Page 14 of Carnage Island

I was barely lucid at the time, my head pounding from Canton knocking me out.

Part of me thought it was all a dream.

But one glance at my paws told me it was very real.

I lost consciousness again soon after that. Then I woke up in a cell where my social worker read the charges to me.

My mom’s dead.

My pack disowned me.

And the Elders think I killed my mother in a fit of rage.

Panic and fury suffocated me in the next moment, causing my wolf to react aggressively.

Which was when the guards knocked me out with a tranquilizer.

That happened to me three times in the last few days.

I very much do not want to go through it again while on our way to the most dangerous island on earth. So I’m focusing on my breathing and trying not to freak out.

But my mother’s screams continue to reverberate through my mind.

She begged them to stop.

They laughed.

My own father allowed it to happen.

Not my father, I remind myself.

But he was still her mate.

How could he be so cruel?

Why didn’t she tell him the truth?a small part of me whispers. She should have told him about the Carnage Wolf and what he did to her.

But then she would have lost me.

My father would have made her abort the child.

I wouldn’t exist.

That’s why she didn’t tell him.

Because of her love for me.

And now she paid the ultimate price with her life.

A tear longs to sneak from my eye but my wolf refuses it. She’s still very much in charge and presenting a confident air that has me cringing inside.

It’s a bravado I don’t feel.

She’s in survival mode, not allowing me to run the show. If I could speak during my trial, I may have been able to negotiate where the Elders sent me.

But no.

My wolf cemented our fate by snarling at the intake judge instead.