She was beautiful. Long, wavy brown hair, falling to the middle of her back. Eyes the color of the sky on a clear, summer day. A perfectly-sculpted heart-shaped face with luscious, full lips that curled into a small smile. She wore jeans and a graphic t-shirt, but it didn’t matter. There were no flaws on her pale skin, no scars and no blemishes. Her looks, I knew, put mine to shame.
And then Forest whispered a word that made me want to vomit, because even though I had a nagging suspicion, it was too much to be faced with it outright. He inched off me as he spoke in awe, “Hannah.” He crawled off the couch, walking measuredly to Hannah’s side, knives digging into my heart with each step he took.
“That’s right,” Hannah said, staring at me, “stop playing with the kid.” Her gaze moved to Forest, who now stood before her, his hands touching her hips, drawing her to him. “You know I’m the only one you want.”
Forest actually nodded—the bastard nodded, and I felt the betrayal in my bones. I wanted to crawl under the couch cushions and die. Anything would be better than this. This was the worst kind of torture, making me feel insignificant, worthless. Nothing more than a kid playing at an adult’s game, the game of love.
I watched in horror as their mouths crashed together, as they exchanged the passion of familiar, heated lovers who knew how to make each other feel good. Hannah ran her hands down Forest’s back, her nails more like claws, leaving red scratches in their wake. Forest must’ve liked it, for he broke their kiss and moaned into her neck.
As he drew his lips all along her, Hannah turned her head, smiling at me. “Poor girl. You know you’ll never take my place. When given the choice, he will always choose me…his heart will never be yours .” Forest started to help her out of her clothes, and I had to look away.
Watching Forest and Hannah together was both intrusive and wrong. Intrusive because I knew it’d been a long time since they’ve been together, so they were bound to want privacy—and wrong because I wished I was in Hannah’s place. All those things Forest said to me, did he mean any of it, or was he just biding his time until his old flame came back? It hurt, deep inside, knowing he’d leave me so easily.
But then, I never really had him to begin with, did I?
Hannah’s next words cut to the bone, so sharp and unyielding I flinched. “I’ll always be better than you in his eyes. You can’t beat a dead woman.”
Though I stared at my own feet, I closed my eyes. The pain in my chest would not dissipate, and what Hannah said, it was one hundred percent true. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much, because I knew it was the truth.
Yes, that had to be why I felt the tears welling in my eyes, fresh and new, formed solely for Forest and his mate.
Hannah. Hannah was his mate, not me. I was nothing to him. Just a packmate, a pup. I was a child in his eyes, nothing more. Why, oh why had I started to believe something different? It was a recipe for disaster. I deserved the sharp pain in my chest, the ache seeping from my heart like a loss to my very soul.
Had I ever felt this sad, this shattered?
I heard their breathing increase, the sounds of clothes falling to the floor. I refused to look, refused to further break my own heart, even if this was all my fault. I should never have gotten all doe-eyed, never have let myself develop a crush on the alpha. Logic and common sense told me all the different ways it was a bad idea, but I didn’t listen. Like a girl in a teenage vampire movie, I’d gone after him anyway, even though I shouldn’t.
Stupid. I was stupid.
Bodies moved, and still I did not look. I should get up and walk away, leave them to their business. I didn’t need to see or hear any of this. It would only hurt me more, send me spiraling. I kept my head to the side, staring at the windows in the front of the room, swinging my legs off the couch, but I couldn’t stand.
Hands grabbed me, coming out of nowhere, keeping me in place. Landon and Dylan held my arms, Landon fully clothed, looking enraged about what happened earlier, and Dylan missing his left arm, a bloody mess pooling on the cushion under it. No tourniquet to staunch the blood flow, bone and marrow visible.
Okay, so I couldn’t move, but at least I didn’t have to watch—
A set of hands grabbed my face, slick and gooey. They held onto my cheeks, forcing my face to turn from the window. I kept my eyes closed, squeezed so tightly they started to hurt. They were Maze’s hands, and I knew they were missing the top layer of skin.
Why did they want me to witness this? Why did they want me to watch? My heart could not take much more, and never, not once in my life had I ever dealt with a broken heart before. I wasn’t sure if I could take it.
Maze crouched behind me on the couch, leaning in to whisper, “If you don’t open those eyes, I’ll have your eyelids cut off.” Maze spoke, but it was not his voice. This voice was lower, harsher and meaner, frightening. And his threat—I believed each and every word of it.
Tears welled in the corners of my eyes as I slowly opened them, lifting my lids enough to see the two figures before me, entwined in each other, completely lost in passion. They were on the floor, Hannah now naked and Forest on top of her. Her legs were wide open, wrapped around him as he thrust into her, moving his hips in a steady, fluid rhythm. Hannah writhed under him, moaning, her hands tangled in his black hair, her chest bouncing with every pound of his hips.
I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t—I couldn’t—I could barely get my thoughts together. At least my tears blurred my vision enough that I could try to pretend it wasn’t Forest and Hannah, just two random people, getting it on in their living room. But with all the groaning coming from Forest, I was swiftly reminded that these people weren’t strangers. It was a pointless thought.
All of it was pointless.
What was worse was that Hannah was right. I could never hold a torch to a dead woman. Death made martyrs of its victims, immortalized them, made them seem better and untouchable. Forest would always choose Hannah, simply because he couldn’t. She was the dream, the lost love, the path forgotten and abandoned.
Hannah was everything I wasn’t.
I felt my spirits sink. Actually, I might not have spirits at all. my inner peace, what little I had after witnessing my mates losing their minds, was shattered now. There would be no coming back from it, no changing it. The tears that fell from my eyes would never stop.
I was broken, and unlike Hannah, I wasn’t dead. No one would immortalize me, no one would worship me the way Forest worshipped Hannah.
My mates released their holds on me, seemingly disappearing from the room in the blink of an eye. Maze’s touch lingered, long after he vanished. The tears I cried did not stop, did not lessen, though they did pick up when I heard a telltale groan from Forest. I couldn’t see it, but I could imagine it well enough: his body tensing, his eyes closing, fingers and toes clenching as his cock released itself inside Hannah.
God, this was the worst day of my life.
I wanted to die.
Chapter Three – Addie
“Holy death, Addie,” a low, menacing voice was the first in my head, welcoming me back to the real world as he chuckled, “that one was intense, and completely messed up. I loved it.” His chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh as I struggled to open my eyes.
My real eyes this time, not the eyes of dream-me. Though I wasn’t sure the distinction mattered much anymore.
Clay sat on a chair he’d whipped up with magic, not ten feet from me, his brown eyes boring into me. He wore his typical dark suit, his black hair slicked back. He was whole today, whatever day this was, because he’d drained a woman not too long ago. His hands on the armrests were painted black, his face the same, save for the single white line traveling down his forehead, over his nose and mouth, down his chin and neck.
How many days had I been here? How many people had I seen him drain? Two? Three? My mind was a mess, and I couldn’t remember much. Though, terribly enough, I had no problems remembering my awful induced nightmares—nightmares that C
lay watched over like a peeping Tom, tainting and sullying them when he could, just for kicks.
All of these mind games, all because he wanted to have fun with me.
This was the very opposite of fun in my book, but Clay never seemed to care what I thought.
“Water,” I croaked.
Clay waved a hand, his eyes flashing red for only a second. A cup of water appeared beside me, and I practically lunged for it, the chains on my wrists dragging on the floor, metal on wood. We were still in the murder cabin, though I had the feeling it wasn’t in the same place it was before. Why would Clay want to stay in the clearing? He had everything he wanted, now. He had me.
At least he was feeding me, giving me water, letting me use a magical toilet every now and then in between the mental torture. I supposed it could’ve been worse, although not by much.
“It seems you have a little thing for your alpha,” Clay mused, crossing his long legs, tilting his head, as if he was some kind of therapist and this was our session, in a windowless cabin that, for once, was not decorated in blood. Three hundred square feet of nothing, unless he magically brought out other things, like his chair and the toilet I mentioned. A fireplace sat on one of the shorter walls, no chimney, burning an eternal red flame, the color of the death priest’s magic.
I did not want to talk about Forest, not after seeing that. “I have three mates,” I whispered, my throat still dry, even after the water.
Forest was not mine. He was Hannah’s. Though it had been nothing more than a nightmare, everything had felt so real, and everything Hannah had said made sense. Who could ever stand on the same ground as a dead woman? Certainly not me. I was…
Well, at this point in time, I was useless. I could not break free of my chains, despite trying. Of course, Clay hardly gave me time alone in my head, always wanting to play with me further, and when he left the cabin, he always threw me into another nightmare.
“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about them. The drama is so much more fun, don’t you think? Oh—” Clay leaned forward in his chair. “—you’re crying.” He drew himself off his chair, moving towards me.
Setting the cup down after emptying it, I tried to reach for my face, but the manacles around my wrists suddenly grew to be a hundred pounds each. My hands fell to the floor, unable to move. All I’d wanted was to see if I was indeed crying, like he’s said. I couldn’t feel if I was.
Clay knelt before me, bringing his smiling face down on me. He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look up at him. With the paint on his skin, it was impossible to know how old he was. Twenty? Thirty? Forty? It didn’t matter. I found myself trembling in his grip all the same, especially when he whispered, “I do so love the sight of tears. Makes me feel like I accomplished something, you know? Makes me feel powerful.”
“I hate you,” I muttered, knowing it was a mistake the second I said it.
He brought his hands to my head, thumbs pressing down on my temples. “Oh dear, that’s a pity, because we’ve only just begun.” The pressure Clay put on my head made me feel like it was going to explode, a balloon ready to pop, filled with too much air. “My master says I can’t kill you, not yet, in case we need more of your blood, but he said nothing about keeping your mind intact.”
He’d taken a generous helping of my blood the first night, after he’d drained the homeless man. Cut me open, let my bleed out into a bucket, which had promptly disappeared with the help of magic. Whoever his master was, whatever he wanted, he was one step closer to getting it.
“I can’t help but wonder how well your inner wolf would respond to a similar form of torture?” Clay finished, the brown in his stare flashing a glowing, bright red. Before I could try to fight him, before I could respond, my entire world faded to black.
It felt like hours before I felt the familiarity of the forest floor under me. The scent of wet leaves, dirt below me, earthy and musky. I was slow to open my eyes to a world of night. The forest of my mind surrounded me, the forest where my inner wolf was. I struggled to get to my feet.
Clay stood beside me, dramatically breathing in. “I do have to say, none of the other shifters had a place like this for their wolf. They were one and the same. I think I smell your father’s magic at work here.”
I vaguely remembered my mom confessing that she and my father had tried to keep my shifter side buried, but it was hard to think, harder to remember the past, since it felt like years ago. As I straightened myself out, I wondered how long Clay would keep me, how much more I could take. Always prodding my mind, caught in never-ending nightmares. How much could one person’s sanity take before it broke completely?
“Call your wolf,” Clay ordered.
It was a moment before I muttered a soft, “No.” I could feel her; I knew she was nearby, but she kept her distance, knowing that if she stepped out of the tree line, Clay would have her. My wolf was smart. Smarter than me, in a way.
I was so stupid. I should never have gone with Clay to begin with.
“If you don’t call her, you will force me to use extreme measures, which I can guarantee you won’t like,” he told me, turning his body to me. Clay took a step closer, grabbing my arms, his grip iron tight. I might as well have been shackled to him. “If you don’t call her, I’ll have to think up some other ways to draw her here.”
Though my heart beat at a record-setting pace, I refused to give him what he wanted. “I won’t.” God, even in here, my lips were dry. I needed some Chapstick, something.
Thinking about Chapstick only distracted me for a second though, until Clay threw me back to the ground.
“Then I’m sorry, but you give me no choice.” He came down on top of me, holding my hands above my head, pinning my body back with his. I was too weak to stop him, too feeble and broken in my mind to fight him as I should. “Remember,” Clay whispered, his face closing in on mine, “you chose this route. I gave you a way out.” Both of my wrists fit in one of his hands, freeing up his other to do whatever he pleased.
If I felt like I was going to die before, I really wanted to die now.
Clay started clawing at my clothes, tearing them. I could hardly move, my pathetic “No” and “Stop” didn’t do much at all.
He acted like he couldn’t hear me, focusing intently on shredding my clothes and getting me naked. Powerless. I was utterly powerless here, and I hated it more than anything. I couldn’t focus on my magic, wherever it was; I could only feel his black hands touching me in places he most certainly shouldn’t.
My fright, the terror in my heart was enough.
A growl erupted from the forest as a brown wolf stepped out. Bits of fur around her head were highlighted pink, her green eyes glimmering a shimmery and metallic hue. She seemed healthier than she was before, thicker and more muscular. Odd, given how weak I felt. Maybe, with all of this, we’d lost the connection we’d forged the last time I was in Clay’s clutches.
I was about to call to my wolf, to tell her to run, but Clay clamped a hand on my mouth, holding my jaw closed. A red mist seeped up from the ground below my wolf, catching the beast, becoming tangible as its tendrils wrapped around her four legs and held her in place.
Clay got what he wanted after all. my wolf, served on a silver platter.
He heaved himself off me, releasing my wrists, not giving me a second look. Simulating a rape. How lovely.
“There you are,” Clay mused, grinning. “You’re looking better, aren’t you?”
My wolf, unable to run or to attack, simply growled, baring her teeth.
I rolled to my side, pushing myself up. my arms gave out, and I fell to the ground, the exhaustion too much. “Leave her alone,” I muttered, aware I didn’t sound very convincing or assertive. Hard to be either, when I felt like giving up.
Clay threw a look that, even under his black paint, I recognized. It said more than words could: he wasn’t going to leave her alone; he was going to do the very opposite. He was going to make my wolf howl in pain, torture my inner beas
t just as he’d been toying with me.
A metal dagger appeared in Clay’s hand, forming out of a red mist. He practically skipped to my wolf as he said, “Now, now, let’s show Addie how much fun you and I can have. First, I want to show her how you bleed. Blood is one of my favorite things, you know. Makes me all giddy inside.” He reached the wolf, locking eyes with me as he dragged the tip of the dagger along its side, not enough to break the skin. Just taunting.
I once more went to stand. This time, my feet held me, but my triumph was cut short when Clay dug the dagger past the wolf’s fur. When she howled, yelping in pain, I knew he’d hurt her, put the metal to her flesh and cut her. That would not fly.
Just when I was about to call out, to demand Clay deal with me and let my wolf go, a sharp, stabbing pain erupted on my hip. I glanced down, spotting a slice in my skin, dark red blotting on the torn clothes that still hung on my body.
“Oh, my,” Clay said, watching me now, the hand not holding the dagger gripping my wolf’s head, fingers tugging at the fur. “You are connected, aren’t you? But you don’t shift…amazing.” My wolf yelped again when he yanked her head up and placed the dagger under the wolf’s neck.
I felt my own hair being pulled, as if right out of my skull. I saw the tip of the blade glinting in the darkness, and I knew I had to do something fast.
“So if I do this…” Clay dug in the dagger, breaking both the wolf’s and my skin on my lower right throat. Just a scratch for now, but it was enough to send my mind into overdrive. I couldn’t let him continue this sick and twisted game. “I’ve never seen such a thing before.”
It didn’t matter, because he’d never see anything like this again.
An invisible force gathered around me, my anger and my rage fueling me. This time, I knew my magic would not let me down. I rose a hand, swatting it to the side as if I was batting away an annoying fly that would not leave me alone.
Almost immediately, Clay’s body was thrown from my wolf, his back landing hard against a nearby tree. His hand dropped the dagger, the metal weapon fading into a red mist before it hit the ground.
Crystal Lake Pack: The Complete Series: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance Page 39