I clench my jaw. I hold her eyes. I don’t look away.
She mouths something. I can’t hear her over the roaring in my head, but I can read her lips.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
When it’s over, the head alpha stands and wipes my blood on his pants. He looks down at me the way you’d look at a stain on the floor.
They drag me back to my cell and dump me on the stone. I curl into myself, trembling. Every breath hurts. The pain between my legs doesn’t stop. Every heartbeat pushes fresh fire through the stitches.
The cell is dark. The bolt slides shut. And somewhere above me, through the stone, I can still hear Sophie crying.
I chose the wire. I chose it. And I would choose it again.
21
Mo
Ijolt awake, a scream stuck in my throat. Sweat plasters my hair to my forehead, and I gulp air, trying to shake off the nightmare.
The soft sheets beneath me are nothing like the cell floor, but my hands won’t stop shaking. I can still hear his voice in my head, lazy and amused, bragging about the bet to his friends while I stood there with my stomach falling through the floor.
The boy I thought loved me. The first person I’d ever trusted outside of Sophie. And the whole thing was a fucking game to him.
I slide out of bed on shaky legs and pad into the bathroom. Splash water on my face, but it does nothing to wash the memory away. My scent is off. I can smell it myself. Sour, sharp, the tang of overripe berries. Fear and old hurt are leaking out of me.
The others will know something’s up if they catch it. They’ll ask questions I’m not ready to answer.
I groan. They told me about their past at dinner. The coup. Their dead parents. Maybe I owe them something back.
I pad barefoot into the main room. The cabin is dark and quiet, but Silas is on the couch. Of course he is. The alpha doesn’t seem to sleep, or if he does, he does it sitting upright with his eyes half open.
“Hey there, big guy,” I say. “What are you doing up?”
He taps his ear, then points at me.
Heard me. Damn wolf hearing.
“I’m fine. Just a dream.”
Silas pats the couch beside him. Raises an eyebrow. Then he extends his hand, palm up. Waiting. Patient, the way he always is, like he’d sit there with his hand out all night if that’s how long it took.
I take his hand.
He pulls me onto the couch in one smooth motion, his arms closing around me. For a split second, my body goes rigid. But then the warmth of him registers, solid and steady, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm so calm it’s almost hypnotic.
“Humm,” I sigh, my voice muffled against his chest. “You smell like hot turd.”
A low rumble moves through him. I turn my head and catch a glimpse of the scar running down his neck.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “About your family, and what happened to them. It’s fucked up.”
He nods, and his hand comes up and strokes my hair. Slow and gentle, fingers working against my scalp. Such a simple thing, and it cracks open something in me I thought I’d sealed shut years ago.
Tears well up. I don’t even know what I’m crying for. The nightmare. Sophie. The boy who used me. Three years ofsleeping alone on the ground. The wires. The fact that a male I’ve known for a week is holding me with more gentleness than anyone has shown me in my entire life, and he hasn’t said a single word, and he doesn’t need to.
I bury my face in his chest and let go. His arms tighten around me. That’s it. He just holds me and lets me cry and doesn’t make me feel small for it.
His petrichor scent fills my senses. Safe. That word again. I keep coming back to it with him, and I keep trying to push it away, but here it is.