52
52
3RD POV.
Kaya’s pain is a reflection that shreds the existence of the triplets. With every shattering in her heart, burning in wants for help is a replication that the triplets feel too but hides deep down like it isn’t of any affection.
In one sentence, they could feel Kaya’s pain, and as much as it hurts them, their pride wouldn’t let them stop her suffering. With each scream that she makes when the whip lands on her skin, ripping her skin like it’s silk clothing of crimson red colour, they feel the betrayal in her heart.
And confusingly enough for them, they aren’t even there. The triplets remain in the room with their uncle and their mother, and anyone could feel the tension in the room.
“I did warn you, guys, but you wouldn’t listen to me. I said she would betray you. She’s a witch, for heaven’s sake, and that’s what they do. They are cunning, delusional about being smart, and shits like that.” Jared speaks with much confidence before he folds his arms over his chest.
“Uncle, we have had this discussion how many times now? Please, I am not in the mood for another of your clarifications, as you call it.” Kyle mutters, his voice underneath his breaths, but as werewolves, their hearing is heightened enough to hear him clearly.
Jared growls through his nostrils, “still, you have come to no change of mind, have you?”
“As much as I hate to admit it, Kyle is right this time around, uncle. We are supposed to be focusing on this war and not on a discussion that’s not worth it and certainly not one that we’ve had many times before. Please.” Kade talks emotionlessly, such that his speech is in a straight line.
“Help me here, Emilie.”
“Well, it’s clear.” Emilie begins, her eyes peeled at Jared. “My sons are blind. They have failed to see the reasons, even when it’s so clear to their eyes. They are a fool of a leader, and they don’t even realize it.”
“Mother!”
“You will shut the fuck up now, or I shall make you!” Emilie shouts at him, her voice sounding furious. Her cheeks quickly grew red, and her eyes flared at the brothers. She points her index finger from Kade to Kieran to Kyle. “What do you think you’ve become? Such monsters that can’t be tamed anymore?”
“Your uncle got into an incident with this girl, one that could have him killed, but you will only whip her and not send her off to the cage for the dogs to rip apart? What if she had her powers and she attacked him when he had tried to stop her?”
She pauses for a second, her voice still loud and clear, filling up the whole room. “She is a small fire that you’re breeding. As it grows and eventually does, what do you think will happen? It would come to recognize you and have you burned because it’s got no conscience and no mind. It would turn you into ashes, a residue of itself. What has happened then? It has tainted you and reformed you into a dust that could never be shaped again. This girl… she would be your undoing, and when that day comes, I hope you are as stubborn as you all are now.” Emilie is angry to the very top already.
One can see it from her demeanour. She has come to take the matter personally, and it’s no wonder that she wasn’t saying anything earlier until Jared asked for her indulgence in the conversation. It is as though she’s been keeping her voice inside all the time.
She picks up the gold coins that Kaya has stolen along with the keys and throws them on the ground in front of the triplets. Afterward, she turns to walk away when, just then, the door opens for the entrance of the triplets’ commanders.
“Master, we bear strange news. We’ve found these in the tunnel that leads to the exit of the kingdom.” The first one talks, then his eyes shift to the second commander, who steps forward to pass Kieran a piece of clothing material.
“It’s a male’s, and it must have gotten hooked by the bar of the last gate. Whoever it is was being hideous, and from what we know from yesterday, the only victim we’ve got is the witch. However, from this evidence, we’ve come to the conclusion that there’s another person included.”
There is a short-lived silence in the midst of everyone. In the meantime, Kade’s thought has traveled far away, his mind coming to a mild conclusion, but he keeps it within. There is no evidence of such, so he wouldn’t delve into the idea.
His lips shift into a smirk before he speaks up. “There’s more to what happened at that secret exit the previous night. Continue your evidence. Find anything else that can prove more. My brothers and I need as many.”
“Yes, sire.”
“I must know everything that has happened.” Kade demands, and the two commanders bow their heads.
The commanders are about to walk away when Kade says, “and one more thing.”
In the background, Emilie and Jared are still in the room. There’s a tension within them, but they’ve done a good job of masking it, knowing that the brothers mustn’t know that they’ve got knowledge about who owns the handglove that was shredded. Or that they even know more than the triplets do.
Kade gets to the study table and picks up the gauntlet at his eye level, passed to them by the alphas of the other kingdoms.
“And in the meantime, send a messenger bird to our enemies. Tell them we have a discussion. Physically, my brothers and I shall like to make the announcement of the awakening of the war.” When he finishes, his eyes land on Kieran and Kyle, who give an approving glance.
A gasp is released by Emilie, but she is quick to mask it again and walks out of the room with Jared, following behind. The brothers aren’t taking things easy at all, and they certainly aren’t caring about what the future will be at the expense of the decision they make at the present. If there’s one thing that’s pushing them, it’s their ego.
They have never fallen, and they have the mind that surely won’t fall under the effects of this war as well.
The commanders bow their heads once again and go to execute the orders given to them.
The sky rumbles with light thunderings, a storm beginning to form as the clouds are now totally blackened. The shadows cast by the moon are the start of a mayhem in the wind that breezes within the woods.
The horses whine in the middle of the gusting wind, thumping the land with authority and tension in their wake. The brothers wait with impatience, their eyes focused ahead, awaiting the arrival of something-someone.
Their senses heighten more when they hear the sound of the alphas from the other neighboring packs coming, including the Luna amongst them.
They come to a stop, and one of the alphas starts, “we’ve received your message to meet at this junction. Now, I must say, I hope to believe that you have come to behave accordingly.”
The brothers allow Kade to have the space. He gets down from his horse and steps closer to the alpha, who just talked. His following actions are so quick that the alpha finds his horse crying out in pain, and his body is hurled from atop the animal onto the floor. But hastily, before he hits the ground, he flips his body to the back so that one of his knees can maintain a quick equilibrium for him to assemble before he uses one of his hands to attain a better stance.
When he raises his face, he sees that his horse is down, killed by Kade within a tick of a second. Kade has its heart in his hands, still lightly beating and spitting out blood from the arteries, before it suddenly stops, and he takes a look back at the alpha.
“I do hope this tells you more than words. The triplets are not to be messed up. We do not hear no. We do not cower behind. We do not lag. We will not stop the war if you all have decided on that. If you want war, then so shall it be.” Kade pauses for Kieran to bring out the gauntlet into sight before underneath his robe and show it into the air for all of them to see. “We accept your challenge, but as an act of mercy, this is how things shall go. We will give you all the chance of three moons.”
Kade’s voice has risen in the audacity of his speech, “in three moons from now, I wish you had withdrawn this challenge, or there shall be a war where only the triplets would win. It is written, as much as it is certain.”Text content © NôvelDrama.Org.
And for every word, the triplets mean it.