The Alpha’s Rejected And Broken Mate
Chapter 90

Rowan POV

I walked down the hallway with something akin to triumph in my facial expression. I had her, I had her and she didn't even know it yet. I gripped the arm of the miserable excuse of a guard, Grant, holding him in front of me and shoving him, hard towards the door, which he opened with trembling hands.

"Get in" I snarled, shoving him through the open door and almost sending him tumbling down the stairs. He was covered in bruises, from our fight earlier, where I had beaten him to an inch of his life, his nose bleeding from being broken and several of his teeth loose and cracked. He hadn't come quietly either, to my satisfaction. I'd needed to take my anger out on someone and he'd been convenient when I'd put two and two together, realizing he'd been covering for Stacey all this damn time.

I gripped him by the arm again and stomped downstairs, relishing the startled look on Stacey's face as we stormed past, the guards opening up a new cell for me. I pushed him inside, the guards rushing to help restrain the young lad, so that his feet dangled above the floor uselessly, his hands high above his head. I c****d my head to the side and observed him, noting his shallow breathing, the way his eyes darted wildly everywhere, and the way his body shook. The boy was more than frightened, he looked about ready to piss his pants. I half hoped he would, if only to bring about even more humiliation to him.

"What are you doing?" cried Stacey from her own cell, her voice shrill and panicked.

I ignored her, concentrating on Grant who was avoiding my gaze.

"Where are the implements?" I asked the guards casually, one of them leaving to retrieve the trolley as I gloved up my hands so that the silver wouldn't affect me.

"Please" wheezed Grant, nasally due to his broken nose, "please don't" he begged.

As if he had a say in anything that was about to happen to him. I merely glowered at him, my arms folded across my chest, waiting impatiently for the trolley to be pushed in front of me, by the other guard who swallowed nervously when I glanced at him. "Rowan, please, he's just a kid" Stacey protested in a muffled voice, her own hands and feet restrained in the cell.

Grant was older than a mere child though, and old enough to know better. My own man had betrayed me and now it was time for him to face the consequences. The first thing I did though, was to walk into the cell and reach up, pushing the nose back into place painfully, a sharp cracking noise sounding as Grant flinched from the pain. I grinned. Now he would be able to speak and scream like a normal shifter. It wouldn't take long for his wolf to heal the broken nose, I thought calmly, and I could always break it again and again if I wished.

I turned around and surveyed the trolley, wondering where I wanted to start. There were so many various torture items that it was difficult to choose. I grabbed the cat o nine tails with silver on the spokes, speaking grimly to the guards who were waiting patiently for instructions.

"Strip him" I instructed. Grant was still clad in a shirt and pants, having fought me in human form earlier, perhaps believing he stood a better chance than trying to fight me in wolf form. The guards used their claws to shred his clothes off of him, leaving him naked and vulnerable.

His back was exposed to me. I pulled the whip back and with all of my strength, struck him directly across the middle of his back. He tipped his head back and screamed, the sound echoing throughout the dungeon.

Thwack, thwack, I didn't let up, hitting with all my strength and relishing in his screams, the guards standing in their corner, doing their best to avoid looking. Blood was welling up in the gashes left by the whip, adding to the metallic scent that was already prevalent in the air.

"You bastard" Stacey shouted, "leave him alone already."

I was a little surprised by how much she seemed to care about Grant who was still, his head slumped as he stared at the ground, perhaps hoping I was finished when in actual fact, I was just getting started.

"Tell me Grant" I sneered "what did Stacey have you do for her? Was she responsible for the herb found in Amber's drink that time?"

He was silent.

Thwack, Thwack, two more strikes against his back as he shuddered.

"Answer me" I growled but he shook his head, staring down at the ground mutely.

"Tell me" I demanded, thwack, thwack, thwack, hitting him three more times and watching the blood trickle down from his wounds and onto the cold hard dungeon floor. I sucked in a breath, impressed despite myself at the young lad's fortitude. He wasn't giving Stacey up, at least not anytime soon. I was going to have to be more persuasive.

I placed the cat o nine tails back onto the trolley, the silver spokes now tainted with blood, and surveyed the implements again. This time I grabbed hold of a dagger, brandishing it in my hand and watching as Grant's eyes widened before his eyes narrowed and his face went cold and unyielding again. The dagger was made of silver, designed to burn the flesh and make it sizzle. I moved to Grant, staring him deep into the eyes, and then plunged the dagger inside his stomach, leaving it there to burn him as he bucked and writhed in his restraints, kicking out uselessly, screaming at the top of his lungs. I waited, counting to thirty, before I reached out and grasped the dagger by the handle, wrenching it back out.

"Tell me, Grant, what did Stacey have you do for her?" I coaxed, waving the blood-stained dagger at him.

His jaw clenched tight and he started at the ground. Fine then. More torture it was.

I plunged the dagger into his thigh, leaving it there, and listened to his screams as I counted to sixty, before retrieving the dagger.

"Oh my god," Stacey was sobbing from the next cell.

I didn't give Grant a chance to speak, walking behind him and then, using the dagger to peel off a large patch of skin off his back. That one really made him scream. I dropped the skin to the ground and walked back around to the front of Grant. "Tell me," I said grimly.

"Fine" he breathed, "she had me seek out a specific herb for her. Told me she was using it for skincare or something like that" he added, looking apologetically at the next cell. "What herb" I demanded.

"It was called Penny Royal" he stammered.

I gave a big groan. Everyone knew that pennyroyal could cause miscarriages, but given enough of it, it could also cause the person who ingested it to die. Grant really was an i***t. "What else?" I asked, "what else did she do?"

But he was already shaking his head again, clamming back up. I walked back around and put the point of the dagger into his shoulder and began to carve, listening to his flesh sizzle and burn from the silver. When I was finished there was a word carved into his back and it read 'traitor'. "Please" Grant pleaded, "please no more."

But I'd already had enough of listening to him and him not answering my questions. I put my hand up and punched him, breaking his nose again, and then as he howled, put it back together in the right place again.

"I'm going to keep breaking that" I warned him.

"What else did she have you do?" I asked, still holding the dagger in my right hand.

He bit his lip and glanced away. I sighed.

This time I was none too gentle, plunging the dagger in the back of his leg and pulling it downwards, severing tendons and the like, leaving it in for more than two minutes as his flesh began to bubble from the burn of the silver. When I yanked it out, I expected him to talk and this time he did.

"She had me cover for her when she went somewhere. I don't know where she went."

I raised an eyebrow. I had already figured out that she had gone to the witch's house every time she disappeared.

"What did you do when she came back?"

He hung his head "We had s*x" he answered softly.

I exploded. "You betrayed your alpha in return for s*x. Are you f*****g kidding me, Grant?"

I was more than annoyed, I was angry. Because of him, my mate had almost died from being poisoned and had been targeted by him as the wolf who attacked her. I didn't hold back this time. Instead, I cupped his balls in my hand and raised the dagger, the guards leaping into action to keep him still as he began to babble and plead with me.

"Rowan, please, Alpha, don't do this, it will never happen again. Please, oh god, don't do it" he cried as I brought the dagger down and neatly sliced off his scrotum. I listened to the scream as he tipped his head back, blood spurting everywhere. I flung the offending piece of equipment to the corner of the cell and then looked at my guards who stared back non-passively, not surprised by the torture in the slightest.

"Get him medical assistance, but in the cell, I don't want the son of a b***h to step foot out of this cell. He's betrayed me and as such will be executed when I see fit."

Grant was passed out unconscious now, hanging there. I could hear Stacey's crying from next door and smiled grimly to myself. I kept hold of the dagger, the blood staining the silver of it, walking over to her cell, one of the guards unlocking it for me. The second she saw me, her eyes widened and she began to look panicked, no doubt fearing she was about to be tortured.

"You attacked my mate" I sneered as she began to tremble. Unlike Grant, she wasn't dangling from the ceiling but instead was restrained and shackled, lying on the cold hard floor. "You almost killed her" I roared.

I eyed Stacey with contempt, taking in the mess of her hair, her dark eyes wide, her pale skin almost translucent, she was that ashen and pale. Her dress was torn and ripped, and her shoes were in the corner of the cell. She had been so shocked to replace herself dragged off to the dungeon after I had killed her precious witch friend, not expecting it from tame, calm, Rowan. She had seriously underestimated me.

"Please, Rowan, let me go" she pleaded, almost hysterical. "I know what I did was wrong, but I am pregnant. You can't take this out on an innocent child" she continued, begging me.

She was right, I would never torture her while she was pregnant with an innocent child, no matter how much she had wronged me. But I also had an answer to that. "You will still be executed when I see fit. After you've given birth to your child" I told her evenly "and you won't be having a natural birth either. I have doctors on standby to give you a c-section when it's safe enough. I want you to die as soon as remotely possible" I hissed as her lips quivered.

"Rowan, you can't do this to me" she screamed "what about everything I've done for you? Does that mean nothing to you? Nothing at all?"

I laughed, my voice dripping with malice "you have done nothing for me, Stacey, except be a giant pain in the a*s. I'm no longer under your spell remember? I broke your perfume bottles and now that I'm aware of it, the perfume you have on is not affecting me as it was before."

She drooped. "I did it for us" she whispered so quietly I almost missed it.

"You did it for yourself" I thundered "and your selfishness has now caused another man to die. Think about that while you're locked up in your cell because you are going to have plenty of time to think about things in here" I threatened. I shut the cell door and waited for the guards to lock the cell door again. She got up awkwardly and tried to hop towards the door as I turned around and made my way towards the stairs.

"Rowan" she screamed "don't do this, please god no, don't leave me in here" she wailed.

I continued up the steps, as she continued to scream at me "please, I'll do anything, anything you want. Just let me out, I can't stand it in here, please, oh god, Rowan no, where are you going?" as I opened the door and made my way out of the dungeon. The last thing I heard before I shut the door was another scream and this time it was a blood-curdling one. It looked like Grant had woken up. I grinned and slammed the door shut, cutting off their screams, and began to make my way toward my study.