Chapter-32

-Kneel

Anna's POV

Everything falls silent. The only thing I can hear is the wind that's blowing around us and the sound of leaves rustling on the ground because of the air. My hands feel cold and my arm where they have made fresh cuts burns and itches. Tears pool my eyes. My gaze doesn't leave Bane. I don't know how we are going to escape this. Or maybe there is no escape.

Bane is standing there, controlling his temper and he looks like he is going to do what Derek told him to do. He looks like he is going to kneel.

No! Don't do this, Bane!

Derek is clearly trying to humiliate Bane. That's what he does. Jake looks like he wants to pounce on Derek, but stood there holding himself back.

"Don't do it, Ban- Ahhh!" I start screaming. They made a cut on my arm again. It's hurting. Tears pool my eyes.

"Told you not to speak." Derek says. "Now, you." He turns to Bane. "I don't have all the time in the world."

Bane clenches his teeth. He crouches his knees and gets down on his knees. Fuck! No! No! I want to rip Derek's skin and break his hands and kill him. Jake too kneels down in respect to his Alpha. But he kneels down towards Bane instead of Derek. Derek chuckles again. Oh God! What now?

"Wow! How sweet and respectful, right?" Derek sighs as he sees Jake kneeling near his Alpha. "I wish I had men like that working for me."

I look at Bane and his eyes are focused on Derek. The fire in his eyes is enough to burn Derek to ground. This didn't go unmissed by Derek.

"Look down." He commands Bane. This only infuriates his wolf. "Look down." He says in a deadly voice this time. Bane looks at me this time.

Tears are streaming down my face. I am sorry. I feel like this is my fault in some way. Bane looks down.

"Oh, it's like he is my dog now." Derek says with amusement clear in his voice. Jake growls loudly at his words and I too can't stop myself.

"He is not!" I sneer. I knew what will be coming if I speak, but I can't take him disrespecting my mate. Soon there is that burning feeling again as they cut open another part of my hand and blood starts flowing. But Bane doesn't lift his head. He knows if he disobeys that will only lead to me getting hurt.

"Hold her." Derek instructs someone. He let's go of me and that other person is quick to come and put the knife against my neck. Derek walks towards Bane and stops a few feet away from him. "Oh, I wish I could take a picture of this moment, you know."

How are we going to escape this? Can we even try?

Suddenly, I feel helpless. Watching Bane like that and Jack to being able to do anything, without the remaining members of our pack and with a knife to my neck, everything suddenly scares me. I feel my heart beat rising. Everyone around me can hear it. But what scares me the most is, I am so close to bane and the thought of death tearing us apart, truly me choke.

"Oh, do you hear it, now?" Derek turns to me. "Someone is scared." He grins like he is finally happy. "You don't know how much I yearned to hear that." He turns back to Bane again. "She really did put up a tough fight, you know." He tells Bane and walks to me. He lifts my other hand, where he put that itching tattoo a night back. "I nearly forgot about this."

I give him a disgusted look. He doesn't even care.

"Did you see the small gift I gave to your mate. Of course, you didn't. Here, let me show you." He says taking my hand and holding it in a way to show Bane. "Lift your head up." Bane doesn't lift his head. I feel a knot in my stomach. "Come on." He says in an encouraging tone.

Bane does and looks at the arm that Derek's been holding up for him to see.

Derek's Bitch.

Had Bane been not in this position now, Derek wouldn't be breathing. But Bane just keeps looking. He doesn't have any option. Derek runs the back of his fingers on my cheek. I feel like burning the skin where he touched me. Anger fills me and it must have been showing in my eyes.

"Fire. I am scared." He teases me and chuckles. "She has a spark in her. I like that." He says to Bane. "It will be so much fun watching it break." How twisted is he?

The loss of blood is getting to me. But I try to hold myself straight. I feel week. Not just bodily but mentally. The fact that I am not able to connect with my wolf and not being able to help Bane, all of it gets me. I feel useless and the cause of the problem.

What will happen to us now? What will Derek do to us now? He will kill us surely, but not before torturing us. Where will we be going from here?

"Now, do you feel it?" Derek asks suddenly in a serious tone. "Now, do you feel the helplessness? That's exactly how I felt when your pack killed my father." He looks at me and then at Bane. "Vengeance is so sweet." He smiles. He drops my hand that he has been holding to show Bane. "Oh, do you know that, they dragged my father all around the pack house and killed him right in front of their pack members?"

Derek asks me. I just don't know what to say.

"Yeah. They killed him. They-" Before he can finish the sentence I hear paws thudding and bones snapping. I don't move as the knife is still pressed against my neck. "Get them." Derek shouts looking behind. I see Bane changing into his wolf in seconds and jumps in the air towards Derek. He turns to Bane and before he can react Bane opens his mouth and catches Derek's neck between his jaws.

The knife that's put against my neck slashes a bit against my collar bone, but nothing deep. Within seconds, Derek is lifted from my side. They guy holding my hand to make cuts on it is no more there. Bane's wolf shakes Derek body with his teeth and rips apart his head form his body. I am not shocked.

Bane wolf stands on top of Derek's body and howls. I hear howls from behind me and see many wolves fighting Derek's wolves. With Derek dead, all of them try to run away. Bane's wolf comes to me and the fact of Derek death slowly registers in my mind.

It all happened in seconds. One minute he was taunting us and next his next lies separate from his body. But we are safe now. At least I think so.

My conscious is slowly slipping and I try to keep my eyes open. The last thing I see before my eyes close is Bane changing into his human form.

"How long?" A voice asks.

"Any minute now. But her cuts will take a few days to heal." Another voice responds.

"Days?"

"She has been injected with Resistor regularly, she is dehydrated, she is not able to connect with her wolf, she has been tortured and starved. It will take a few days to heal from all this, Alpha."

Alpha? Is it Bane? Am I finally with Bane?

I feel someone holding my hand between their warm ones. A body nestles beside me and I slowly regain my consciousness. Fluttering my eyes open, I meet with the very familiar green eyes. Worry filled in them.

Bane.

"Oh God." Bane breathes before hugging me. I try to lift my hand to hug him back, but my hand feels heavy and numb. There are stitches over the cuts. My heart is still not at ease. I still don't understand what happened back there. They didn't seem like our pack wolves that helped us.

Is Derek really dead? Am I really back in Bane's arms?

My mind still doesn't accept it. But, the fact that I am here in his arms makes me feel safe. "Water." My sore throat doesn't let me even say the small word out clearly. Bane pulls away and turns to the table to fill up a cup of water to give it to me. I try to lift my hand, but he stops me and brings the cup to my lips. I thirstily drink up all of it. He turns around and fills the cup again and helps me drink it.

Once I am done, he helps me sit comfortably beside him. My mind flicks back to Derek and my heart flips.

Am I really here? Am I back in Bane's arms?

"You are." Bane answers. I look at him in surprise. Can he hear me? "I can. The resistor's effect is running out." He explains. I look around. We are in Bane's room.

"We are really home." I don't realise I say it out loud.

"We are."

"What happened?" It was all like a blur. "Who were those wolves? I thought Derek's pack got our pack."

"He kept our pack wolves busy fighting. It was James pack wolves that helped us. Jack asked them for back up." I now get the picture. "We killed all his followers that might be a future threat. All of them. I am not taking a risk again."

"What's with the revenge? What happened to his father?" Bane sighs as I ask. He takes my hand in his and plays with my fingers. I feel those tingles. Oh, how I longed to feel them!

"That makes the two of us." He read my mind again. "When I was eight years old, our pack was not this big. We were not the strongest pack out there, but we were not the weakest either. We were happy. There were complaints about females being kidnapped around that time, not just from our pack, but from neighbouring pack too. My father, Alpha of our pack then, got the message that the kidnapper is around our pack grounds. We were looking for him, father tried to track him down day and night.

One night, he nearly got our mother, our Luna. The broke my father's patience. After that, I haven't seen him at home for a week. A week later, he came back with our pack members, the missing people and with a man who looked beaten down. That was Derek's father, Bruce. He has been put in dungeon. It took us another week to send the people we found back to their pack.

I hear my father talking to my mother how bad the situation was of the people he captured. Bruce, tortured them, used them, treated them horribly and the way they were living in cells and other things. It was bad."

So, Derek is just like his father. Of course, seeing his father do that, he would think that's the right way to live.

"Even though we got our pack members back, they were traumatized from whatever they experienced there. It affected their family members, which in turn affected the whole pack. It was a dark time for us. One day, Bruce was brought out from his cell. He looked like he has taken a lot of beating from our pack as well. All the family members who got back their mates from Bruce, wanted revenge for what he did.

"He was ripped to sheds by them." I shiver as he explains. He sees that. "You saw Alika. That was only a part of what Bruce did to the people he kidnapped. So, you can imagine the anger of the people who found their family in such state. They were uncontrollable. That's how we got the name, beasts or monsters or whatever we are called out there today.

"We asked for help from many packs to help us to find Bruce before he was caught, but no one helped, since we were a small pack. We were helpless when he came and took one after another of our pack members and made them his slaves. That's why, after killing Bruce, my father decided to occupy one after another pack to become the strongest. So strong, that no one dares make an attack on us, so strong that we don't need anyone's help.

When we attacked the other packs, the name beasts, got stuck to us and we let them be. At least our pack wouldn't suffer. We thought we eliminated all the enemies. If only... He got Alika and you." He looks away like he thinking or remembering something.

"I am sorry." Words fall out of my mouth before I even think if them. My mind goes back to the way Derek made him kneel. I don't want to see him this way ever again.

"It's not your fault." He kisses the crown of my head. "It's all over now."

"Why did Bruce do all that?" I don't understand.

"Cause he is a fucking Pshyco!" He pauses. "He really was. He liked torturing people. From what I know, he was kicked out of his previous pack, he went rogue and that's when all of it started. There is no other reason. He was just... that way."

My head starts hurting again. I try to lift my hand, but the pain stops me.

"I should have come earlier. I am sorry." He apologizes.

"No. Stop! Don't blame yourself. Let's not do this. Let's not blame ourselves for what happened. Let's not waste our time with guilt and sadness. I don't want to think about that. Stay away from you, not being able to connect with you and not knowing if I will see you again... All of it just... It made me realise we must not waste a minute of our time spent together."

"We won't. We will not from now on. You gave me a heart attack, My Sweet." Ah, I missed that! I missed him! I missed his smell!

"Me too." He says and kisses my forehead. He smells my hair. It might seem creepy to a human, but for us, it's common for us to do that and it takes us in a frenzy state. We like that. It makes our wolves happy. He gasps. "Oh fuck, I missed you!" I look up at him and see that his eyes are turning dark green. His wolf is trying to come out.

"Stop it." I blush.

"Well you are the one that's thinking out loud." We stay silent for a few seconds and just take a breath. The weight of everything that happened lifts through us and as I breath his scent, I feel safe again.

I try to connect with my wolf and talk to her, but I am still not able to.

"The Resistors affect has to be removed completely. It has to leave your body. Only then you can connect with your wolf." Bane says. I let out a sigh. "I know. But you will be fine. You will talk to you wolf in a month."

"You know, I was so scared when I was not able to connect with you through mind link." My mind goes back to the time I was in Derek's dungeons.

"I was too." He says. "Your mother and brother will be here tomorrow." That puts a giant smile on my face.

"Really?!" I nearly jump out of bed. He chuckles. Bane chuckles. Now, that's a shocker. "Did you just chuckle?" He shrugs and he pushes my hair over my shoulder. "How many more surprises am I going to see today?" I smile. I feel light again.

"I missed you." He confesses.

"I missed you more."

He plants another kiss on my forehead. That puts a smile on my lips.

I am at peace.

A/N:

Hey my cute dumplings!

How is it? Did you like it? So, finally, we are at the end. You guys like Bane now? Tell me what you think.

Please VOTE and COMMENT.