Not directly, I didn’t sew the wires, but I refused to let her shift. I kept her chained when she begged me.
I am no different from the males who hurt her.
I’ve spent ten years trying to be better than the alphas who killed my father. Trying to lead with strength tempered by mercy. And I’ve failed. I became exactly what I was trying to fight against.
I’m the reason she almost died.
“I’m sorry,” I say. So quiet I can barely hear my own voice. “I’ll do better.”
I sit there holding her hand, listening to her breathe, and I mean every word.
13
Mo
My eyes snap open, and I bolt upright.
Fuck. Where am I?
The room smells wrong. Clean, sharp, nothing like the cabin. Herbs and something medicinal underneath, not unpleasant but unfamiliar. My eyes dart around, taking in shelves lined with glass jars, bundles of dried plants hanging from the ceiling, and a row of small bottles with handwritten labels. Some kind of clinic. Or an apothecary.
A gentle rustle catches my attention. A beta stands nearby, dark hair falling past her shoulders, violet eyes watching me with a kind smile.
“Hey, Bluebelle. I’m Cassia,” she says. “You’re in my medical cabin. You’re safe. The wires are gone.”
The wires.
Gone.
My hand moves before my brain catches up. I reach between my legs, fingers pressing gently against the skin. Tender. Sore, like a deep bruise. But smooth. No wire. No hard ridges of thread pulled taut through flesh. Just skin, swollen and healing, but whole.
A sound escapes me that I don’t recognize—half gasp, half animal whimper. I press harder, needing to be sure, needing to know it’s real.
For five years, I’ve lived with metal threaded through my most intimate flesh. Since I was sixteen, I’ve felt it with every step, every shift, every movement. The constant burn, the tearing when I ran too hard, the infection that would set in if I went too long without shifting.
A sob rips out of me. It comes from somewhere deep, and once it starts, I can’t make it stop. The tears pour down my face, and my whole body shakes, and I can’t do anything except sit there on this table and fall apart.
They’re gone. They’re finally gone.
I try to stop. I clench my jaw and hold my breath and dig my nails into my palms the way I always do when something threatens to crack through. It doesn’t work. The sob drags another one behind it, and then another, and my hands are shaking, and my whole body is shaking, and I can’t clench hard enough to hold any of it back.
I remember their laughter as they undressed me. The Alpha’s voice as I thrashed, fought, and screamed. How they forced my legs apart for everyone in the room to see. The white-hot agony that shot through me as the cold bite of the needle pierced my flesh.
Every morning for five years, I’ve woken up and felt those wires. Every night, I’ve fallen asleep with the phantom sensation of that needle pushing through my skin. Every day, I’ve livedwith the knowledge that my body was being poisoned over and over again.
And now they’re gone.
I cry until I can’t breathe. Until my chest hurts and my throat is raw, and there’s nothing left. I cry for the girl I was before. I cry for the years I lost. I cry because I don’t know who I am without this pain that has defined me for so long.
“Who did this to you?” Cassia asks gently.
I shut my mouth and look at her through swollen eyes. No fucking way I’m answering that. Not to this stranger, no matter how kind she seems. I’ve carried those wires inside me for five fucking years. Three of those spent alone in the woods, shifting daily just to keep the poison from killing me. And she wants me just to hand over that story like it’s nothing?
Cassia nods, unbothered. “I understand. You don’t have to tell me. You can tell me later, if you ever want to. You’re safe here.”
Yeah, I’ve heard that before.
“Is your name Bluebelle O’Reilly?” she asks, picking up a clipboard.