TOM CORNELISSE AS COLE EDWARDS!!! (aka everyone's literal favourite person and honestly same.)

HI MY LOVES!! 

I hope you love this chapter - I must admit in writing terms it's not got much going for it it is literally just Trent speaking for the entire chapter so I apologise if you were expecting some incredbly descriptive scenes but yeah - there's none of that.

ANYWAY, I HOPE YOU ENJOY.

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CHAPTER 61

My breath is held as I sit beside Trent and wait for him to speak, our heartbeats the only sound in the lowly lit room.

When he finally does speak, the words that come out his mouth aren't the ones that I'd anticipated and when I realise what's happening the world seems to feel like it's stopped spinning.

"Growing up with a brother who was meant to be the next Alpha was always pretty difficult, especially when it came to impressing my father - or anyone in the pack for that matter. Michael was a force to be reckoned with and me," he shakes his head, "Well I was nothing. I wasn't going to be an Alpha, a Beta or anything remotely close to where my brother was heading and that... well, I just wanted to be noticed."

His hands clasp together in front of him as he leans forward, eyes locked on the moon outside his window but his gaze is full of memories. 

And pain.

So much pain.

"Lou used to hang around with Cole and I when we were young. His older brother, George, was Michaels best friend and Beta and so we were all like brothers," he laughs humourlessly, "Scarlette used to complain that we'd leave her out all the time because she was a girl, but the truth was that Lou had a crush on her and was too embarrassed to say anything about it." 

Internally, I make a reminder to bring this topic up at a later date with the redhead but for now, I stay silent, unwilling to interrupt Trent's story. It always seemed so difficult for him to talk about and I was still grappling with the fact that he was actually telling me.

"The three of us snuck out one night when we were fifteen. We wanted to go and see if we could see the pack on their night runs - it was something that we all loved to do. We'd sit and talk about what we thought our wolves were going to look like and how amazing it was going to be when we finally could shift. 

But there were rules, ones that were there to protect us and we didn't listen... I didn't listen."

My throat seems to swell at the crack in his voice and my fingers shake with the low vibrations of his anguish.

"Michael had told me about this rogue that they had caught the scent of earlier that day but they hadn't managed to track him, they'd lost it in the woods and were going to send people out to look when it was light - when they were human and when it was safer. But, when we were out there and we watched the pack flying past us, just patrolling our borders but not going after anyone, I felt so useless, so unimportant. I tried to convince Lou and Cole that we could go and find the rogue instead, that we could creep around in the dark and by morning we would be awarded with the acknowledgement of our families. We'd have proven ourselves."

His voice is low as he runs a hand absentmindedly across his chin, his fingers hovering over the only scar that mars his perfect features. It's so small that I barely ever notice it but I had always wondered how he'd gotten it, I suppose in the grand scheme of things it seemed almost unimportant. 

"Cole, being Cole, didn't take much convincing, but Lou? Lou was scared, he didn't want to anger anyone or get ourselves in a bad situation. 

So, we left him behind. We left him standing, begging for us to not go out there. We didn't listen. Instead, we found the trail that the rogue had left and we followed it, way further out than we were allowed to and onto no man's land, your town, actually.

We didn't even realise that we'd stepped over the barrier until the rogue appeared right before us. Waiting for us. Like he had planned it."

He swallows.

"When the rest of them appeared from the trees we knew they had. I thought we were going to die... I wish we'd just died."

I'm frozen in place; my horror only growing with every word that leaves his mouth, with every clench of his fists and shudder of his breath. 

"Lou had gone to our brothers - he knew that I could never forgive him for telling my dad but my brother, my brother wasn't alpha yet and he was my best friend. They'd come and help us but my father would never have to know about it. And they did!" 

His chest heaves with the breath that he takes,  "He and George burst into the open grass before they made their final pounce, just when I thought I was going to pass out from pain and blood loss, their wolves bigger than any of our attackers. Michael told George to get us out of there, to get us back to the safety of the border, the safety of the pack. But Michael... Michael stayed. He stayed to fight, to let us run."

Realisation hits me like a frying pan and I gasp, my hands covering my mouth in an attempt to hold in the reaction but I know he hears it. I know that he feels the anguish beginning to overcome me as his eyes begin to tear up, his leg beginning to bounce. He tilts his head upwards, veins in his neck protruding as he tries to blink them back. 

"I screamed, I begged, I fought to stay, to try and help him, but it was useless. No person could have ever made it out of there alive... no wolf either. They wanted to get the Alpha, they wanted to hurt his family - and they did. Better than they could have ever hoped for because I led him right to them. I served Michael up on a silver platter and I heard him die while I was rushed away to safety, watching as he was torn apart by our own kind."

Trent seems to realise that his voice has grown louder the more he has spoken and he pauses, taking a breath as his shoulders slump forward. When he continues to speak it's softer - the anger missing.

"My father never forgave me. He could barely even look at me when he got back. I still remember the sound of my mother sobbing, the roars of my father as he realised what had happened. It was only then that he told me the real reason why they hadn't gone after them yet - the rogue wasn't random. It was the same scent that they had found twenty-something years prior, when my dad was newly Alpha...when his sister was murdered."

It's late at night and my head is struggling to keep up with all the information being piled on me but I manage to follow it. Although, the images of a teenage Trent losing his brother are far too horrific for me to dwell on for too long. 

"Your aunt," I clarify as he nods his head.

"She would have been," Trent explains, "But she was younger than my dad, she died when she was seventeen. Apparently, she had this friend from Northern Valley and would go and visit her a lot. One day she went and never came back. They found her body in the woods between the two towns - rogues had attacked her out of nowhere and then ran. No trace, no leads - as if they'd planned it.."

My mind clicks back to weeks before, with Kristie's mum, Linda, and her sad smile as she spoke about her friend.

"Jemma," I whisper, causing Trent to turn to me in shock, "That was the name of the girl that Kristie's mother was friends with, she said she died when they were in high school, that she was mauled by wolves... that was your aunt?"

Out of all the people in the world, how was it that this happened? How much pain had the people around me been in due to things they couldn't understand?

His jaw tightens and brows raise at my deduction, his mouthly slowly twitching into a tight smile.

"That was her," he confirms quietly, "That's kind of when all the issues between our towns started - each one blamed the other for her death and the murder of a young girl attracted a lot of media attention as well as the attention of hunters who started moving in, before we knew it we had isolated ourselves in our safe haven, in Eastern Valley. We banned rogues and trespassers and made it a rule that the pack wasn't allowed to go into the town, we were terrified that more of us would get killed.

"And it worked for a while; the hunters that were after us lost their trails and we didn't have any more rogue attacks, not any that we couldn't handle anyway. My dad worked secretly on finding Jemma's killers but eventually, he gave up and focused on the pack and the future - my brother. 

"That was until that same scent was picked up just in our borders and my father got everyone together to make a plan of how to attack. He knew that it wasn't just one rogue, that there was a group of them waiting for a fight, that if we wanted to do it then we had to do it right. But I didn't know that and my brother died for it."

The air around us feels close and my breaths don't seem to fill my lungs. I almost want to joke and ask if someone had turned the heating on but I know that the only thing stifling me is the emotions I'm beginning to feel through Trent. 

I can picture this small and pure boy who only wanted to follow in his brothers footsteps.

Who only wanted to make his father proud and not feel so worthless.

I understood that more than anyone.

"My parent blamed me," he mumbles, "They stopped treating me like a son and more like a soldier. They told me I would never going to be as good an Alpha as Michael should have become, but I was the only option they had. My fathers' mind started to rot, the torment of not only his sister but also his son being taken by the same group was too much for him. I lost my whole family when my brother died.  

"And so did Lou. Where my parents blamed me, I blamed him. I stopped talking to him, I berated him, I treated him as if he should have let me die. But, when his brother, George, decided to leave the pack and move away with his family, he stayed. I don't know why but he did, he refused to abandon me. To abandon our pack. Not when everything was falling apart."

Trent stands up, heading for the window that lets moonlight stream in and looks out of it, his fingers curling around the dark, wooden ledge.

"I prayed to the moon goddess every night after that," he tells me, his reflection like a ghost, "I begged her for a way to avenge my brother, I bargained and offered everything I could to her just for a chance to make things right. I asked for her to gift me a way to make them pay, to make me strong enough to overcome them. And when I finally turned on my sixteenth birthday that's exactly what she did. I became a monster that no rogue could dream of beating, ever dare to cross... but I couldn't control it. 

"I didn't care. I saw the way that the pack watched me with astonishment as I turned back human and I basked in the attention that it got me, the respect that the fear gave me. But not from my parents, never from my parents. 

"At the time my father was still Alpha, it had been months since Michael died but he was still clinging onto it. His mind was deteriorating and people were starting to notice - we were becoming weak and ununited. That's why, when a couple of days later, as the same scent passed through our borders again and my father told us all to leave it, that the rogues were too much of a threat, I didn't listen. I disobeyed my Alpha. I waited until everyone was asleep and then I went out on my own."

I don't miss the way his voice stumbles over his words and I'm quickly reminded of the way the younger boys would repeat a similar thing to each other - all of them scared to ever disobey their Alpha. Was this why Trent was so harsh with them? Was he scared that one of them could disobey him and get hurt?

I already knew that it was.

I can see the way he's punishing himself, the way his lip is curled in disgust at his own actions. It had been years since it happened but it was clear that he never let up on his self-hatred, not for a moment.

"As soon as I caught the scent my wolf took over me, I don't even remember finding the rogues, I just remember their screams of agony as I ripped into them, their voices echoing like my brothers." His words send a chill down my spine as I try to not imagine the carnage, "I can only recall the feeling of pure murderous rage and the satisfaction I felt every time my claws dug into another body. It was as if I was sitting in the passenger seat and I'd given the steering wheel to a maniac but I was enjoying it too much to care. It didn't matter what the person had done - everyone there needed to die."

I watch as his shoulders shake and his knuckles turn white, the wood underneath his fingertips splintering at the pressure he's putting it under.

"I didn't think of the consequences, I didn't factor the danger that I was putting myself in but Lou did - he knew I was going to go after them. He either felt so much guilt for what had happened with Michael or he was trying to redeem himself with me, but whatever it was made him follow me out into the forest. He witnessed me massacring the group of rogues and I had no idea that he was there. 

That's why when he stepped in front of me, to stop me from killing them all so that we'd be able to question at least one of them, I didn't even recognise him. I tore right through him. I only stopped when I thought he was dead."

Oh my god.

"The scent of his blood hit me when I was changing back, when I was crawling out of the fog, and that's the only reason I recognised him. I couldn't see a part of him that was shredded or dripping with blood but I hadn't actually killed him, despite what I thought. By some miracle, he was alive. Whether it was because my wolf had started to tire or the pain from my injuries, I hadn't finished it. A small part of me hoped that maybe it's because there was a part of my wolf that couldn't do it, but I've never dared to think that was even possible. Not with the mess he was in. I picked him up and ran to Scarlette's house, I begged Deli to save him but that's all that came out my mouth. I was so shocked that I couldn't begin to explain."

I can see from across the room that his fingers are bleeding, that the broken pieces of wood are digging into his flesh the more he speaks but he doesn't seem to care. As if he's doing it on purpose.

He was still torturing himself.

"Cole told me Lou was attacked by rogues," I say, trying to pull him out of his own dark thoughts, "He clearly doesn't blame you."

I know he's heard me by the slight tilt to his chin but nothing else changes, he continues to stand like marble, unbreaking. 

I try again.

"If other people can-"

"He doesn't know," Trent chokes out, his voice tearing through my ability to speak, "Lou woke up while she was tending to him. I tried to apologise, to make him understand that I'd never have hurt him if I knew. But the damage was done, his leg wasn't healing and Deli couldn't do anything about it. There's only a couple of injuries that wolves can't totally recover from."

I already know what it is before he says it, my stomach twisting at the thought.

"Alpha's are never supposed to hurt their pack, so when they do the injuries they inflict never heal. A traitor, a challenger... someone who deserves to be hurt. Punishment should be warranted. When he realised, he told me that I couldn't tell anyone what really happened. He said that our pack was already falling apart and if anyone knew the truth? If the pack found out?" 

The laugh that emits from him is a breath and I slowly rise to my feet, not knowing how much longer I can sit and watch him hurt himself.

"An Alpha is only as strong as his pack and if mine knew that I'd almost killed one of our own, they never would have let me take over from my father. And I needed to. We wouldn't have lasted if he continued and there was no one else willing to step up when things were beginning to fall apart. Whether that was because it seemed to difficult or if it was because everyone was frightened of me I don't know but... I had to be Alpha. And so, Deli kept the secret, so did Scarlette and Lou. They told everyone that the rogues had poisoned his leg with some unknown substance and the injuries weren't going to heal. Lou told me that he could never forgive me for what I did to him, but for the sake of the pack, he would support me.

"Obviously, some people don't believe it. My father is one of them. When I went to tell him that I'd avenged our family and the rogues were dead, he just shook his head. He laughed and told me that his family was all already dead and that he knew what a monster I really was. He stepped down from being Alpha that night. Other people have just assumed I suppose but no one has ever said anything to me, I just see the way people look-"

I'm over to him before he even cuts himself off, my arms circling around his waist like they belong there. My head hitting his back with a soft thud. 

"Don't," I beg, a single word after a speech of so many truths, "Don't."

I don't know what to say.

I want to hold him and tell him that it all wasn't his fault, that he couldn't have done anything to prevent it, that no matter what he thinks he couldn't blame himself, that he wasn't the monster he had convinced himself that he was but...

I know he won't listen.

I was just going to have to show him.

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SOOOOOOO.... there might be some more adult rated scenes in the next chapter EEEEEEK. Just a prewarning xxxx 

as always, thank you for the support and I love you all dearly x