The reborn lycan heiress

The Execution

Ariana’s POV

The dungeon was lonely, damp, and cold. There was a faint odor of stone and mildew lingering in the air. I dropped on the ground and leant back against the coarse wall, and endeavored to calm my breaths. The shadows played in the wavering torch-light, and mocked me. I had grown up knowing how to make myself respected, how to pass with power through the Blackwood estate, but this was where I was, powerless, caught, and at the mercy of all the people I had once trusted.

My own father did not utter a single word throughout.

Time dragged on, hour after hour, and each hour seemed to be an eternity. I attempted to enumerate them, but the figures were irrelevant. My mind was going round the clock, repeating what the council had said, the evidence, the betrayal on the part of Lucas. How could he have done it? How did anybody put me in such a frame?

This had been carefully arranged by some one. All messages, all logs, all meeting records, it was too clean, too convenient. No man could make such extenpatory evidence, without being well aware of my life, my time, my movements. But who? To what access, to what influence did they have that? My father? One of the council members? Lucas? No… Lucas had ever been so wary, so... trustworthy. I had believed him.

I squeezed my fists and the stone sank into my palms. I despised myself because I believed him, because I thought love was going to save me.

There was a sharp clank somewhere along the hall, and I stood still. Footsteps were coming near, heavy, slow. There was a guard at the door, and his face was grim. “Miss Blackwood,” he said, with low formal voice. “It is time.”

I arose gradually, with a sore weakness of the legs, and a violently beating heart. I walked behind him, the burden of the inevitability making me feel the burden. Every stride I made toward the execution grounds seemed to increase in weight, and the stone under my feet seemed to be drawing me down.

As we came out the arena opened up in front of me. It was a huge, open court, with high columns, the council and noble families sitting therein, above their reserved areas. The warriors made a very serious circle, their eyes keen, their weapons laid aside and yet at hand.

My eyes ran over the audience. I was devastated to see my father . He stood with the nobles and his pose was stiff. Pale. Conflicted. His gaze flicked at me a moment and then ran away. He seemed to have something to say, something to do, which the burden of the situation prevented him saying.

I swallowed hard. My chest felt tight. No one was going to save me. No, not my father, no, not the council, no, not Lucas. No one.

King Adrian Ravencrest came forward, the people ceased their murmur at once. Even the wind appeared to cease blowing. He was dominating, chilly, and absolute and his presence exuded power, which caused my hair to stand on end. I looked into his golden eyes and read nothing but an undying authority. No mercy. No doubt. Only the assurance of his position as executioner.

He halted in front of the platform on which I was tied, and his eyes fixed on me. “Have you anything to say, before your sentence is executed?” His voice was clear, slow, yet it only made my throat tighten.

I inhaled shakyly and managed to utter a word, it was low-pitched but even. “Do not blindfold me.”

Silence followed. Not the gracious silence of a listening, but the grave silence of a judgment. The council looked at me, some with a kind of scornful uplift of the eyebrows, others with the stoicism of their faces. Lucas looked away and his jaw tightened. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.

The hand of Adrian was on the blade on his side. He did not lift it, but simply held it, trying its weight, without any expression. I felt the expectancy in the atmosphere, the people straining all their breath, waiting to get to the last act.

I shut my eyes a moment, and my thoughts flew away to all the particulars of my life which had brought me to this point. The childhood under the strict eye of my father, the way to be obedient, respectful, to be perfect. My love I had been giving to Lucas with the belief that he would always protect me. And now, betrayal. Utter, complete betrayal.

Once more I opened my eyes and glanced at him. My father. “Why,” I screamed, one last attempt in desperation. “Why? Are you quiet, say something father.”

But there was no answer. It was just the light of guilt that flashed through his face a moment before it disappeared completely.

The golden eyes of Adrian analyzed me as he looked in the depths of my soul, and measured my rebellion, my terror, my guilt. “There are consequences to your actions,” he said, all in a sort of conversation, yet every word was full of finality. “Your father can’t save you, his loyalty is to the lycan world not a snitch daughter.”

The guards got nearer and increased the hold. My wrists were chained, my head laid on the stone slab. My heart beat was fast, my breaths shallow gasps. The buzzing of the crowd had become a kind of background music, heard but insignificant in comparison with the storm of panic that had been building up within me.

I made an attempt to arouse anger, hatred, something that would enable me to be strong and not feel the bitter ache rising up my throat. I concentrated on the iniquity, on the setting, on how all that I had thought in had been ripped off. I remembered Lucas and my father , the only people to whom I had been open.

The audience leaned forward a little and their eyes were fixed on the about to occur act. My thoughts were spinning, searching some scheme, some way out. But there was none. No one could interfere. No one would.

“If I had another chance… Never again would I put my trust in either of them.