Page 27 of Betrayed Bullied Mate

But I know that I have to look. I have to witness it, or the vision will never end.

Slowly, I crack open an eye and turn, seeing the corner of a bed come into view. It’s a bed I’ve never seen before, but I recognize the foot resting on the end. It’s my foot, painted with the same shade of pink I’ve been using for years.

Another ear-splitting scream tears through the room, and I take a step back, looking on in horror at myself, disheveled and bloody, as I scream and cry like someone is twisting a knife in my back. I clamp my eyes shut again and turn, trying to rip open the door to get out of the room, but it’s locked. I start to bang against it, crying out for help, screaming in pain, feeling the blood on my thighs when something soft and warm closes around my wrists.

The pain in my head is back, throbbing persistently, and I realize the door is gone, and I’m trying to pound my fists against Aris’s chest. He releases one of my hands, which I let fall loosely to my side, and uses his other hand to cover my mouth, silencing the scream I didn’t know I was releasing.

I breathe haggardly against his hand, and he moves it away so I can suck in deep gulps of air. My entire body is shaking, trembling like a leaf, and I can see Aris’s lips move, but I still can’t hear, the ringing in my ears far too loud.

Because I can’t talk, or think, I just reach up and put my arms around him, asking for comfort the only way I can. Aris goes stiff for a moment, and I think what he’s just witnessed is too much for him, but then he eases, pulling me fully into his lap. I bury my face in his chest and cry, trying to put the image of myself, covered in blood, out of my head.

Chapter 15 - Aris

I hold Linnea in my arms, trying not to panic over the way her body is still trembling, soft earthquakes of tremors shaking through her every couple of seconds like she’s remembering something terrible over and over again.

I put a cool washcloth on her forehead and try to comfort her, but she just grips my shirt like it’s a lifeline and murmurs into my chest. My hearing is stellar, but I’m pretty sure she’s just mumbling nonsense.

“Linnea?” I whisper again, trying to bring her back to herself so I can figure out what the fuck just happened. Of course, I’ve had great sex before, but I’ve never had a woman break into hysterics seconds after we cuddled in bed. I run my hand over her forehead and worry, wondering if there’s something I don’t know about the blood-bond that might have hurt her.

As far as I know, shifters and non-shifters are perfectly safe mating, but I’m not an expert on the subject. All the couples I knew could both shift, and I wonder if I’ve been too rough with her, not realizing my strength.

When she’d started screaming, I’d broadcasted to the team, telling them everything was okay and not to come to our cabin. If I was a different man, they might have ignored that order, but I felt their trust, their knowledge that whatever was happening, it wasn’t at my hands.

Everything okay? Bigby sends as soon as the screaming stops.

Not sure. No idea what the fuck is going on.

Those didn’t sound like the good kind of screams, Man.

No, they were not, I say, and then, I’ll call you if I need you.

Still exhausted from my days without sleep, I’d fallen asleep almost immediately after we finished. With Linnea in my arms and nothing pressing regarding the mission, my body could finally relax.

Then she’d ripped away from me and started screaming. Because my hearing is so sensitive, it was especially piercing, and a true fearful panic flushed through my body, lighting up my senses. It was like being doused with cold water after a warm bath.

Holding her, I immediately glanced at the various windows and smelled the air—but the only thing there was the familiar mixed scent of my team. Nothing unusual that would make Linnea scream like this.

I said her name, held her tight, whispered to her, and tried to get her to calm down, but nothing was working. After a second, the screaming stopped, but she was still whimpering, crying softly as I held her, her eyes moving rapidly behind her eyelids, her body jerking violently in my arms.

It was like she was having a nightmare I couldn’t wake her up from.

Her eyelids flutter, and she looks up at me with tears in her eyes. I struggle to hold myself back from asking her a million questions and instead just wait for her to say something. The intense protectiveness I feel right now is firing on all cylinders, demanding I take out whatever has caused her to freak out like this.

“Aris?” she says, her voice hoarse from the screams.

“I’m here,” I say, leaning over to the nightstand and giving her a glass of water. “Can you talk to me?”

“Yeah,” she says weakly, pulling herself into a sitting position and sighing. She stretches her body, and I hear several places pop. How much tension was she holding during her episode?

We sit there quietly for a moment, and then she starts to speak.

“I started having visions when I was just a kid. At first, I just thought they were dreams. And then, one night, I had a very vivid dream that my carpool was going to crash on the way to school—I went to that elementary school out of town when we first moved here, and I’d ride with another mom and her kids. The school was girls-only, private, and high-brow. I couldn’t explain to my mom why I needed her to drive me, and we fought about it. She finally gave in and drove me to school when I refused to get in the minivan with the other girls. An hour after class started, we got the news that two of my classmates had died in the crash, and the mom was in intensive care.”

I’m staring at her, wide-eyed. I’ve never heard of a shifter having visions like this. Obviously, Linnea can’t actually shift—but there must be something in her blood to give her premonitions. She grips her hands around the glass of water, her fingers wiping through the condensation.

“Anyway, they just got more and more intense as I got into high school. They veered away from peaceful things—like I might see that someone in the pack was going to propose or something—and into darker territory. I started seeing exclusively bad things like robberies, murders, assaults, that kind of thing. I hated them. Besides, the only person who believed me was my mom. Even my dad chalked it up to some luck and a very active imagination. He just said I should be a detective because clearly my mind picked up on stuff.”

I know I’ve met her parents at pack functions before, but I can’t imagine what they look like. Looking through my memory, I try to pull up an image of them, but I can’t. I think of Linnea on her knees in front of me, trying to comfort me about my dad and remember what she had said. I lost my parents, too, Aris.

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