Blood Rose

14

I didn't know what was happening.

A woman delivered me a dress to wear, and Fox told me to get ready and look presentable. He wouldn't explain what was going on, but he made me oblige. I got dressed anyway into the short slick black dress. The random occasion was odd, especially because school was cancelled just for this. Whatever it was, Fox was tabling telling me.

After pulling my hair together in a half up-half down style I put on my nicer shoes, acknowledging that I probably didn't want to seem too fancy especially because I didn't know what we were going to.

When we arrived to the same stage area from before and I could see the whole crowd was dressed in black I started to feel itchy in my throat and grabbed Fox's arm to slow him down so I could catch up with his pace.

"Will you tell me what's going on here? It looks like I'm about to intrude on a cult gathering." He didn't laugh at my attempt of making light of the intensity in the air my wolf was sensing.

"It's an execution ceremony." I stopped walking with him, forcing him to stop and turn around with a frustrated sigh.

"Don't you execute in private? Why do you need a whole ceremony?"

"In certain circumstances we have a ceremony if the crime committed is more serious than others. It's also good to have one every once in awhile to put an example out there to remind the pack the consequences of acting out."

"That sounds like an unfair teacher giving a student suspension for answering a question wrong."

"That analogy hardly relates to this." He turned and started walking fast again, so I jogged a little to match his stride.

"So what, this is a dictatorship then?" He didn't laugh or retort something. "What did this criminal do?"

"This one isn't much of a crime. Stole masses of things, enough to rank up his points for crimes to give him execution."

"But that isn't fair, he only stole. It's not like he murdered someone."

"I don't think you quite get it, Naomi. The system might not be the same at the Shadow pack, but Bloodrose Dusk doesn't take shit from even the smallest of pests like this criminal. He's caused so much turmoil that even his friends turned him in." He started up the stage stairs to go behind the curtain, but I grabbed his hand one more time.

"But that isn't-" Fox snapped and tore his hand away from mine, looking me square in the eyes.

"Naomi, you don't get to tell me what's fair and what isn't. This isn't your place or your era of power. Your job is to connect to the pack and interact with them to maintain the love for the titles." I was so shocked by his remark that it took me a second to recover from the backlash and follow behind him silently.

"Your microphone, Alpha." A manager bowed while holding out a headset in his large hands. Fox took it from him and put it on, clicking the on button and waving me over. I followed him out until we were facing the crowd by each other's side. Out of the corner of my eye two figures were followed on stage and I looked over to see a guard roughly pushing a ragged man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, falling as he was pushed to his knees. The crowd's cheers quickly turned to sneers and boos, but my attention stayed focused on the man who didn't seem angry or rebellious, just depressed.

Fox started speaking about crime and how this pack didn't put up with rebellion because power in this pack needed to be held at it's high ranking. I couldn't focus on what he was saying because I didn't exactly like the logic he was spewing.

So I took bold steps to leave Fox's side towards the man, knowing people where watching me judgmentally. The guard didn't know what to do, so he just kept his strong hold on the man and didn't say anything to protest against me.