I pointedly ignored the jealous surge in my chest at the thought. My neck ached as I scanned the rest of the room, my gaze falling on Samuel sitting on the side of his own bed, Kane at his side. They both stared at me with horrified expressions.
Samuel-who I knew briefly from our time running from Petr?’s pack and a few brief meetings before they’d left Romania to establish Pack Blackwater in Alaska-was the first to speak up. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? She’s a nice girl. You can’t just go around saying shit like that. You’re going to have to apologize when she comes back. If she comes back.”
I snorted. “You haven’t known me very long, but I never apologize for the truth. My wolf is just jacked up about the torture. It’ll pass.”
“I don’t think it will,” Brielle said, a grim tilt to her mouth from where she stood next to the cabinets full of medical supplies. “Your wolf grabbed her while you were unconscious and claimed her as his mate. She’s got marks down her side that she didn’t have this morning. I picked up on it through the omega seal while she was in the bathroom checking them out.”
My palms were suddenly sweaty, and blood rushed through my ears in a rapid whoosh whoosh whoosh. The acrid scent of astringent was too loud in my nose, suffocating. Everything was too much, even the silence that followed the omega’s words.
Olivia was my mate.
The red-haired beauty was my perfect kryptonite and also the only female my wolf would ever want for the rest of my life. But there was no way I would claim her.
I couldn’t let my wolf claim her.
Just fucking perfect.
Olivia
Islammed my bedroom door behind me and wanted more than anything to sink down to the floor behind it. But I couldn’t let myself do that now, could I? Because then I’d be exactly what he thought of me: an infant.
His thoughtless words had played on repeat since the second I heard them.
There’s no way you and I could be a match. It’s absurd.
No wonder he hadn’t noticed me at the pack castle; he thought I was barely more than a toddler. Fury mixed with the humiliation pulsing through my veins.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been written off; not even close. I dropped onto my bed instead of slipping to the floor, determined to prove him wrong in the tiniest of ways, even if he wasn’t here to see it.
Yes, I was only twenty-four, but age was just a number for most of a wolf’s lifetime. We physically matured as quickly as humans, which meant I was a full-grown adult, and he didn’t look a day over thirty, no matter how old he actually was. Wolves got mated with large age gaps all the time, so it wasn’t even unusual.
Which meant it wasn’t that we would be physically incompatible. No, he must sense some greater defect, a personal flaw he didn’t like that made him think I was too young for him.
Immature.
Screw that noise.
Restless, I jumped back off the bed and paced around the room. It wasn’t until I spared a glance at the clock on the bedside table that I groaned.
It was after three in the morning.
I was exhausted, blood smeared, and royally over it all. And that was before you considered the fact that a nu like me mated to an alpha like him was always going to cause trouble, even when he didn’t think she was an infant.
How old was his grumpy ass, anyway?
It was a question for tomorrow. All of it can wait until tomorrow, I decided with a bitter edge even in my thoughts.
I climbed into the shower and then into my latest borrowed bed. But despite the weariness seeping all the way to my bones, it wasn’t really a surprise that sleep didn’t come for a long, long time.
Lucien
After a meal of hearty soup and some rustic bread, and two of the maiden priestesses finally removing the cursed silver cuffs from my wrists and ankles, I slept fitfully and woke with the first slanting rays of sun through the clinic’s window. Surprisingly, I felt halfway decent, my wolf rapidly repairing damage now that I’d seen a healer, had another meal, and gotten some uninterrupted rest.
I sat up, feet dangling off the side of the bed and eyeing the distance to the tiny clinic bathroom, when Brielle backed into the room with a tray absolutely laden with hot, steaming plates.
“Oh! You’re up already. You definitely shouldn’t be getting out of bed by yourself yet.” Her stern tone stayed my movements until she slid the tray onto the counter and turned to help me ease off the side of the bed.
Her grip on me as she guided me to the bathroom was unexpectedly strong, and she had no trouble holding me up when I leaned on her more heavily than I would have liked. Or admitted in alpha company.
“You seem to have powered up since the last time I saw you.” I wheezed a little as we made it to the door, leaning heavily against it as I waved her off.
“Just a bit. Do you need my help to, ah…” She gestured toward the toilet.
I scoffed. “The day I can’t hold my own dick is the day you can put me down, Doc. I’ll manage.”
She rolled her eyes but turned her back, giving me privacy as I shuffled across the small space. Luckily, it wasn’t all hubris this time.
I still hurt all over, but I was steady on my feet, if slower than a turtle and half as enthusiastic. When I finished and hobbled over to the sink to wash up, I froze midstep, and would have lost my balance if it weren’t for the cold porcelain sink my hip crashed into.
All my attention was locked on the mirror. Horror, thick and sickly, consumed me as I gripped the side of the basin. My face wasn’t mine anymore.
An ugly, knotted, red, scabby scar ran through my right eyebrow, narrowly missing my eye as it cut down my cheek, ending at the bottom of my jaw, slightly altering the shape of my mouth as it clipped the corner of my lips on the way down.
I flashed back to the sight of a rusty blade descending toward my face, oily black liquid dripping from it. The breath-stealing burn, and Dominik’s wicked grin as he asked how I’d feel if it was permanent.
My breathing was rapid, too rapid, and my vision blurred as I held on to that sink as if it was the only thing tethering me to the earth.
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