Burned Luna's Revenge

Chapter 3:The Burning

Alina's Pov

“With the given evidence and statements from the witnesses. We will be taking a vote for your punishment.” Elder Cora cleared.

The council voted in under twenty minutes. I sat in that chair and watched twelve hands go up one after another and Elder Cora didn't even wait for the last one before she started reading.

"Death by fire. To be carried out before sundown today, in accordance with pack law."

"Today." The word came out of my mouth before I could stop it. "You're sentencing me today."

"The pack is grieving. Prolonging this serves no one."

The guards stepped forward but I kept talking, kept my eyes on every face at that table. "I am sitting right here telling you I am innocent and not one of you has asked a single question that might prove that. You found a vial and you stopped thinking. Twelve of you. Not one follow up. Not one alternative theory. Not one person is willing to say wait, let's be sure."

James folded his hands. "The evidence is conclusive."

"The evidence was planted and you know it."

"Alina." Ryker's voice cut across the room. He never needed to be loud. "It's done."

I turned to look at my husband. My Alpha. The man I had shared a bed with for six years, whose nightmares I had talked him through, whose pack I had bled for alongside him.

"Look me in the eye," I said. "Right now. Look me in the eye and tell me you believe I killed those children."

The whole room held its breath. Ryker looked at me with steady and unblinking eyes. "I believe the evidence," he said.

My body cracked, I wanted to scream and wail. But I couldn't. I could only let out muffled sounds.

"Then you're a coward," I said. "And when the truth comes out and it will, every single person in this room is going to have to live with what they did today."

James nodded at the guards.They took me out.

They put me in a holding room for an hour. I think it was meant as mercy. It felt like being buried alive slowly.

I sat on that bench and I pressed my hands flat against my thighs and I breathed. In and out. Looking for something inside myself that wasn't terror.

I found it. Small and hard and burning at the very bottom of everything. It was complete anger.

The execution grounds sat at the center of the pack's main square. Stone-paved, open on all sides, built so the whole pack could watch justice being carried out.

The post was already up when they marched me out.

The pack filled every side of the square. Faces I had known my whole adult life stared back at me as the guards walked me forward. Mrs. Morrison stood in the front row. Tommy's mother. I held her hand in that waiting room twelve hours ago. I cried with her.

“I am sorry, it wasn't my intention for any of this to happen.” I said as I was dragged away.

She spat at my feet when I walked past.

They bound my wrists to the post. I didn't fight it. I stood straight and scanned the crowd because I was still looking, still searching for one face that might see my innocence.

Then I saw Ryker.

Six years, I had been in that pack house and the whole time, he saw me as the villain.

"People of Silverpine." Ryker's voice carried across the square without effort. "We gather today to uphold the law that protects us. Six of our children are gone. Their families deserve justice. This pack deserves justice."

The crowd roared.

He stood at the front on the council platform, dressed in his Alpha blacks, and Mira was two steps to his right with her hands folded and her face arranged into the perfect portrait of grief. His hand rested at the small of her back.

I looked at Mira. She was already looking at me. And she had the audacity, the absolute audacity, to look sad about it.

"Mira." My voice carried enough that she heard me. I watched her eyes sharpen. "Was it worth it?"

She held my gaze and said nothing.

"All of this." I pulled against the rope without meaning to. "Six dead children. Was I really so in the way that six children had to die to get me out of it?"

Irritation moved across her face. Like I was making a scene at an inconvenient time.

"I tried to save them." My voice cracked on that and I let it crack because it was true and I was done pretending to be made of stone.

"I spent fourteen hours trying to save them and you used that. You used my grief as evidence against me."

Ryker stepped forward. "Enough."

"I'm talking to my best friend." I looked back at Mira. "Twenty three years. I want to hear her say it. Right now, in front of everyone. Look at me and tell me you believe I did this."

Mira's chin lifted slightly. "The evidence —"

"Stop talking about the evidence. Look at me and say you believe I poisoned those children."

She looked at the council instead.

Ryker stepped in front of her. Blocking my view of her.

"Dr. Alina Hart," he said. Loud enough for the crowd now. His Alpha voice meant the conversation was over.

"You have been found guilty of the murder of six Silverpine pack children. The sentence is death by fire." He paused. "Do you have final words?"

Final words? It felt like I was already gone and I was a formality to wrap up.

I looked past him at the crowd. At the nurses who hadn't met my eyes. At the families I had helped. At the warriors I had patched up after border fights. At the elders with their hands folded and their verdict already delivered.

"I forgive you," I said. "Don't make the mistake of thinking you deserve it. I refuse to spend my last minutes hating people who aren't worth the energy."

I looked at Ryker. "I don't forgive you, I never will."

His face didn't move.

"And Mira." I found her over his shoulder. She was looking at me now.

"You're going to have to live with this. Every day. Every child you ever hold, every family you ever sit across from, you're going to remember what you did to get here. I hope it keeps you up at night."

Mira's perfectly composed face flickered.

Ryker turned to the pack elder holding the torch. "Do it."

The elder stepped forward. I watched the torch drop toward the kindling and I thought about my life. Every patient I had ever said. I thought about the children that died in my arms. Then the fire caught.

It went up faster than I expected. Heat hit my face like a wall and I couldn't stop the sound that came out of me, couldn't hold it back, the pain was enormous and immediate and I screamed into it because there was nothing else to do.

The crowd was loud.

Through the smoke burning my eyes I saw something cutting through the crowd. And heading towards the fire. A figure shoving through the pack members, moving fast and low with his arms up against the heat.

The flames were at my legs now and I couldn't see clearly, couldn't see anything but smoke and orange light and then a body crashed through the fire directly in front of me and two hands, bare hands, burning hands, grabbed my face.

The person’s eyes found mine through the smoke.

"I've got you," he said. "Hold onto me.”