Mountains of whispers sprouted out of the silence and rolled into the courtroom like an avalanche.

"I'm not human? What does that mean?" I asked with a shuddered breath. Xavier looked at me but didn't say anything. I knew that he was trying to think of some calming affirmations to help me, but he couldn't think of any. The judge pounded his hammer as order returned to the mass.

Xavier clenched his hands. "Your Honor, I do not know what this has to do with the trial"

"Oh, but you do, Alpha Xavier" the lawyer smiled at him sweetly before looking at me. "For the people who don't know, this is one out of four packs with a special rule" The lawyer faced the jury of peers. "If one of our kind causes pain and suffering, or even kills, a human then the punishment is death. But if the creature that our kind was against is stronger than us- then the sentence is something minimal."

"Because it was used in self-defense" the lawyer finished. "Now, was this an extreme case? Most definitely. But if a, let's say, a well-known demon, in the community, was to strike you down randomly and you ended up killing him- then that is self-defense."

Xavier erupted. "Your Honor this argument is absurd! Even if it was conclusive, Kye has never harmed Jeremy!"

"Oh, I beg to differ" Jeremy, who was still on the stand, raised his hand. He looked at me and smiled before speaking again. "I have evidence that proves that Kye is not human."

"Your Honor-"

"Hold!" The judge held his hands up. "I shall hear what Jeremy has to say. If you were in his position, then wouldn't you want to be heard too?" After the silence answered his words and Xavier's breathing evened, the judge spoke again.

"Jeremy, please tell everyone about your time with Kye- from beginning to end."

Jeremy cleared his throat. "After seeing Kye come out of nowhere, I invited him inside my house. He was wearing a big brown sack that covered his whole body, and he seemed confused and dirty. It was still relatively early, so I decided to make him breakfast and try to figure out where he came from"

Jeremy sighed. "I came out of that kitchen with a plate of eggs and bacon. I dropped them on the floor when I saw Kye's wings."

My eyes widened. I saw Xavier glance at me through the side of my eye.

"I am sworn to an oath, so I am not telling a lie and nor will I while I'm on here, Alpha. I saw his wings. They were small, but they were the embodiment of the music a harp makes. They were white at the top and brown towards the bottom. They cocooned his small frame and was something out of a book. He looked like a majestic bird" Jeremy looked off into space before coming back down to Earth.

"The thought of giving Kye to Xavier, literally, flew out the window. I immediately wanted to care for him as my own and raise him and learn who/what he was. I was eventually going to tell Xavier, but I wanted to keep my bird- I mean, Kye a secret a little longer."

Jeremy fiddled with the collar of his shirt. "The first week he stayed at my house, everything was calm. He gave me his name, and that's all he said he knew. I asked him how he ended up here, and he shrugged. I thought that he was among others and got separated. I thought that the fall gave him slight amnesia. I had my brother, Jake the pack doctor at the time, give him a checkup and he was in perfect shape. He also found out that his DNA samples did not match with any of the other creature samples we kept in the pack. That made me want to keep him more."

"The second week was hell. Instead of the calm and quiet Kye that I was getting used to- he turned demonic. He used to sit and stare by the window but instead he was shouting and screaming in a language I couldn't understand. It confused me tenfold. Just a week before, Kye was speaking plain English, and now he was speaking differently. As the weeks progressed with the same behavior, it occurred to me that he wanted to go home- wherever that was. I wanted to make sure he was going back to safety- and while he was at my house, no one ever came looking for him"

"Then one day, I woke up and found him crying" Jeremy went silent. "It startled me. Weeks and weeks of screaming and fighting and now he was vulnerable. I went to approach him, but it was a decoy. He wasn't crying because he was sad; he was crying to get my guard down to attack me."

Jeremy started to unbutton his shirt. The men in uniforms began to stiffen up but the judge, who was invested in this story, beckoned them to stand down. Jeremy got his whole shirt undone and carefully moved his shirt back.

I held my breath.

Right down the middle of his chest was three diagonally long strokes, from his right shoulder to his left hip. They were raised and red around the edges.

They looked recent.

"These were years ago- and yet they look like I got them this morning. When it happened, Kye started laughing hard at my misery and watched as I stumbled to get to the phone. I knew if I left, Kye would leave and all that knowledge we could've obtained as a pack would be gone. So, I called my brother back to my house. I remember in my haze of pain looking out the window and seeing a bird cage- so I told my brother to bring it" Jeremy closed up his shirt and continued.

"Once my brother got there, we snuck up on Kye and managed to give him a small amount of anesthesia. He dropped like a light, and I put him in the cage. My house used to be a holding cell to, ironically, torture rogues or people from enemy packs. My brother and I dragged him to one of the soundproof cell, and that's when he started to wake back up. Kye was silent because of a change in scenery and just stared at the walls. For me, I was grunting loudly by the time I set Kye down on the floor. Pain, at that point, was becoming too much and Jake realized that I wasn't healing."

"Jake then told me that he read into what Kye could be. If he could be what he thought he was, then poison could be secreting into my bloodstream, and I'd be dead soon. The good news was that the antidote was located in the wings of the 'thing' that did this"

"We were running out of time" Jeremy was starting to sweat. "So, Jake gave him a heavy dose of anesthesia, and I held him as he fell asleep. Jake took a sharp knife from the wall and hacked away at his wings."

A tear fell from Jeremy's eye. I felt the wetness from my eyes and realized I was crying too.

"Kye was asleep for it all. As soon as they were detached though, they turned into ash and mixed with the dust on the ground. My brother and I were at a crossroads. Jake had a clean needle in his pocket and decided to take some blood from Kye while he was still asleep. Some of the blood splattered on my chest and the pain lessened. We figured that Kye still has the antidote of his poison, but it was in his blood."

"Jake left that night, and I watched Kye sleep in that cage that night. It was the longest night. I decided to keep him in that cage so he wouldn't hurt anyone else. I would've placed him out of the cell, but he always reacted differently with the company. So, he ended up being stuck inside four red walls stained with blood and a ceiling as dark as charcoal. When he woke up after that night, he turned back into that silent kid I met on the first day. He cried silently, and I hated seeing him cry, but I didn't act on it because he could easily attack me again" Jeremy subbed his face with a shirt and continued.

"Jake came back every other day to obtain more blood so I could stay alive. I wouldn't feed Kye until Jake came so that he would eat the food out of complete hunger and ignore the bitter taste of medicine. Jake also told me that if he were healthy, then his wings would soon grow back and I was somewhat afraid of the kid I met the second week- so I kept him weak and fragile. When Kye would be knocked out, Jake would come and draw his blood and then give it to me so I could calm the wounds on my chest. I tried to treat Kye with as much happiness as I could until he kicked me."

"He kicked you?" the judge questioned.

Jeremy nodded. "I took a bucket of hot water and a towel to the basement one day. I was going to try to wash him. Ever since he took his sack off, he's been naked. I tried to give him some other clothes, but he wouldn't accept them. Anyway, I got to where he was, and he was silent. I tried to tell him I was going to wash him but it seemed like the lights were on, but no one was home. I panicked, thinking that he was close to death. I opened the top of the cage and logic hit me. A mate's mark can heal just about anything. So, if I bit him, then he'd survive, and I could be healed of his wounds to me. I put my head inside and tried to bite him, but it was another trap. He kicked my head, and the back of my head hit the top to the cage. He kept kicking, and my face was dripping in blood. Even when the cage was finally closed, he kept kicking me through the bars."

"I was furious. I grabbed the hot water and poured it from the top of the cage. Kye screamed so loud that I thought that he would break the walls. I got scared that someone would hear him and find him, my bird. But I was stuck in a haze of anger, and I was mad at the audacity of him crying for help when he did this to me. So, I dragged him to the still functional kitchen in the basement. I told Kye to be quiet, or he would die. I thought the thought of death would scare him but he couldn't hear me over the sound of his skin blistering and boiling all over. I turned on the Oven, and once it stopped heating up, I stuck his cage in there."

A gasp was heard from the judge, but Jeremy ignored it. "At first, I heard silence. Then I heard a bunch of banging on the door. I leaned against the door of the Oven and listened to his screams as the Oven heated up a little more. After a little while after Kye going silent, I turned off the heat and opened the door. Kye was still alive but was curled up in a position so I couldn't see how he was. I immediately felt bad about what I did. I called Jake as I watched him stay silent and still. Jake ran over, and I pulled Kye out of the Oven and out of the cage. I heard him give a puff of air as soon as he hit the cold air. Jake examined him and eventually told me that he was slowly healing himself."

Jeremy huffed. "I remember being astonished. I did some horrible things, but it just seemed like this kid was always coming back from the worst things. I put him back in the cage and took him back to the room. Jake and I ran through every book we could find to figure out who he was. I only went to see him to conduct tests and give him drugged food. He grew weaker and delicate. I gave him the same test every day to see if he could grow his wings again. I already knew the answer and made sure that his wings would never grow back by pouring boiling water on him. Sometimes he'd lash out and would end up back in the Oven. He became broken and obedient over the years he's been in that room. Until," Jeremy pointed behind me. "Beta Kyle and his wife, Donna, had to come over as I was leaving Kye."

I was so engrossed in his story that I forgot that we were in a courtroom. I looked behind me and saw Kyle, Donna, and Nicole with bright wide eyes. Their breathing was loud and ragged, and I saw pain and anger coil in their eyes.

They didn't register me looking at them, so I turned back around.

The judge was now looking at me. "I'm thrilled you're alive" He looked at Jeremy. "And all that is true?" Jeremy nodded.

Jeremy's lawyer stepped forward. "Before getting caught, Jeremy figured out who Kye was. With the evidence that has been said and shown, this species is way stronger than our kind, and Jeremy's actions were a case of extreme self-defense."

"Well, what is he?" the judge asked the question that was one everyone else's mind.

"Kye is the harbinger of death, a worker for the underworld, one who wears bad luck with a smile" Jeremy sighed. "Kye is a Harpy"