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“Night, talk to me. Don’t you love me?”
But he didn’t speak. He just continued to coddle me. I wanted to push out of his arms as tears pricked my eyes, but he held fast.
“Let me go! Let—"
I woke with stinging tears in my eyes, my body throbbing with the memory of Night’s touch. Around me was darkness as thick and impenetrable as my dream. It took me several seconds to catch my breath, to return to my body. Eventually, the press of the jagged rock against my back and the cool, damp air reminded me where I was.
There was a slight sting at my neck. As I shifted around, I realized the cave wall had been scraping at the area where Night’s teeth had pressed to my throat. There was indeed a bead of blood that had welled up from the puncture wound and dripped down my neck.
“Sweet dream?”
I flinched and looked toward the entrance of the cave. Troy leered down at me with a smirk on his face and hunger in his gaze.
Fuck. I sat up straighter. If not for the rock at my back, I would have tried to scoot away from him. I knew that look—it reminded me of when he had me strung up in his room in only my underwear, when he’d told me that I would be his sex slave.
“It looked like you were having a good time,” he said.
“That’s none of your fucking business,” I snapped. I risked taking my eyes off him so I could see if Tavi was nearby, but she was still gone.
When I looked back at Troy, he had moved closer. He crouched in front of me so that we were at eye level.
“Where’s Tavi?” I demanded.
“She’s the last thing you should be thinking about right now, Bryn.” He touched my hair, letting it slip through his fingers. “Why don’t you focus on answering a question for me? How does it feel knowing you’ve given yourself to a man who has no intention of being with you?”
“What?” I blurted, before I could stop myself.
He continued touching my hair, and leaned a bit closer. “I mean, it’s obvious that you’ve let Night fuck you, yet I see no claiming mark on your neck.” He touched my throat, trailing his fingertips over my skin. His touch, his very presence, cooled whatever was left of the fire that dream of Night had kindled in my body. “Clearly, he meant to use you for a decent fuck or two before letting you go.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” My voice was a growl. My wolf snapped inside me, wanting Troy’s blood on her fangs. I tried to keep it together. I knew that he wanted to get me riled up, wanted to psych me out and get into my head, but his words could never taint the bond that Night and I shared.
“If you two are truly mates, he should have claimed you. This is proof that he doesn’t love you—he just wanted to toy around with your body and to get back at me. You really are as worthless as I thought, if even my moron of a brother can see it.”
My upper lip curled with disgust. “I don’t know why Night hasn’t claimed me yet, but I know that finding out is as simple as asking him. That’s what love is, Troy. It’s trust, communication, kindness. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.” I knew my eyes had started to glow when I felt a push of power from somewhere deep within me. The power came from the part of me that knew without a doubt that my love for Night was genuine. “Night will always be a better Alpha and the better choice, Troy. Even your sadistic father knew that he was the superior wolf.”
Troy growled, gripping a handful of my hair and yanking me close. He snarled into my face, “A bitch like you will never get Night’s mark. You will bear mine.”
All my courage left with those words. “N-no! You can’t!”
But it was too late. His teeth had already sharpened into wolf’s fangs. He forced my head to the side until my joints cracked with pain and sank his teeth roughly into my throat.
My scream echoed through the caves. It felt like Troy was injecting venom straight into my veins, emulsifying my blood and guts together in one terrible mash. It burned. I couldn’t push him off. And then I felt Troy’s wolf reaching out to mine. My screams became shrieks as his wolf drew closer.
But my wolf was having fucking none of this. The moment his wolf neared, she turned on him, her own fangs bared. My wolf fought his off, using every bit of strength we had to beat him back until we formed a barrier between us so thick, nothing could penetrate it.
Finally, Troy violently pushed himself away from me, his anger and frustration reaching its peak. I fell back against the cave wall, relieved that his attempt to mark me hadn’t worked, even as what remained of my strength drained from my body and sank into the ground. I’d heard stories from Mom about Alphas from the old days, before there were rules in place for how they should behave. They could force a mating claim onto a female wolf without the need for sex or consent.
Those stories had always disturbed me. The fact that an Alpha would be able to steal another wolf’s mate from him by biting her first and forcing a claiming bond on her just seemed like the ultimate violation to both the wolves involved and to the greater pack. How could a pack trust an Alpha who felt he could take whatever and whoever he wanted at a moment’s notice? I was glad that the behavior was forbidden now, but that hadn’t stopped Troy.
I had been human when I heard those stories. Now, I knew that my wolf was strong enough to resist such a thing. Thank every pack mother.
But my relief was short-lived. As Troy paced back and forth like a caged animal, my blood gushed in worrying rivulets down my chest and back. It soaked into my shirt, and I wasn’t breathing so much as gulping for air. I knew somehow that I wasn’t dying, even though he had bitten me like he did Violet. Flashes of intense, burning pain throbbed through my body from my neck, but I was conscious, I was breathing. Still, something was wrong with me. His bite—it had put something inside me, something that didn’t belong.
“Why?” Troy whirled on me, his hands already forming into tight fists. “Why aren’t I good enough for you, bitch? Why?”
He fell on me with kicks and punches. Nowhere on my body was safe—head, stomach, and legs were all fair game. His beating was so severe that my body started to go numb until eventually, I was only dimly aware of the blows. But the ache in my neck persisted through the numbness. I could make out Troy’s voice as he yelled at me.
“Bitch! You bitch! I’ll fucking destroy Night Shepherd!” And then, a bit later, I heard, “I’ll tear your whore of a friend into pieces. I’ll send the pieces to Night, and then I’ll kill him in front of you and make you my fucking slave!”
