“It’s done,” he assures me in a tone saying I’ll be happier because of his influence. “Don’t worry about a thing. Now eat.”
Eat. Smile. Marry.
Mate.
My parents don’t care how a sheen of goosebumps covers my skin. They only care how much noise I make when I push away from the table with enough force to send my chair against the wall. It clatters to its side and Holly’s jaw drops with it.
I scrub my hands over my biceps, shivering, before I grab the chair. “Sorry. I’m not hungry. I can’t do this right now.”
My parents’ voices lift, more concern, but they won’t follow me.
Tears scald every part of me and trail acid down my cheeks as I take the stairs two at a time. Muscles throbbing, I push into my bedroom, but there’s no slamming door. There’s no raging or punches thrown.
Because I’ve always been a good girl. Even if I’m going moon-mad.
Chapter
Nine
Istand frozen in the center of my rug, shaking, chilled. Eventually I manage to move enough to shower and scrub days of filth out of my hair. I soap myself until the water runs clear and the tangles in my hair are now a rat nest blocking the drain.
This is my life. This is my cage.
The same pink rug and soft sheets are the bars I’ve gotten used to. Any romance there might have been when Jrue threw stones at my window to get my attention are nothing but someone else’ s dreams in my memory.
Everything about the cage has been the same for years.
Nothing changes no matter how the alpha wills it. He can be as vocal as he wants, but I’m still moonlocked and the curse still spreads outside our borders, touching everyone but us now, the way he wanted it.
I probably brought it in with me.
Grayson and I have to get out. I hadn’t wanted to fight the search party though I should have.
Sleep comes to claim me and I fall into familiar sheets, familiar mounds of pillows.
My nightmares consist of glowing eyes and shots in the dark. When thin sunlight sneaks through my half-drawn shades in the morning, it hits me.
We should have run instead of sleeping. I’m not well rested despite my best efforts.
I shower again for the novelty of it then change, brushing my hair in front of the mirror. Despite the restless, prowling sensation under my skin, there’s no golden glow in my eyes. There’s no change from human to wolf.
I stay the same on the outside.
My gut grumbles but I have a feeling anything I throw into the empty pit will threaten to come back up. The rolling heat there makes it uncertain whether I need to eat to fuel myself or run on empty.
The knock on the door is hardly a brush of skin against wood before Holly slips into the room and shuts us inside.
She presses her spine to the door. “Okay, spill. I waited a good amount of time before I snuck away. You have to tell me where you’ve been and what happened and why you showed up with the bitten boy that Dad refuses to talk about.”
“There’s nothing to spill.” I sigh, my heart softening at her round face and rounder eyes. “And yes, you did wait. Good job.”
“Something is going on with you and you might have been able to run away from Mom and Dad last night, but I see right through you.”
Holly is only a few years younger than me and the innocence in her eyes might fool everyone else, but I’ve always been able to understand the predator lurking underneath.
Which is why I lose the fight. As easy as it might seem to turn her away, I can’t. The tears spring free as I haul myself onto the bed and curl up around the body pillow.
“It’s fucked up. Isn’t it?” A shuddering breath squeaks past my teeth.