2. Cherry #3
“Time to play musical Cherry!” Chase teases as they have to weave around Gage, making sure nobody loses contact with me.
I miss seeing Hunter strip, while never losing contact with me, leaving him on the couch in just his boxers as his hands find their way to my waist and he slowly starts to pull me backward into his lap.
“I don’t think you needed to take your shirt off,” Gage says as he watches me get settled in his lap. I tilt my head back and take a deep inhale of Hunter’s intoxicating pine and citrus scent.
“I think I did,” Hunter says in amusement. I glance up at him over my shoulder, and he winks at me, then leans down and kisses my cheek, making me blush. That only causes him to smile even bigger.
“Cherry?” Maddox says, getting my attention. He’s still sitting right in front of me, his hands on my knees, leaning toward me.
“When we found you, where did you come from?”
His question surprises me, and I push back against Hunter as I feel my pulse start to race.
“I don’t want to go back there,” I tell him as I start to curl in on myself, forcing them to move a little closer or risk losing the connection.
“Cherry, we would never ever send you back there, or anywhere you don’t want to go,” Maddox tells me firmly.
“We need to know so we can protect you from them,” Hunter explains before placing a soft kiss behind my ear, making my body shudder.
“And so we can slaughter every last one of them,” Chase adds.
“Chase!” Maddox yells, turning his angry eyes on him.
“What? She needs to know we’ll rip the world apart to keep her safe.”
“Really?” I ask, turning my wide eyes to Chase, who’s now sitting beside me.
“Of course, pretty girl. I’d burn the whole damn world down if you asked me to.”
“Not the world,” I say, reaching up with a free hand to cup his cheek. “Just the facility where I was kept.”
“Facility?” Gage asks, grasping onto that one word. “What facility? Where?”
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t even know what state it’s in. What state are we in?” I ask, turning to him.
“Nebraska,” Chase answers for me.
“Huh,” I say, realizing I’m a long way from the last place I remember being with my family in Illinois.
“Is it true you haven’t shifted in five years?” Gage asks.
I nod and lick my lips as I look at them, nervously waiting for what questions are coming next.
“Why?” Bain is the one to ask it, and I take a deep breath as I risk a glance at him.
“You won’t like the answer,” I warn him.
“Cherry,” he says, his fingers digging into my thigh. “Just because I don’t like the answer doesn’t mean I don’t want to know. If anything, it’s the opposite. I want to know everything about you.”
I shake my head once as I whisper, “I don’t think I can tell you everything.”
“Let’s start small,” Maddox suggests, pulling my attention back to him. “Why couldn’t you shift?”
“It was safer in my wolf form.”
“Safer from what?” Chase asks.
“From the guards. I…” I trail off as I glance around at the anger-filled eyes. Maddox's green eyes capture my focus, looking more understanding than the rest. So I focus on him as I explain. “I didn’t want them touching my body. It felt safer to stay in my wolf form.”
“Guards…” Maddox says with a nod, though I can see his jaw tensing. “Were they supposed to be protecting you, or were you a prisoner?”
“A prisoner,” I say, taking a deep breath as I prepare to tell them the rest. “When I was fourteen, I was on a run in the woods with my family. They came out of nowhere and killed my parents and both my sisters, but they left me alive for some reason.”
Several of them swear, and I move my eyes down, focusing on Maddox’s exquisite chest as I continue quickly, needing to get it out.
“Dr. J experimented on me and took my blood. One day, he pushed it too far and killed me. Imagine my surprise when I came back to life. I realized he’d done something to me. And after that, he continued to experiment with different ways to take my life.”
“How old are you?” Gage asks, and when I look at him, his face is etched in pain.
“Twenty-four,” I answer, my voice shaking as memories start to rise to the surface.
“So you were trapped there for ten years?” Hunter asks, and I nod once. His arms move up to wrap around my front as he whispers into my neck, “I’m so fucking sorry they did that to you.”
My eyes fill with tears, and I spin around and throw my arms around his neck, feeling the urge to hug him properly. It lasts two seconds before I feel my body shift back to my wolf form. But I don’t move, I keep my nose pressed to his neck as he runs a hand up and down my back.
“Shit, sorry. She pulled away too fast,” Gage says with a sigh.
“I think that’s probably enough for today anyway,” Maddox tells him.
I feel raw, not just from so much talking after years of silence, but from bringing up bad memories, ones that consumed my life up until a few weeks ago.
Sometimes when I wake up, late at night, I panic, thinking I’m still back there.
It’s why I love to sleep with them. Their scents are always the first thing I notice, reminding me where I am and that I’m safe now.
My body starts to sink further into Hunter as I grow tired. Maybe from shifting, or maybe from the emotional toll of what I just told them. Either way, it has me inhaling Hunter’s pine and citrus scent and letting that lull me into a deep sleep.