Chapter 559 – Cut her tongue
Noelle was every bit as clueless about the witch’s real plans as anyone else, and for the first time she wished with everything left in her that she had kept her mouth shut from the start.
The threat of losing another piece of her body made staying silent impossible. Terror sat heavy in her chest, thicker than the cold, and the only path she could see was to keep talking no matter how much the words burned her throat.
"I’m not sure, but that witch could pull off anything. That’s why she was so eager to lock Seraphine and Ravyn together."
Her throat felt painfully dry, scraped raw from screaming. She swallowed what little saliva she had left and forced the next words out before Bloodfang could decide she was wasting time.
"She got them into bed, and when I went looking for a higher power to break them up, I got told the moon goddess was fine with them being together."
The words landed hard inside Voren. Could it mean Coco had been wearing a different face this whole time? Had she been impersonating Seraphine from the beginning?
And how the hell had the moon goddess trusted her with Esperanza? The questions piled up fast, each one opening another door he did not want to walk through.
"You saying the moon goddess used the witch to push Seraphine and Ravyn together? And what higher power are you talking about?"
Bloodfang asked the questions exactly the way Voren fed them through the mind link, voice flat and cold.
Noelle had always believed she would carry every one of these secrets to her grave. She had pictured herself dying with the truth locked safe inside her chest.
Now, with her body cut apart and her life hanging by a thread so thin it could snap with one more order, and death no longer felt far away. It stood right in front of her in the shape of black eyes and a cold smirk.
If spilling the truth could keep her breathing, then maybe she could survive long enough to fix the wreckage. When this nightmare finally ended, she could still deal with Seraphine. After all, that woman was the real reason everything had fallen apart.
The bitch couldn’t just accept that Daisy was finally Luna and walk away. She had come back and torn everything to pieces. And now Noelle had no idea what was happening to her own daughter. That thought clawed at her harder than the cold.
Her first reason for running had been to find help but who could have imagined the outlanders would be waiting the second she cleared the woods?
"Exactly. Sera had fallen for you, and the prophecy said she was a gift to the Centenary Pack ’cause of Humphrey and Kylie’s good hearts. That’s why she couldn’t stop loving Ravyn. The moon goddess made it that way, but then you showed up and somehow she started looking at you."
Noelle’s voice grew thinner with every word. The worst of the pain from her injuries had finally begun to dull under her wolf’s desperate healing, but the cold was creeping back in with a vengeance. The freezing snow under her body seemed to crawl straight into her bones.
She tried to push herself up but her remaining leg shook so hard it nearly gave out. Then her eyes dropped to the ground around her.
Frozen blood painted the snow in dark, ugly patches. Her severed leg lay a few feet away, looking like it belonged to someone else entirely, her stomach twisted hard.
For several long seconds she could only stare. The sight made her chest lock up tight, and she sank back into the snow, unable to force her body to stand.
"I wouldn’t have gotten between you two if Daisy hadn’t started liking you. As a mom, I wanted the best for my girl, especially after Seraphine was living the life that should’ve been hers."
Chuck’s face tightened until the muscle in his jaw jumped. He could barely stand listening to Noelle keep justifying herself. Even after everything she had done to him, after the spell, the lies, the arm he would never get back, she was still talking about Daisy’s privileges, and about what Seraphine had stolen.
She was still acting like every cruel choice had been necessary. His remaining hand curled into a hard fist against the snow. He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to ask if she had ever once thought about him, about the life she had quietly stolen from him, about the people she had crushed just to climb higher.
The bitterness sat so thick in his throat he could taste it. Heartbreak and anger twisted together until he could hardly breathe. Yet he stayed silent, eyes locked on the woman who had once been his whole world and now looked like a stranger bleeding in the snow.
Bloodfang could feel how hard the information was hitting his human. Every new piece Noelle spilled cut deeper into Voren, and the wolf drank it in.
"Pull her hair."
Bloodfang gave the order exactly as Voren had fed it to him. The outlanders moved without hesitation. One of them grabbed a fistful of Noelle’s hair and yanked it backward with brutal force.
Her head snapped up, and a raw scream tore out of her throat. Her scalp burned like fire as strands ripped free. The pain sharpened until her vision blurred and tears poured down her face in hot streams that the cold tried to freeze.
"Stop!"
Her remaining hand flew toward the man’s arm, but she had no strength left to fight. Her cries did nothing to calm the storm raging inside Voren, and Bloodfang refused to hand control back.
He could feel his human’s emotions surging hard beneath the surface, but the wolf was enjoying the blood and the fear far too much to stop now.
"Alpha Voren, please, I told you everything," Noelle cried, voice cracking with pure desperation. Pride and power were long gone. All she wanted was to live. She wanted to crawl away from the circle of men surrounding her.
She wanted to wake up from this nightmare and find her body whole but Chuck felt no pity for her, not anymore. His eyes stayed fixed on her, filled with a bitter, quiet disappointment that cut deeper than any shout.
A part of him still wanted her to survive, not because he forgave her, and not because any love remained between them, but so she could face every consequence she deserved. So she would have to live with the full weight of what she had done to him.
"That’s for what you did to Sera when she was a kid. Hurt, doesn’t it?"
Bloodfang’s taunt rolled out cold and satisfied. His black eyes never softened as the strands of Noelle’s hair slipped from the outlander leader’s fingers and scattered across the bloodstained snow.
Noelle sobbed hard, pressing her palm against her burning scalp. She had never imagined she would end up like this, body broken, plans destroyed, daughter facing a storm at the banquet, husband staring at her like she was already a ghost. And the man she had once hoped would save her was the one taking her apart piece by piece.
"Get a rock or a solid stick."
Bloodfang ordered it the same way Voren had instructed. The leader of the outlanders moved fast. "Got a rock."
Noelle’s breathing turned frantic. Her eyes locked onto the heavy rock in the man’s hand. She knew exactly what was coming.
"Smash it on her head."
Noelle reacted before the order fully left Bloodfang’s mouth. "Alpha Voren, I’ll tell you a secret if you stop torturing me."
Bloodfang’s hand lowered and the stone came down with it. Noelle released a shaky, desperate breath of relief. For one fragile second she believed she had bought herself another chance but had no idea how short that chance would be.
"You should thank me for swapping Sera with Daisy, ’cause that spot saved her from whatever was after her real parents."
Her voice trembled hard as she rushed the words out, eyes never leaving Bloodfang’s face. "But they’re back, and I don’t even know what they are. I was gonna talk to the Alpha King about it after the festival, but he was busy."
She stared at him with naked desperation, silently begging him to decide this scrap of information was valuable enough to keep her alive and whole.
The layered secrets were enough to make Voren’s thoughts race in every direction. Seraphine’s past, the witch, and the moon goddess.
Too many pieces were banging into place at once, and none of them looked safe. "Cut her tongue."
The order left Bloodfang’s mouth flat and final.
Noelle’s eyes widened in pure horror. Her heart seemed to stop beating for a full second.
"Why? We had a deal."
Her voice shook so hard the words nearly fell apart. She had trusted the bargain. She had believed that giving him something valuable would buy her safety, even if only for a little while.
Bloodfang smiled, the expression pure evil and completely without mercy.
"Exactly why I need you quiet, unless you still got something useful to tell me."