Chapter 26: They are Done for!

The moment Moon’s vision cleared, he instinctively took two steps back.

The searing heat of the midday sun was nothing compared to the deafening wall of sound that slapped him in the face.

The city square was packed shoulder to shoulder.

Voices rose and crashed like a tide. Countless heads were stretched for a better view. The gibbet loomed above them all, its wood soaked with old blood and fresh oil as if to announce his very presence to the world—a justice to behold.

Moon was slammed against a massive column of hollow oak, his arms yanked back and pinned brutally with thick silver spikes that pierced through his palms and bit into the oak behind him. His legs and shoulders were bound tight to the frame like a boar prepared for slaughter.

The scent of burnt wood and pitch filled his lungs, sending waves of nausea through his body. Below his feet, a massive pyre of dry timber and sulfur coated wood was piled high, waiting for a single spark to turn into an inferno.

Screams, laughter, and jeers were thundering in every corner.

"Witch! Burn the witch!"

"Witch! Burn the witch!"

Someone spat at his feet.

Someone threw stones.

Moon raised his head, scanning every face. His phoenix eyes darted around the crowd in search of things he himself didn’t know about.

No wolf ears...

No green eyes...

No red or silver hair...

His chest twisted.

No Leo.

No Ugo.

No Nox, Axe, Rio...

’They should come; they should have come to see me last time.’ His mind echoed with no one to answer him.

’Were they really imprisoned? Where? On the altar?’

His blue eyes kept scanning the roaring crowd, cutting through the thousands of sneering, blood thirsty wolves.

He didn’t dare to use his divine sense when the Alpha was standing right in front of him, on the high platform of the city’s grand council hall.

He hung from the wooden gibbet at its center, wrapped around in silver spikes. As the blood ran down in thin lines and dripped onto the platform below, Moon felt a thin ache in his veins, or maybe somewhere else; he didn’t want to think.

A strange, sickening dread clawed in his chest. The bite marks on his neck and shoulder—the marks left by Leo and Rio—suddenly began to burn like fire and freeze like dry ice.

It wasn’t the rejection, but a hollow, echoing ache, as if the souls attached to those marks were being crushed and regenerated.

The blood boiled inside him, ready to be thrown out.

Moon’s gaze flicked toward the high royal council.

Alpha Vaelis stood there, unmoving and merciless, but the place beside him was empty, where Luna Vaelis should be standing.

His stomach dropped.

Something was not right.

Not right with the endless crowd, either.

Could a witch burning in the square be this grand and gather this crowd?

"Looking for your pack of mongrels?" The Grand Witch stepped onto the platform, her purple robes billowing in the wind, a twisted, mocking smirk stretching across her old face.

"Do not worry, witch. Your little defective mates will be following you into the afterlife soon enough. You won’t be lonely in hell."

His heart turned cold.

The wolf marks Leo and Rio had left on him began to twist in a way his very core screamed in protest.

Before Moon could retort, the frantic, gossiping chatter of the nearby crowd drifted up to his sharp ears.

"Hey, is it starting?"

"No! God, I have been waiting since morning and my legs are now sore."

"Tch, poor things. The decree issued after burning the witch, it will be their turn. Why did you even come early, though?"

"Unbelievable! To think Leo actually went to that sneaking witch’s side..."

"Shhh... don’t say it aloud. Colluding with an enemy spy! That’s a grave crime to even utter."

"The Alpha was so angry he sent the 2nd Nova to the cold fortress in the 6th garrison. The LUNAR brothers are done for good this time."

"When will the fire start? I want to go to the altar to see how the pack mark is removed," a curious boy said in his youthful, crisp voice.

"Don’t be so excited, it is just like tearing your heart apart."

The words felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over Moon’s head.

The brothers hadn’t just been locked up for a random brawl, they had been convicted of treason for associating with him.

"The High Shaman is preparing the ritual at the ancient altar of the Moon Goddess," an old wolf nearby whispered eagerly to another.

"The moment this spy burns, the shaman will rip their pack marks out. You know what that does to an Omega. They’ll go completely rabid if the shock doesn’t kill them on the spot. Then they’ll be tossed into the Skerrow Brake as meat."

"Most of them die in the forest. Or go mad. The pack mark is in the soul."

Moon’s heart went completely frozen.

’No way! No way... Not in the way the hell of in this world they can cause such big trouble!’

Moon’s mind raced.

Raced like a horse or maybe at the speed a phantom wolf can race.

’What if they die? I will fail my mission. Will I die too?’

His heart panicked with the same throb he was feeling in his gut for some time now.

’The mark-removing ceremony hadn’t started yet, why is it hurting so much! Damn it.’

A drop of blood involuntarily broke out from the corner of his lips.

Moon’s mind raced, calculating his options. With his 4-star Novice Qi and the divine technique, he only had enough spiritual energy to transport himself momentarily and escape the flames. He didn’t have the strength to storm the High Shaman’s altar, fight off the royal guard, and rescue five heavily restrained wolves.

But the brothers must survive.

What can he do?

Before he could process the sheer desperation of his situation, a heavy-set man stepped forward with a torch. It was the Grand High Executioner, clad in ceremonial dark leather and iron armor. With him was Owen—the Alpha’s Beta.

The Beta stepped to the front of the platform and raised a hand.

"By order of the Alpha," he called out, "Let the witch burn."