<h4>Chapter 529: 529-Like A Monster In A Cage</h4>
<strong>Clementine:</strong>
I did not understand what was happening to me, and it felt as if my identity was something else entirely, yet I did not know what it was.
I had bepletely nk, and inside my mind there was only silence most of the time, though sometimes a sudden storm would rise without a warning.
Whenever I came back to my senses, I looked around at the people near me, but every face appeared blurred.
It felt like I had been rejected recently, yet when that thought surfaced, I remembered my mates, and I was still mated to them, I think. But who were they? I could not understand that either.
As I waited in the room for those strangers to return, an unknown face suddenly appeared in front of me.
"Oh, Clementine. I should have known you would be with one of them," he said.
"Who are you?" I asked him, noticing howfortably he roamed around the room, checking one thing after another. It seemed as if he was not only aware of theyout, but also had all the time in the world.
He stared at me when he heard my question, then tilted his head as if a thought had just urred to him.
"You don’t know me?" he asked, pointing at his chest and raising his eyebrows to make sure he had heard me correctly.
"No, I don’t. Have we met before?" I questioned, pressing my head as I tried to understand who this person was. To be honest, he looked a little hostile to me.
"Oh, you don’t know me?" he repeated, more to himself than to me.
"Have we met before?" I asked again, trying to understand why he was roaming around the ce I was in if he was aplete stranger. And if he was not, then why the hell could I not remember him?
"Actually, I’m your friend," he uttered, and I tilted my head in even more confusion.
"Yes, basically, we have been friends for a very long time. You alwayse to confide in me whenever you are in trouble," he continued as he circled the room, reaching to one side and then moving to the other, like a predator.
"We were friends?" I asked, trying to confirm whether the person in front of me was a danger or not.
He nodded confidently, but something told me that was not the case.
I had met other strangers just moments ago, but him, he was exuding major bad vibes.
"Yes, and you’re supposed to go somewhere with me."
As soon as he said that, he stopped at the edge of the bed and raised his hand toward me, as if asking me to hold it.
That was when something switched inside me, and I shook my head.
"No, I will wait for my friends toe," I replied, shaking my head once again.
He clicked his tongue and lowered his hand, looking disappointed, almost as if it were my fault that I had said no and now I would face the consequences.
"You may please leave the room and return only when theye back," I requested, pulling the nket up to my legs and then to my chest as I watched him stare at me with a nk look on his face, as if he were anticipating what to do next.
There was an agitation in his body that made me anxious.
"Well then, you leave me no choice," he stated.
The way he spoke carried only hostility, and before I could react, he lunged at me.
I tried to push him away with my hands, but I was not myself. I was weak, so weak that I could not even fight back properly or protect myself, and I did not understand what was happening to me. All I knew was that I had to save myself, yet I could not do it.
He overpowered me, and for a moment his fingers wrapped tightly around my throat before everything went dark.
When I regained consciousness, I realized I was being transported inside a cage, and many people were gathered around me. It seemed like some kind of basement, though I had no idea where I was, and I feltpletely lost.
"So finally you are in our hands. You see, evil always meets a bad end," a woman said as she stepped forward.
Everything about her was white, from her hair to her clothes. She looked like an angel at first nce, but when she began speaking, her tone was extremely harsh.
"I don’t understand who you are. Why are you speaking to me like this? And why am I locked inside a cage?" I whispered.
As soon as I said that, everyone looked at each other.
"What is she talking about?" a man said from the side.
I kept staring at him because it felt as if I had seen him somewhere before, and yet at the same time it felt like I had not.
"Alpha, please. She does this kind of drama. I told you she lies to protect herself," the woman said again, silencing him.
By then I understood that he was the Alpha, and I felt like I had seen him in passing before, though I still could not understand who he really was.
Then she turned back to me.
"I am Lady Sylvia. I am the Council Leader. How could you forget me? I am the one who does not allow evil and monsters on this maind," she continued.
As she kept speaking, I only became more confused.
"Anyway, she will keep acting like this. Take her out right now. Everyone has already gathered. They have seen the show. That academy she was calling entertainment and using us of, today it will be exposed in front of everyone. Today she will stand before them all and transition into a monster," Lady Sylvia began.
She kept calling me a monster.
I knew my identity had blurred, even in my own eyes, but I knew one thing with certainty. I could not be a monster.
"One second, please. What is happening here? Will someone tell me?" I said, gripping the bars of the cage.
The moment I touched them, my hands began to burn, and I understood they were made of silver.
"Take her away. She will transition in front of everyone and prove that she is a monster," Lady Sylvia ordered, dismissing everyone with a hand gesture.
The Alphas began lifting the cage and loading it onto arge truck.
Throughout it all, I did not understand what was happening.
I felt lost, and my heart was heavy with grief. It felt as if I wanted to mourn something, but I did not even know what that loss was, and on top of that, they were taking me away to force me to transition in front of everyone.
After that, they took me to arge ground.
Just as Lady Sylvia had said, a crowd had gathered there. There were so many people that I could not even count them.
The moment they saw the cage, they began shouting.
"Is she really a monster? Is that why she could fight monsters, because she is one herself?" a woman screamed.
I sat down inside the cage because the noise was pounding inside my head.
At the same time, something else was happening.
I had been unconscious for a long time, and the pain in my body had begun to fade.
My wolf was waking up.
"You are awake?" I asked her inside my mind. "What has happened to us?"
I did not know where she had been or why she had been silent for so long, but it felt like whatever loss we had suffered, her awakening was tied to it.
"I don’t want to transition," my wolf’s voice echoed.
I was shocked.
Her voice was powerful, yet she sounded as if she was in pain.
"Clementine, we have to stop our transition," she said, struggling.
"I can’t stop it," I replied.
"We have lost too much blood. We have suffered a great loss. I was rejected. Transition is a must."
She spoke in a trembling voice, and then the pain began spreading through my body.
"You have all been called here so you can see with your own eyes that there was a monster among us. We have not wronged her. She is a monster, and she belongs in the North," Lady Sylvia announced as she arrived at the ground with the others.
The crowd began shouting again.
Their voices started fading from my ears because my transition had begun.
As my bones started cracking, I saw heads snapping away from me, as if their attention had shifted to someone else arriving.
"Who is that?" someone shouted.
I followed the direction of their pointing hands.
Through the crowd, I saw a familiar face approaching with many others.
He stood out.
The moment I saw him, my heartbeat slowed.
And before I could stop myself, a name escaped my lips.
"Ian."