I can’t speak. I can’t think. All I want to do is kill whoever did this to her. I want them dead.
“Darius.” Cassia’s voice cuts through the roar in my head. “I need you to hold her still. This is going to hurt.”
I nod. I grip Blue’s shoulders and brace her as Cassia begins cutting the first wire free.
The smell hits me a second later. Wolfsbane. Acrid, bitter, burning the inside of my nose. My stomach lurches, and I have to turn my head and breathe through my mouth to keep from retching.
Blue thrashes. Not strong, not the way she fights when she’s awake, but a weak, involuntary bucking, her body trying to get away from the pain. A sound comes from her throat that isn’t a word.
Just raw agony.
I hold her, and I watch Cassia work. She’s careful, precise, pulling each strand free with steady fingers while Blue’s body jerks and that sound keeps coming.
“How could anyone do this to her?” I say.
Cassia doesn’t look up. “Some alphas will go to any lengths to control their omegas, even if it means destroying them. It’s a practice some of the more brutal packs employ to ensure their omega remains faithful. It can also be a buyer’s request if an omega is sold. A way to ensure she hasn’t been used before he decides to break her in himself. Guarantees the product is… intact.” She spits the last word.
Product. Intact. Used.
The words sit in my chest and won’t leave. Because she isn’t just talking about whoever installed the wires. She’s talkingabout control. Period. And I chained this girl to a wall. I refused to let her shift. I called her mine before she’d even told me her real name.
Different methods.
Same fucking logic.
“Almost done,” Cassia says. Her hands are steady, even on the last wire. “She’s strong. Stronger than she has any right to be, given how long these have been in her.”
I look at Blue’s face. Pale. Soaked with sweat. Her lips are moving, but nothing comes out.
“Come on, little wolf,” I say, low enough that only she can hear, assuming she can hear anything at all. “Don’t you give up. You’re too goddamn stubborn to let this beat you.”
Her eyelids move. Just barely.
Then Cassia drops the last piece of wire into a metal tray.
“Done,” she says. She straightens up and removes her medical gloves. “Now we wait.”
I let out a breath. “She’ll be okay?”
“With time. And care.” Cassia looks at me, and there’s nothing gentle about it. “She’ll need to shift to heal completely. The wolfsbane has been building in her system for years. Daily shifting was the only thing that kept it from killing her.”
I hear what she’s saying. All of it. The parts she’s spelling out and the parts she’s not.
“Whatever she needs,” I say.
Cassia nods and goes to clean up. The others come back in, and I can tell by their faces they heard most of it through the door. Elias looks sick. Archer looks like he wants to put his fist through a wall. Silas stands very still, staring at Blue on the table, both hands curled into fists at his sides.
Nobody says anything for a long time.
Eventually, they leave, one by one. Archer is last. He gives me a look on his way out that says everything he’s thinking without a single word.
And then it’s just Blue and me.
I pull a chair to the table and sit with her. After a long time, I reach for her hand. It’s small in mine. I can feel the calluses on her fingers, the ridge of a scar across her knuckles.
This girl has been through hell. And I chained her to the wall and prevented her from shifting.
Idid this.