Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
There is a time when you wake up. Just a few seconds, nothing too long, but for the briefest of moments, when you wake, you're caught between that sleep and wakefulness and you forget every single awful thing in your life. And then reality hits you, and boom, the world around you crashes down and maybe it's worse than yesterday. Maybe it's harder and crueller than the event itself, because there was a moment of peace.
I could hardly breathe. My mother's face ... my father, all of it. I ... I didn't even know.
The cold seeped through my clothes, biting into my skin. Rough stone pressed against my back. I blinked, once, twice, willing the world to change, to shift back to something familiar. But the dim, unfamiliar room remained.
A weight dragged at my wrist. Metal bit into flesh as I moved. The chain clinked, a quiet sound that echoed like thunder in the silence.
My chest tightened. Each breath was a battle, lungs straining against ribs that felt like they were collapsing inward. The air was thick, heavy with the scent of damp stone and something metallic. Blood. My blood? Her blood?
Her eyes. Green, so green. Wide with ... what? Fear? Determination? Love?
Gone.
A sound escaped me. Low, guttural. It didn't sound human. It didn't sound like me. But it kept coming, tearing its way out of my throat until it filled the cell, bouncing off the walls, surrounding me.
My fingers scraped against the floor, nails catching on rough stone. I needed to hold onto something, anything. But there was nothing there. Nothing solid. Nothing real.
The chain rattled as I curled inward, forehead pressed to my knees. If I made myself small enough, maybe I'd disappear. Maybe I'd wake up again, and this time, that blissful moment of forgetfulness would last.
But I could still see it. The twist of his hands. The awful, final sound. The light fading from her eyes.
My stomach heaved. There was nothing to bring up, but my body tried anyway, convulsing, punishing me for ... for what? For not being strong enough? Fast enough? For not knowing?
The tears came without warning. Hot, relentless. They soaked into the fabric of my jeans, but I couldn't stop them. I didn't want to stop them. It was the only warmth in this cold place, the only thing that felt real.
I wanted to roar, to howl, to let my panther tear this place apart. But he was silent. Crushed under the weight of ... submission? Grief? I couldn't tell where I ended and he began anymore.
Time lost meaning. Had it been minutes? Hours? The ache in my body suggested the latter, but the ache in my chest ... that felt eternal.
My mother was dead and it was my fault.
My body heaved, the panther pushing at me. I scrambled, searching for something—anything. I hunched over a bucket in the corner. There was just enough chain for me to get to it. I vomited.
When I was done, I crouched forward on my knees, putting my hands to the side of my head and trying to hold in the sobs that wanted to rip from my body. "Mum ..." Her name fell from my lips, from my heart, from my very soul. I clutched my head, almost digging my nails into the sides of my face in a way to hold it all together. I clenched my fists and my panther roared inside me.
He wanted out. He wanted to come out and protect me. He pushed and I didn't have it in me to fight him off. I didn't have it in me to fucking stop him.
The first crack of bone sent shockwaves through my body. I gasped, the air burning in my lungs. My skin crawled, stretching, tearing. Fur erupted, black as night, as my spine contorted.
I tried to scream, but it came out as a roar. My hands—paws now—scrabbled at the stone floor, claws scraping, searching for purchase. The chain bit painfully into my leg, the cuff digging into flesh and fur.
My senses exploded. The damp stone, the lingering scent of vomit, the metallic tang of blood—my blood—all assaulted my nose. Every shadow seemed to move, every tiny sound echoed like thunder.
The panther's instincts flooded my mind. Danger. Trapt. Escape. But there was nowhere to go. My bones shifted and reformed, a sickening crackle filling the air.
As the transformation took hold, my clothes became a prison. Fabric constricted, tangled, suffocated. With a snarl, I twisted, clawing at my own body. My newly formed paws raked across my chest and legs, shredding cloth and skin, desperate to free myself from these human constraints.
Threads snapped and seams split under my frantic assault. I writhed on the cold stone floor, rolling and thrashing until finally, mercifully, the last scraps fell away. Tattered remains of my shirt and jeans lay scattered around me, reeking of fear and grief.
I stood, shaking out my fur. My body hadn't grown larger, but reshaped—sleek, powerful, four-legged. The chain still dragged behind me, the cuff biting into my leg just above the paw.
A keening sound escaped my throat, caught between a roar and a wail. I couldn't tell if it was me or the panther.
I lunged at the door, shoulders slamming against unyielding metal. Again. Again. Pain blossomed, but it was nothing compared to the agony in my chest. I clawed at the walls, at the floor, shredding my paws, leaving smears of blood.
Exhaustion eventually won out. I collapsed, sides heaving, tongue lolling. But even as my body stilled, my mind raced. Images flashed—green eyes, a twisted neck, a final breath. The panther didn't understand, couldn't comprehend the loss. He only knew pain, and the need to make it stop.
Darkness took me. In my dreams, it wasn't just my mother. It was Tia's. My soon-to-be mate. She called my name, urgent, pleading. It pulled at me, dragging me from the depths. My panther stirred, recognising her, reaching for the child inside her.
I clawed my way back to consciousness. Human again. Naked. Cold. The stone floor bit into my skin.
"I'm glad you're finally awake. You've been driving the pack crazy."
I cracked my eyes open. The man who claimed to be my father stood there. My mirror image, older. Half my genetics. But not my father. Never my father.
"I see you inherited my ability too." When I didn't move, he leant forward, his green eyes piercing. "You can feel everything, can't you? Feel what everyone feels. Their needs, their wants."
I glared at him, silent, seething.
He inhaled deeply. "It's a curse sometimes. Pushes against you. Everyone's always the same, so damn needy. They want this, they want that. I have to close it off just to save my own sanity." His lips curled into a sneer. "People are so whiny. But it works the other way too. Did you figure that out yet? You can send out what you feel?"
That's what he'd done to me at the flat, when he'd murdered my mother. He'd sent me my own grief, bundled up like a fucking gift so it swamped me and took me down.
My father was sitting on a chair outside the door to my cell. He leant forward to look at me, his legs wide, hands clasped between them. His eyes were such a shade of green. Bright. He had to be doing that on purpose. He wasn't a half-breed. He pushed out his ability and it came to me, a ripple across the floor.
I shuffled back. "Don't you fucking talk to me. I am nothing like you."
He chuckled, a sound that sent chills down my spine. "Oh, but you are, son. More than you know."
My father's power slowly reached out to me. I tried to move back more, trying to get out of its reach, and I ended up hitting the wall. I didn't get up, but I felt it seeping into me, cold and dark. Through my hand, black tendrils ran along underneath my skin.
I pushed against it naturally, not wanting anything from my father, even this. I used my own shield as I'd trained myself to do, pushing against them, feeling like it was something I could manipulate in a place different to reality. As if I could reach inside myself, me and my panther, and we could grab my father's power and not only hold it back but put our hands around it, shape it into a ball and push it right back to him.
But the more I did that, the more he did it back to me. He was strong and I was inexperienced. There was a reason he was the alpha of a pack. He pushed it through me like a sweep of cold air that went through the layers of my skin as if it travelled between muscle and skin all over my body.
He made my body wash with a lightness, a feeling that felt good and easy. I pushed against it because I didn't want to feel that. This wasn't the time nor the place. I needed to feel the grief for my mother, and I needed to get back to Tia.
"Stop it," I growled, teeth clenched. "Pack it the fuck in."
His green eyes bored into me, his panther clawing at mine. I pushed back, every muscle straining against his oppressive power.
My legs shook as I forced myself up. Sweat beaded on my forehead, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I didn't care that I was naked.
"You're strong," he said, a hint of pride in his voice. "With training, you'll be unstoppable."
"Fuck your training. You killed my mother," I spat, the words tasting like bile.
He didn't even flinch. "It was necessary."
"Necessary?" I slammed against the bars, ignoring the bite of the chain. "You snapped her neck like it was nothing."
"She broke pack rules. She knew the consequences."
My stomach churned, but I held my ground. "You claim to be my father. What rules could possibly justify murdering the mother of your child?"
He stood, matching my height. His eyes flashed dangerously. "She stole you from me. I am the alpha of this pack and you are my heir. She took that from both of us. All these years. Seventeen of them, I have searched for you. I have turned the world upside down looking for you."
"That still doesn't make it right."Tears burnt hot tracks down my cheeks. I didn't wipe them away. "You had a choice. Why didn't you just knock on my door and say 'Hey, Raven. Guess what? I'm your dad?' Why ..." My voice broke. "She was my mother, and you took her."
He stepped closer to the gate. Close enough that if I wasn't chained, I could have wrung his fucking neck. "There are rules within the pack. No one is above them. No one is immune to them. She knew them. She understood them and she made her choices. Her death was written years ago when she chose to steal you. Anything that happened to her was her own doing." He inhaled deeply. "I will not argue this with you. It is done now."
My hands clenched the bars, knuckles white. "That's bullshit, and you know it. She was a fourteen year old girl, when you got her pregnant, and a child herself."
His gaze raked over me, lip curling. "And because of that, she made you weak, I see. She didn't forge you into the man you were destined to become, but maybe her death will do that for you. Grief can be strength. This is your rightful place."