You Wouldn't Dare (Khaos Trilogy Book 1), стр. 2
With a painful gasp, she ordered her maids out of the room. They would not be able to help her anyway.
It was too late now.
For the first time in her life, she would own up to her mistakes and take the punishment that was coming her way.
She knew she would be next; he would not let her live - despite the small amount of help she had offered him; it would not outweigh the evil she had committed.
Abandoned as a tiny pup, Ryssa and Drake had named their adopted son Khaos. A terrible accident had left Ryssa barren with no heir to speak of. Years of fertility treatment had all but destroyed the once loving relationship the two mates had shared. Too many heartbreaks and tragedies as one by one, the last of Ryssa’s eggs failed to take.
Until finally, it forced them to face up to the truth.
The Moon Goddess had not permitted them to be parents. She had seen into their hearts and declared them unfit for the job.
But free will could not be tampered with.
Defying the Gods, Ryssa and Drake had gotten their way. A babe was abandoned and Ryssa had snatched him up, seeing him as her new beginning.
They had named their new child Khaos, and had sworn in front of the pack that he belonged to them – a successful surrogacy that they had kept under wraps.
When translated, Khaos meant emptiness. A black void which they hoped to fill with love and laughter, mending poor Ryssa’s heart with the adoration of her adopted child.
They placed all her hopes and dreams on this innocent babe. She would become the mother that she was always supposed to be, winning back her mate’s affection as she lovingly raised his next heir.
It hadn’t worked.
Ryssa soon realised that Khaos was a poor substitute for the children she had lost. It wasn’t long before her resentment grew to hatred, until her arms ached for her babies, her own flesh and blood. Every time she looked at Khaos, she added another brick to the wall of hatred that had grown higher than anyone had foreseen.
From a young age, Khaos had been... difficult. As he grew older, he was death personified.
Living up to his namesake, he had the strength to rival that of the fabled primordial God himself.
No matter the vast richness and splendour he was surrounded with, he was always an unhappy child, a sullen teenager, eventually paving way to the arrogant, cold, unfeeling killer he had become today.
Ryssa would sob to anyone who would listen. Creating a fictional world of a mother who had been wronged, rejected by the child who she had selfishly given a happy home to. No one would dare call their Luna a liar, and they certainly wouldn’t question Alpha Drake, especially regarding their parenting.
Although, if anyone had bothered to ask their son, he would have a different tale to tell, and only too happily would he have shown them exactly what he had been through.
Some people were not meant to be parents, and he had the scars to prove it.
However, now the time for sharing was over.
He would have welcomed a friendly ear during those dark days, for someone to show him that there was kindness in this world, a light at the end of the tunnel, but no one came forward.
The pack he had once thought of as family turned a blind eye to the abuse he received daily, and now the time for repenting was long gone.
They had ruined Khaos completely.
Incapable of feeling anything other than hate, he welcomed the blackness that surrounded his heart and devoured his soul.
Ryssa both prayed for, and feared, the day he met his mate. Her life would not be one of adoration and happiness. She would be in a constant fight to save Khaos from himself, a battle to keep the beast that controlled him at bay.
Ryssa had failed - and for that, she welcomed this painful death, knowing it was her punishment for having failed to save her son from the very thing that haunted him - himself.
It wasn’t lost on her that they had created this monster, that their death had a poetic justice. Khaos had not forgotten a single moment of his pitiful upbringing. She had been stupid to think once he left, he would never come back.
Revenge would always be his.
As she felt another stab rip through her body, she thought back to the treatment Khaos had endured, and she felt the first tingles of shame nag at her. She shook her head, refusing to accept her portion of the blame.
She would not have this laid at her feet. She had done what she thought was right.
“He was no worse off for it!” she told herself with gritted teeth, growing angry with the situation she found herself in. There were no lasting scars as far as she could see, no hidden ailments that haunted him! He was okay in the end, wasn’t he?
Wasn’t he?
She gasped, feeling the bond between herself and her mate break as Khaos finally gave Drake some mercy and ended his life.
Her wolf kicked in, and with her heightened senses she smelled the blood, the scent travelling down the hallway, and she knew then that Khaos had shown no mercy at all.
Drake’s body had simply given up the fight - butchered and mutilated until he could no longer stand it and he finally left this world.
She was next.
She chewed her nails, knowing that he would find her, knowing there was nowhere to hide.
Her breath came in frantic gasps.
She scanned the room searching for anything she could use to defend herself and