<Chapter 20-2
Chapter 20-2
I blinked. Shocked. Silent.
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It had never occurred to me that he felt it too. That when I slid my fingers inside myself, whispering his name in the dark, he was somewhere doing the same thing.
Thinking of me.
Last night was eye-opening. At least knowing it was the bond made me feel a little better.
“Are you really going to let me go when this is over?” I asked tensely.
“Yes.” He released me. “I am. You can’t be part of my pack. Parker was the only one I trusted to
protect you. I put Danny in charge, and I had to kill him not three weeks in.”
His words from last night rang like alarm bells in my head. Shock reverberated through me. “You
really killed Danny?”
“For trying to r**e you? Yes.”
“H-How did you know?”
“Amelia, the wolf who caught you trying to escape, reported it. She knew what was happening.
They had a hands-off policy because, despite everything, you are my fucking mate. When I find out who branded you, they’ll die too,” he said quietly.
I swallowed hard and went back to bandaging his wound.
Hearing Thornston talk made me realize how much of my life has been controlled. How much had been taken away. I’d always known that I’d gotten the short end of the stick, but I’d done some
terrible things too.
I’d deserved my punishment, but maybe it was time for me to try and forgive myself. I didn’t even know if that was possible, but if Troy really wanted to know, I would tell him.
“I was thirteen the first time I tried to flee my father,” I started, voice steady but distant, like I was
narrating someone else’s horror. “He caught me, dragged me back, tied me up, and left me for three days. When he came back, he had this special blend of wolfsbane. He dipped a blade in it, forced me to shift, and carved into my wolf. The pain was…” I couldn’t find the word. “It was
another six years before I had the guts to try again.”
I didn’t stop bandaging. It helped keep my hands from shaking.
“My scars used to really get Thornston going,” I continued bitterly. “And some of my father’s other friends. They’d make me shift just to see them. Sometimes, they’d experiment-test different
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things to see if they could scar her, too. For so many years, I wasn’t even a person. I was just… a thing.”
I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat refusing to budge. “When I turned fourteen, he started kidnapping women. I helped one escape. For that, he ordered me to kill the other. I refused. He carved into her until she begged for death.”
Silence tightened the cave like a noose.
“That night, I smothered her with a pillow,” I said flatly. “In my human form.”
It had been my first kill.
And to this day, I still saw her face whenever I closed my eyes.
I focused harder on cleaning the blood, needing something-anything-to anchor me. Troy was completely silent, but his entire body had gone rigid beneath my touch. I could feel the rage
vibrating through him like electricity.
“What he did to them…” My voice cracked. “It was unimaginable. He wanted a pack. Thought he could create one. But he was impotent, so instead, he tortured them. The few times he left me
alone with them-to heal them, to patch them up so they wouldn’t die before he was done-they begged me to end it.”
My hand shook now. I didn’t try to hide it.
“And I did,” I whispered. “Sometimes, I killed them. When I couldn’t do it, or when I thought they
could make it on their own, I let them go. He always found them. Every time. They died screaming…and we were both punished.”
I closed my eyes. “Saul’s sister was the only one who made it back. I released her knowing damn
well she probably wouldn’t live long. I just needed her to live long enough.”
A thick, gutting silence swallowed us whole. I finished dressing the wound and leaned back.
“That is not what I meant when I asked if you killed for him,” Troy said, voice hoarse-like it had been dragged through gravel.
“Does it matter?” I looked down at my hands, stained in crimson. “Sometimes he asked.
Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes I had to kill them because they were still screaming and he had
friends coming over. I’d have their blood on my hands while I served them fucking coffee.”
“Moon above, Kiana…you…….” His voice cracked.
I looked at him. Not with guilt. Not with apology.
“I am a killer, Troy. If you don’t trust anything else about me, trust that.”
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He didn’t say anything after that. Just stared at me like he didn’t know how to breathe anymore.
“You should get some sleep,” I murmured, forcing calm into my voice. “You’re going to feel sapped of energy.”
“Why didn’t the spell get you?” he asked, already drifting off under the weight of exhaustion.
I looked at him-this man who wanted so badly to understand me. I couldn’t understand these conflicting feelings I had.
“If I told you that, Troy” I whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear me now, “you’d never let me go.”
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