Chapter 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 lived with 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.
Goddamn stupid name. Of all the names I could have picked. I nod, anyway.
Cassia’s lips curve. “And will your pirate lover, Captain Jackson, be making an appearance?”
I gape at her. “You read that book too?”
“Well, it was a number-one bestseller a few years back,” she says with a shrug.
“That garbage was a bestseller?”
She laughs. “I think it had more to do with Captain Jackson’s physical prowess than the plot, but yes. Indeed, a bestseller,” she adds quickly. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” She winks.
Great. Just fucking great.
Her expression warms. “I promise, Bluebelle. Or would you prefer I call you something else?”
“Mo,” I mutter.
Fuck. Why did I tell her that?
I don’t know. Maybe because she’s the one who cut the wires out of me. Maybe because she cracked a joke about a shitty pirate romance, and for one stupid second, I felt like a normal person having a normal conversation.
“Mo,” she nods. “Now. How about some water? You must be dehydrated.”
I eye the glass she offers. My throat feels like I’ve been chewing gravel, and every survival instinct I have screams for water. I take it. Gulp it down. Cold, clean, gone before I can taste it. My body wants more before the first glass is even empty.
Cassia refills it without being asked. Then she studies me for a moment. “Let’s get you outside. Shifting will help you heal. Your body needs it badly. Once you shift, the wolfsbane will be fully out of your system, but your skin will remain tender for a little while.”
My pulse kicks up. Outside means open air. Open air means forest. Forest means freedom.
I nod, keeping my face carefully blank.
We step outside, and the fresh air hits me. Earthy, alive. Pine needles and damp soil, and the faint sweetness of wildflowers somewhere nearby. My wolf claws at the surface, desperate, begging to be let out.
I let the shift take me. Bones crack and reshape, muscles stretch and rearrange, fur sprouts across my body.
The relief is instant. I’ve lived with the wolfsbane coursing through me for so long that I forgot what I was supposed to feel like without it.
The second I’m on four paws, I tense to sprint.
This is it. I’m out. I’m gone.
But then my wolf does something I absolutely do not authorize.
She howls. Not a run-for-your-life howl. A happy howl. A hey-everybody-look-at-me howl. And then she takes off running, but not toward the tree line.
Toward a group of massive wolves near the edge of the clearing.
What the actual fuck?
Stop! I scream inside my own head. Turn around, you idiot!
She ignores me. Not even a flicker of hesitation. She barrels toward the other wolves, yipping and prancing and wagging her tail so hard, our whole back end swings with it. I watch in absolute horror as she throws herself at them, rolling and play-fighting with wolves three times her size.
Their scents hit me all at once. Each one is different, each one making my tail wag harder, which should be impossible because it’s already going at full speed.
Sensual amber, steeped in citrus and sandalwood, rich leather mixed with clove and cedar, and the sweet, comforting scent of the mossy forest after rain.
I leap onto a grey wolf and nip at his ears, then tumble away and circle back, pouncing on a leaner brown one who lets out a surprised bark.
“Stop it!” I beg my wolf. “We don’t play with alphas! You’re making a fool of yourself!”
A huge black wolf stands apart from the others, watching. Even in wolf form, I recognize those icy blue eyes. Darius. His scent drifts faintly on the autumn breeze: pine, wood-smoke and a hint of black pepper. My stomach does a traitorous flip. My wolf’s stomach. Not mine. Let’s be clear.
“This isn’t happening,” I groan as my wolf flops onto her back, legs splayed, belly exposed.
I retreat deep into my own mind because I cannot watch this. My wolf, the fierce creature who kept me alive for three years in the wilderness, is rolling in the dirt with our kidnappers and having the time of her life.
You’re a traitorous little whore, and we’ll be discussing this later, I tell her.
But beneath the shame, I feel something else.
Her joy. And it’s not small or quiet. It’s huge.
It fills every part of me, warm and aching and desperate.
How long has it been since she felt safe enough to play?
How long since she’s been around other wolves at all?
I’ve been denying her pack for three years.
Forcing her to survive alone when everything inside her screamed for closeness, for warmth, for the comfort of belonging somewhere.
I hate this. I hate them. I hate how good it feels.
Fuck. We really have been lonely, haven’t we?
No. I shake the thought away. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong to anyone.
But my wolf’s joyful yips fill the air, and I can’t pretend I don’t feel what she feels. We’ve been starved for this.
Both of us.