Loving The Cursed Werewolf King-Chapter 141: Sasha’s Story

Arielle stood closer. Sasha wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. His face felt sore, and it made Sasha cry even harder.

"Shh...don’t do that, you’ll only hurt your face again."

Arielle grabbed Sasha’s arm and hugged the boy gently. Sasha’s whimper was loud enough that Lucas, who was standing guard in front of the room with a guard, looked at each other, wondering what made the child cry so loudly.

Arielle’s shoulders became wet with Sasha’s tears, but the girl didn’t care at all. She still tried to calm Sasha, who kept crying. Ronan, who wasn’t used to the whining of a child, felt uncomfortable. He almost clicked his tongue in annoyance at the deafening whimper. Even so, he didn’t show his displeasure because Arielle was still there.

Both Arielle and Ronan waited for Sasha to calm down. There wasn’t much they could do. Comforting a crying child was not Ronan’s forte.

Sasha slowly calmed down, and Arielle helped the boy wipe his tears.

"Hey Sasha," Arielle called softly after straightening the child. "You must have been through a lot of unpleasant things. If you’ll let me, I want to help you. So... what happened in your family that you left them?"

"I... don’t have a real family. I grew up in an orphanage. I have more than twenty siblings and several foster parents, they are caregivers in the orphanage."

Arielle turned her head back to glance at Ronan. The man remained motionless in his place, listening to Sasha’s voice, which was still shaking.

"Were these injuries caused by them?" asked Arielle suspiciously. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Sasha nodded slowly. The caretakers of the orphanage would never hurt the children they care for. They had other ways to punish children who did wrong.

Sasha knew that the orphanage still continued to receive donations from the kingdom on the condition that they took good care of the orphaned children without violence.

Because it was supervised directly by the kingdom, no administrator dared to lay a hand on the children they cared for. What they did was punish the children by letting them starve.

"Did the caretaker beat you up like this?" asked Ronan, and Sasha shook his head.

Ronan always donated some of his personal funds to several orphanages in Northendell. The royal treasurer always set aside some of his money to help with the operations of the orphanage, thereby reducing the possibility of abandoned orphanages and increasing the number of abandoned children.

Under his supervision, no children should be injured or neglected. Then how could the child escape from the orphanage?

"Then who made you like this?" asked Arielle.

"Some people in the village." Sasha avoided Arielle’s gaze as well as Ronan’s. He bit his lip in fear. "Because I was caught stealing," he continued. It just made the king’s eyebrows raise.

"Stealing?" asked Ronan in disbelief.

"Y-yes, Your Majesty."

"Why did you steal?" asked Arielle again.

"Because I’m hungry! I ran away from the orphanage yesterday and haven’t eaten at all for days. So I stole because I didn’t have money to buy bread."

Arielle batted her eyes in disbelief. A small child was being beaten by adults? Why were they so brutal? Why wasn’t anyone compassionate enough to feed the child? She couldn’t imagine Sasha’s small body being beaten by so many people. Imagining it made Arielle’s heart tear.

"Then why did you run away?"

"Because I can’t help but be hungry all the time." Sasha swallowed his saliva. He hated the two-faced people there. Putting on good masks when nobles visited and letting the children starve to death if no one was looking.

Sahsa’s tears welled up again when he remembered one of his siblings.

"I had a sister who was younger than me. She entered the orphanage two years ago. We became partners in stealing and begging. We did that on orders from the caretaker!" cried Sasha defensively before Arielle or Ronan accused him of anything.

He fell silent as Arielle and Ronan remained silent and listened intently. He was surprised. Usually, the adults around him would start hitting him if he raised his voice.

Sasha looked down, embarrassed, and continued, "Because I was caught stealing, a resident reported me to the caretaker of the orphanage. The caretaker of the orphanage only pretended to be surprised, even though we stole on his orders. To make himself look good, the caretaker of the orphanage agreed to punish us not to be fed all day ."

He continued, "My sister couldn’t help but be hungry, I finally decided to steal a loaf of bread for the other child’s meal. I was caught, and both of us were punished. Until finally two days ago, my sister died of starvation."

Sasha’s jaws clenched with both hands tightly clenched. Ronan could see the vengeance burning within Sasha.

"What made me even angrier was that they announced that my sister died of illness and hypothermia. My sister was still very healthy. She died of hunger and thirst! She was very healthy, not sick at all!" said Sasha vehemently.

Arielle hugged Sasha again, making the child calm down.

Ronan was considering something. Returning Sasha to his old orphanage was certainly not a good answer.

He had to tell Lucas to re-evaluate the funds that went into some of the orphanages. He should re-examine how the orphanages were run. He didn’t know that an agency that received his money treated children like this.

Ronan has personally donated funds to children remembering his very bad childhood. He knew what it was like to be locked behind bars by his father, the former king, without food just to overwhelm his human senses.

In the process, Ronan didn’t want any of the children in Northendell to feel the same way, so he decided to donate.

"Are you sure you don’t want to go back to the orphanage?" asked Ronan, making the boy’s eyes blaze with hatred.

"I won’t. I’d rather freeze to death out there than set foot in that house full of disgusting people," he replied, making Ronan smile.

The man admired Sasha’s stubbornness. Maybe at the festival back then, the boy was being disrespectful, which irritated Ronan. But it felt like Ronan was starting to face the boy’s fiery attitude.

That kid had the potential to be a formidable knight, Ronan thought.