think I felt guilty about her punishment”
“Don’t you? Feel guilty? I wasn’t even throwing the whip and I felt each one cut deep in my heart at the sight of her back, at the sight of her flinching from the pain you were causing her to feel, at the agony she was feeling and the will power she was mustering to not let anyone know how much she was actually hurting. No, I bet you were feeling the same thing I did, maybe even more. Why is it so hard for you to admit that what you did to her made you regret your decision? There is nothing wrong with that. An alpha admits when he is wrong, he doesn’t put a mask on his face and pretends that everything is fine. You need to face the consequences of your decisions even when you regret them. Everyone makes bad decisions sometimes, even alphas. There is no shame in that”
“But I didn’t regret my decision Joseph. I was very fair in choosing her punishment, more than fair actually. The fact that her back was bleeding halfway through the punishment, did not make me regret what I did. She should not have bled, therefore there is something wrong, and you need to go find it. Go to the hospital and see what the doctor says to her” I order him.
What I said was true. Before I started the punishment, it looked very fair and even merciful of me to only whip her twenty times, considering what she has done. But after I saw her bleed, after I saw how much pain she was in, that was what made me ashamed and disgusted at myself.
Joseph leaves me alone and exits the auditorium. I close my eyes and let out a very frustrated sigh. That was not the submission ceremony I had in mind before I left my pack. I take the flogger whip with me and head towards the office. I shut the door behind me and hide the whip inside a wooden closet that had random uninteresting things inside it. I look around the room. It was huge with large windows. There were a lot of file cabinets.
I started looking through them, trying to pass the time until I hear back from Joseph. There was nothing of interest in them. I go to the large disk that was supposedly mine now. Same thing, there was nothing that had my attention on it, not even inside the drawers. I sit on the chair and close my eyes, trying to erase Ella’s tearful face from my mind.
Ella’s POV
I end up hiding in my room all day crying my eyes out. I skipped breakfast and lunch. I didn’t want to see anyone, not to mention I had no appetite. Looking myself in the mirror this morning, made the psychotic break-down I have been avoiding for 10 months tear my heart open. I sobbed and sobbed until there were no tears left in me. All I was left with was the constant pain that never seemed to end.
Around 3 p.m., I heard a knock on my door. I considered ignoring it, but my curiosity got the best of me as I rarely get my door knocked on. I open the door and find the deep blue eyes of beta Joseph staring at me. I grip the door tightly at the sight of him. Why is he here? My heart begins to beat rapidly, as I stare at him in fear. He takes a look at my face and sadness fills his features.
“Ella, I went to the pack hospital to check on you. They told me you never came. Are you okay?” he asks in concern.
It takes me a minute to answer him. Why would he go to check on me? Did alpha Klaus send him? Do they suspect anything?
“I’m fine” I answer, then I notice that I didn’t convince him, so I carry on “I went to take a shower first, because you know I was covered in mud, and when I got out of the shower, I wasn’t bleeding anymore. My small cuts were already healing. So I didn’t see any reason to go to the hospital”
“Oh, I see. Well I am glad you are healing so quickly. When I saw the blood on your shirt, it got me so worried about you” he said in a polite tone.
I don’t know why he was this nice to me. It was so suspicious.
“There is nothing to worry about beta, I am fine” I say cautiously.
He was on the verge of saying something else, but seemed to change his mind at the last second.
“Ok then, I will leave you to rest” he said as he turned around and left the corridor.
I close the door and go back to laying on my stomach. What the hell was that? Why would he care enough to check up on me? If I wanted to compare his behavior with beta Sam, they were completely different. Beta Sam would never think about checking on me or making sure I was ok. Everything beta Joseph did ever since I met him indicated that he cared about me for reasons beyond my understanding. But somehow, I still don’t trust him. Perhaps I don’t trust anyone in this whole world but myself.
***
After the beta left, I dozed off for hours. I was so exhausted from last night’s running, this morning’s punishment, and crying my eyes out till noon. I woke up to find it 11 at night. I missed dinner, which is usually served at 8. My stomach was complaining from the lack of food. I would have ignored it, but the pain in my back was becoming unbearable. I have to go to the kitchen to boil some herbs in water to keep the infection away and sooth my aches, I might as well eat something.
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