Pack's Runt

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

A cold shower later, every inch of body was still aching, not from what had happened near the lake but rather the struggle to reach there. I brushed my hair dry and wore whatever was there for me inside the closet next to the bed. Once done, I headed outside the room, unable to stay in it. Hundred's of questions roamed in my mind and I didn't want any of them answered.

I didn't want to know what had happened near the lake or why it had. I didn't want to think about the pleasure my body had succumbed to or the rising emotions in my lower belly.

It was something I had never experienced before, and it was wild, forcing me to think further.

On my way down the stairs, I glanced at the portraits again. They were several. Most of them containing Nicholas as a child and his mother. None of them of his father.

The spiral staircase was cold to touch as I went downstairs. My eyes wandered around curiously as I took in everything. Then, I wondered if I was going to go anywhere away from this town.

My thoughts were interrupted with a loud bang.

I moved away from the foyer, trailing the voice that began to get louder and louder. The loud bangs bounced through the thick walls of the quiet house and my ears perked. I went further until I reached another room, it's door open.

When I stepped inside, I found a man against the wall and Nicholas' hand wrapped around his throat, choking him to death.

Hitching on my breath, I stepped back.

What was he doing?

The man's face was somewhat familiar. I had seen him before, right here on that night when all those men came here while I tried to run away. He's one of them who had returned after killing everyone in my pack.

My fingers reached my lips.

"Look away." I heard Nicolas say as he found me standing near to the door.

The man began to choke, his feet barely touching the ground anymore. His face turned into a dull shade of blue and purple as his hand tightened. He barely breathed.

I quickly turned my head around, my eyes pressing shut tight. It was only a moment later I heard another thud. A body falling to the ground. A dead one.

Fear crept into my chest and my breaths raced as I opened my eyes and turned back only to find the man now on the ground, his face flat, eyes wide and no life within them.

"What are you doing?" I asked as my brows drew close.

"What do you think?" Nicholas' gaze fell over me as he walked past the body and over to one of the cabinets inside the room.

I swallowed hard, my eyes barely clicking away from the man on the ground. "Why did you kill him? Isn't he one of your—"

"Men? Friend?" He pulled something out of the cabinet. A sheet, a roll—it was something. "It's better to kill a friend than an enemy. Keeping an enemy alive remains beneficial, but as soon as a friend betrays, he's far worse than an enemy and with the secrets he hold, it's his death only that's left as his punishment."

Nicholas reached down, spreading the sheet over the ground before turning the lifeless body over the sheet and rolling it up.

My heart dropped further in my stomach as I continued to watch as he did it. As he killed someone and now, intended to bury him.

"What did he do?" I asked in a low, terrified whisper as the hair on my body rose.

"What he did is irrelevant, but what was he going to do was the problem. If I spared his life, in a year from now, he'd be standing behind me with a knife on my back and five years from then, he'll be relishing on my throne and with my title."

He covered his face with the sheet along with the rest of his body before kneeling down and throwing the body over his shoulder.

I swallowed the dryness growing in my throat and stepped to the side from the door as Nicholas walked out. My eyes still remained wide, baffled at what I had seen. It was one thing to see him kill Evan and Todd, but watching him kill someone else so easily, without any guilt was shocking.

Oh, help me, Moon God.

I went behind Nicholas as he left and headed out, still carrying the body over his shoulder. The strength. It was magnificent yet terrifying at the same time. How could one have so much?

"Why didn't you kill me?" I asked, trailing him as we stepped into the gardens behind the house.

He didn't answer. I became even more curious. If he had been the only one in the pack house that night, and if he had killed Kira and everyone else. Why didn't he kill me? I wasn't the only female there.

That wouldn't make sense.

Just a little further ahead, there was a ground of dirt all around along with long trees scattered. I followed him there while watching his back and the man's dead face.

As he stepped out, there were more men trailing him from a distance, a couple of his guards and some other men I didn't recognize. None of them questioned him.

He reached near empty dirt pit and tossed the body over to the ground beside it, not burying it right away.

I wrapped my arms around my shoulders, protecting myself from the cold as he began to dig up the pit a little more. It made me think of the dirt nearby.

Were there more people he had killed? How many bodies were buried? Was I standing on one?

I stepped closer to the tree, holding my breath back.

Nicholas crouched near the dug up ground and glanced over his shoulder, finding the other men behind him.

The air thickened. He rose his head and looked at me, something in his eyes I couldn't understand. "Come here." He said in a quiet whisper.

I moved away from the tree and walked closer to him. When my gaze fell on how deep the grave was, I shivered in fear. It was only yesterday when he was almost going to kill me and now I was standing inches away from someone else's grave.

"Don't be a weakling, even if you are one or meant to be," he said, to me before standing up straight and brushing the dirt off his shirt. "Portray strength whether or not you've it. It brings fear, even to the strongest of the people." As he continued, he went to the opposite side of the dug up ground while leaving me with the body.

I looked up at him, brows furrowed. My stomach turned. No.

"Bury him."

My lips parted, "No, I can't." I whispered, shaking my head while nearly stumbling over the body behind me as my chest became tighter.

"Don't run. Stay here," He said, a warning in his tone. I didn't move after that. "It will only take seconds. Push it. I might not kill you, but there are many others in my pack who would enjoy killing you and torturing you whether you've my protection or not. It's a primal instinct to kill the weaker one."

I bit the inside of my cheek, feeling sick as the scent of the dead body reached up to my nostrils. My face scrunched as I bent down, next to the body. Sweat covered my forehead as my arms stretched, hands planting over the sheet before I pushed it six feet inside the ground.

The body fell with a thud.

I breathed hard, staring at it.

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