Chapter 215: Never should have stopped

"Bring the branding iron." Mira ordered the cheetah warrior who was holding it. The warrior bowed to her before putting on the appropriate fur skins on his body and hands to hold the branding iron. It was a long rod made completely with metal and the end was a rectangle attached to the rod. A rectangular stamp of the metal carved sign that branded a beast a rogue.

This branding iron was laced with magic, whether the beast who had been branded shifted into the beast form or was in human form, the branded sign remained on their skin.

"Put it to the fire. Ensure it is hot enough before you bring it out to give it to me." Mira said to the cheetah warrior. She flashed him a smile at the end of her statement. Mira noticed that she had been too firm and straight forward with her words and facial expressions since this feast began and she did not want the cheetah beast people to be wary of her when the only one she disliked was her sister. "Thank you." Mira added immediately.

Mira noticed the cheetah warrior’s cheeks flare up. It changed hue and she could not tell if it was the heat from the fire that made his face redden or if he actually blushed to her telling him thank you. The cheetah looked shy too and she noticed his lips flicker into what seemed like a smile yet not?

Mira’s uncertainty made her eyes dart backward to meet Ming Tao.

My husband is going to kill you, Mira said in her mind when she turned to look at Ming Tao but Ming Tao was way ahead of her. His eyes was already fixed and burning into the cheetah warrior’s face with a warning so stern Mira could taste the effect.

The cheetah warrior’s face straightened immediately and he continued to hold the iron to the fire.

Mira put a hand to her mouth to cover her mouth as she chuckled into it. It was always such a pleasant thing to witness her husband being jealous when it came to her, the healthy kind of jealous at least.

"Sister!" Hye Yang’s voice tore through Mira’s thoughts, immediately changing Mira’s happy mood to a sour one. "Sister you really do not intend to-" Hye Yang questioned. The heat she felt on he skin was way too real to not believe this was actually happening. Her sister was not backing away either and it scared Hye Yang.

The Mira Yang she knew always caved to her, yes, Mira Yang occasionally stood her ground but at the end of the day, she always caved yet this time, she was not doing any of that. In fact, Hye Yang was watching Mira order the iron that would leave her skin scarred for ever be heated up and ready.

"Sister please!" Hye Yang begged. "Please do not do this to me, I will die!" More tears streamed down Hye Yang’s face. "What will mother say? Think about our fathers and our siblings! Please! Think about our family and love!" Hye Yang was crying at this point. Her aching lungs no longer mattered to her anymore. Soon, if she was branded, she would need to learn how to make the medicine from scratch to treat her feeble lungs and she had no idea about plants. It was a death sentence for sure.

"Sister! Sister please!!" Hye Yang begged again, more frantically and more vigorously.

Mira felt one end of her lips raise in a sneer. Now she was ’sister’? Now, they were ’family’?? Now there were parents and siblings to think about??? Now there was a thing called ’love’????!!

Mira could not believe the hypocrisy coming out of Hye Yang’s lips and it only boiled her blood more because it proved that Hye Yang had not repented one bit. She was only scared for her life and her life alone, she just did not want to suffer the consequences of her actions and it made Mira feel sickened to the bone.

"Shut up!" Mira whispered, mainly to Hye Yang but her voice was too low that it was as if she spoke to herself.

"Mira please! I am your family!" Hye Yang panted. "Please do not let them do this to me. PLEASEE!!"

Mira’s teeth found her bottom lip and she bit it so hard till she smelt the metallic liquid that flowed out of her lip and tasted it in her tongue. Blood. Her own blood. Mira let go of her lower lip and parted her lips to let out an exhale. "I SAID SHUT UP!" Mira yelled. "Stuff her mouth with something, anybody if she does not want to keep quiet! Her rant is making my head ache."

One of the cheetah warriors let go of Hye Yang’s hand. This was to obey Mira’s words but Hye Yang immediately went silent. No one needed to tell her twice that there was no way out of this and this was a done deal.

Her silence made the cheetah warrior return to her side and grip her arm again.

Hye Yang’s pathetic face turned into something more venomous as she stared at Mira who had two beast men, her husbands standing by her side. Her hate for the woman standing before her became intense and she yelled out.

"I wish you had never been born!!" Hye Yang stated with all her might. "My life ended up like this all because of YOU!!" She cried.

Mira shook her head as she watched Hye Yang switch in an instant. The fox truly was a narcissist. The moment that her pleas were discarded, she switched back to being her true, irritable self.

"YOU ruined me, Mira Yang!! And I never considered you as family from the moment I knew what fate had destined in both our ways. I HATE YOU!! I HATE EVERY SINGLE THING THAT YOU STAND FOR!! I HATE THAT YOU ARE ALWAYS DOING SO GOOD WITHOUT ANY EFFORT AND I WISHED I HAD KILLED YOU WHEN I HAD THE CHAANCE WITH MY OWN HANDS!! At least then! You would have actually been dead and not alive because I would not have missed it like those idiots did!!" Hye Yang screamed.

Mira just shook her head in pity. Evil people truly could never change even in the face of death.

"The iron is hot, wife of the mighty cheetah." The cheetah warriors who was heating the branding iron said to Mira.

"Thank you, please bring it to me." Mira said to the cheetah warrior.

He nodded and responded. "Yes, wife of the mighty cheetah." Now he was walking to Mira while holding the branding iron carefully.

"I NEVER SHOULD HAVE STOPPED AT MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO SHIFT!! I SHOULD HAVE DONE WORSE TO YOU!!"

Hearing this made the air in Mira’s mouth cut short and she froze. "W. . . what did you say?. . ." Mira asked, her voice barely unheard by herself.

She had watched Hye Yang’s memories along with the crowd yet she saw nothing that showed Hye Yang stopping the old owner of this body’s ability to shift.

Mira also had not unlocked that part of the memory to remember where exactly the old owner of this body had lost her ability to shift and now. . . . Hye Yang just admitted without being asked that she was the reason.

Mira swallowed, she heard her brain pound in her head so loudly for some reason. She wanted to hear more. Mira cleared her throat. "What did you just say??!" She asked loudly this time so Hye Yang could hear her.

Hye Yang laughed out loud, she knew Mira had heard her and she knew that right now, there was absolutely nothing she had to lose nor gain for saying a word so she chose to not say anything meaningful. "Surprised? I know you heard me clearly."

"Speak this instant! What did you mean?!" Mira yelled. She wanted to know the answers to these question and it seemed like Hye Yang was the only way to knowing that. Had there been a chance that the years that the mist reveal had skipped were the years Hye Yang had done this to the old owner of this body?

If yes, does that mean the shaman already knows as he had been through Hye Yang’s mind? Mira had so many questions yet no answers came.

"Why? I am already condemned anyway, so why should I not let you be condemned too?" Another laugh broke out of Hye Yang’s lips. Hye Yang forced her body up despite the cheetah warriors hold and stood to look eye to eye with Mira. She had an evil glint in her eyes as she stared at Mira. "Be condemned too."

With that, Hye Yang’s body lunged out of the cheetah warriors hold towards Mira. There was only one intention in her mind as she charged towards Mira. And that was to make her lose her pregnancy. After all, she still had something from the sorcerer that had not yet been taken.