The Last Fenrir: My Touch Tamed the Beast

IVY’S POV

The ropes burned my wrists as they dragged me to the center of the pack grounds.

"Let me go!" I screamed, fighting against the hands that held me. "Please, just let me go!"

"Shut up, girl," growled Marcus, one of the pack enforcers. His grip tightened on my arm. "You need to see this. You need to understand what happens to traitors."

The whole pack surrounded us in a circle. Men, women, even some kids my age. Their faces twisted with anger and disgust. I had never seen them like this before. These were people who used to smile at me, who used to ruffle my hair and call me little princess. Now they looked at me like I was poison.

In the middle of the circle, two wooden posts stood tall against the gray sky. My heart stopped when I saw who was tied to them.

"Mom!" I cried out, tears streaming down my face. "Dad!"

My parents hung there, their clothes torn and dirty. Blood trickled from cuts on their faces. My father's usually proud shoulders sagged with exhaustion. My mother's long black hair hung in tangled knots around her face.

"Ivy," my mother whispered when she saw me. Her voice was so weak I could barely hear it. "My sweet girl."

"Silence!" boomed Alpha Crane as he stepped forward. He was a massive man with scars covering his arms and chest. His yellow eyes burned with fury. "Today we rid our pack of the disease that has been growing among us."

"Disease?" I shouted, struggling harder against the hands holding me. "They're not sick! They're my parents!"

Alpha Crane's cold gaze fell on me. "Your parents are traitors, child. They conspired against our pack. They put us all in danger."

"That's not true!" I screamed until my throat was raw. "You're lying!"

"Tell her, Thomas," Alpha Crane said to my father. "Tell your daughter what you've done."

My father raised his head slowly. His green eyes, so much like mine, found my face in the crowd. For a moment, he looked like the dad who used to read me bedtime stories and teach me how to shift into my wolf form.

"Ivy," he said, his voice cracking. "I need you to listen to me very carefully."

"Dad, please," I sobbed. "Just tell them you're sorry. Tell them you didn't mean it."

"I can't do that, sweetheart," he said. "Because everything I did, I did for this pack."

The crowd erupted in angry shouts.

"Liar!"

"Traitor!"

"You sold us out!"

Someone threw a rotten apple. It hit my father in the chest, leaving a brown stain on his shirt.

"You have no idea how vulnerable we are!" my father shouted over the noise. "Without the Fenrir's protection, we're nothing! Everyone against the Fenrir is bound to vanish!"

"The Fenrir are our enemies!" Alpha Crane roared. "They want to enslave us all!"

"No!" my father fought against his ropes. "You don't understand! Without the Fenrir, we won't survive what's coming."

More fruit flew through the air. Tomatoes, apples, even stones. The pack was getting more violent by the second.

"Shut him up!" someone yelled from the crowd.

"Make him pay!"

"Kill the traitors!"

I watched in horror as a woman I recognized—Mrs. Henderson, who used to give me cookies—spat at my mother's feet.

"Please stop," I begged, looking around at all the faces I once thought I knew. "She never hurt anyone. She helps deliver babies. She heals people when they're sick."

"She's a traitor's wife," Mrs. Henderson sneered. "That makes her just as guilty."

My mother lifted her head then. Her blue eyes were still bright, even through all the pain.

"Thomas," she said softly to my father. "Stop. You're making it worse."

"I won't let them believe lies," my father replied. "Ivy deserves to know the truth. Everyone deserves to know."

"The truth?" Alpha Crane laughed coldly. "The truth is that you contacted our enemies. You gave them information about our territory, our numbers, our weaknesses."