赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Granger took in deep painful breaths. His sweat rolled down over his body, causing even more pain as it moved into the open gashes that littered his body.

He had been bound to the gallows post by his hands tied together over his head. His shirt was removed, and his back received every crack of the whip for the first thirty lashes. The flesh had torn until the bone was exposed.

So much of his blood had soaked the ground beneath him that when they turned him to receive the other twenty lashes on his chest, the guard slipped and fell.

Granger felt tired, weak.

There were only two lashes left.

Every crack of the whip had cut him, bled him, burned against his flesh. Yet, he had still managed to keep his mind clear enough to search for her. To look into the crowd at every chance he got.

Crack!

Granger cried out. He was amazed he still could.

One lash left.

He thought of her. Of the times they had shared. Picnics in the snow. Moonlight walks.

Crack!_.

Granger fell to the ground with a heavy thud when they finally released the bindings.

Movies on the couch, running through the trees.

He was lifted off the ground. His legs were stretched out before him. Axel said something, but Granger didn’t hear. His mind was trying to slip away, to dive into the dreams of memory.

Her smile the first time they met.

“AAAAHHHHH!!” Granger screamed as the pain shot through his foot into his calf and the rest of his body.

His eyes settled on his foot. There he saw the hook that had been pushed through the back of his ankle. In between the tendon and bone, just like an animal after the slaughter.

He screamed out again as the other ankle received the same treatment. This time his mind won the battle, his vision swirled, and the darkness claimed him.

***

“Wake up!” Saul shouted, holding an inhalant below Granger’s nose.

Granger’s consciousness returned slowly, he shook his head, and the pain filled his senses as the soft breeze ran over the open wounds of his chest, back, and ankles.

“He’s back,” Saul said softly.

“Good,” Axel replied. “Put him up.”

Granger opened his eyes as his body began to move. He saw the moon above him, staring down as though the Goddess really was there, watching. Witnessing.

‘You gave her to me…’ he whispered to the Goddess. ‘Send her to me now!’

“The traitor has paid his pound of flesh,” Axel announced to the wolves of Winter. A howl of victory went out. “Now, all that is left is to purify his soul for his return to the Goddess.”

Granger didn’t know what they had planned. But, of course, every traitor’s judgment he had heard of before ended in the traitor’s death during the lashing. But then again, the lashings he had been given were half that of the stories he had heard.

He cried out as he was suddenly lifted up and turned upside down. He screamed as he was hung by his ankles from the gallows. His arms fell down over his head. The weight of his body pulled on the torn flesh of his wounds.

He opened his eyes. The crowd was upside down. But still, he searched.

‘Ashleigh…’ he called to her in his mind.

Two men stepped toward him; they carried a barrel between them. They walked past him, and he heard them climbing on the gallows.

A moment later, the cold rush of liquid, followed very quickly by the burning sensation across each of his fifty wounds, forced a cry from his lips.

The cold liquid fell into his open mouth. Gasoline. He sputtered and coughed, trying desperately to spit it out.

“Now, we return him to the Goddess, cleansed of his crimes,” Axel announced, raising the bow in his arms, a flaming arrow pointed directly at Granger.

Axel released the arrow.

Granger screamed out as the arrow pierced his stomach.

The fire spread over him in a flash. His skin tightening and cracking. The gasoline they had poured over him had seeped into his wounds. The fire chased the trails left behind by the flammable liquid.

Consuming everything in its path.

His wounds bubbled and blistered. The heat spreading within his body felt like he was boiling from the inside out.

The screams that escaped his lips were no longer in his control. At this point, he didn’t know if it was from pain or simply because he couldn’t find her anywhere that he looked.

Where was she? Why wasn’t she here with him? She wouldn’t let him die… she couldn’t.

His mind fought to keep hold of her image. The way her hazel eyes sparkled in the moonlight. The flush that spread across her cheeks when she received a compliment. Her smile.

He screamed out again as the impact of another arrow hit him. He turned his eyes just enough to see Corrine holding the bow, her arm still outstretched from where she had released the arrow.

The fire reflected from her eyes like green flames. She smiled at him. Lowering her bow, her eyes burned brighter.

He saw her lips moving and then a soft sound like a whisper in the wind.

‘She was never going to come. You are nothing to her.’

‘No…’ he growled inside his mind. ‘No!?’

He screamed and cried, but his mind had already pulled away from the pain his body suffered. He chased after their bond, following it hungrily, searching for her.

There was a soft tug, a pull in the distance. He felt her. Her heart was racing, her breathing ragged.

‘She must feel my pain… I knew it! She’s coming… she’s coming for me!’ he told himself desperately.

He forced his mind further into their bond, and then for the briefest moment, he felt what she actually felt, where she actually was.

His screams in the fire stopped as his mind slammed back into his reality.

“No,” he whispered. “No!”

And then it happened.

The bond he had held as a lifeline, the feeling of connection. His entire reason for being, it all just fell away.

Granger knew at that moment that Ashleigh was no longer his mate.

And at that moment, he saw the truth of his wasted life, the emptiness of his existence.

He screamed in agony as the fire roared over him, and the last bits of life he clung to were swallowed in flames.

Corrine kept her eyes on the flames, listened as his screams died out, and watched as his body went limp.

Even as the rest of the pack left the arena, still she stood there, watching. As Galen and Bell, Fiona, and even Axel left. She continued to watch the fire, as though she expected him to jump out of it at any time.

She clenched her jaw tightly, a strange feeling settled over her. A tightness in her chest. She gasped when Wyatt’s hand settled on her shoulder. She turned to look at him. He gave her a sad smile. Bringing his hand to her cheek, he wiped away the tear that had fallen from her eye.

“It’s over now,” he whispered. “He’s gone, and she’s happy.”

Corrine’s jaw shook, she tried to swallow it down, but it was too late. The tears fell, and she hugged her mate. Holding him and thanking the Goddess for this blessing.