Page 23 of Wicked

“Yeah, but I still had a choice. I could have stopped myself if I had really wanted to.”

He pauses, clearly uncomfortable. I suppose he should be. Those omegas were at my mercy, and I took what I wanted from them again and again. I was a monster in the pits.

“You were in the pits with Timber, right?” Candlewick asks.

“Yes, I was in the pits with Timber.” I hate how often he talks about it, even though I know he does it to raise money for the sanctuary. He makes it sound like the alphas were victims too, even though we weren’t. We were the ones who had all the control, and we abused that control.

It’s something I think God will never forgive me for, no matter how many children I save.

“I saw that YouTube video Timber made about his experience in the pits. He said you were given so many meds, most of the alphas died from withdrawal after you were rescued.”

Memories I don’t want to deal with slam into me. Men clutching at their chests and gasping for breath. Doctors swarming each of them in turn, powerless to stop the damage. In the end, only five of the alphas survived. The doctors were surprised I made it. They expected me to be one of the first to die because we were all given the same dose, and I was the smallest.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I say, finally pulling my hand away from his.

“Okay, that’s fair. I won’t bring it up again, but can I say one more thing before we close this book forever?” he asks.

I sigh. “Okay.”

“The people who put you in that pit set everything up so it would be impossible for you to control yourself. Think about it. Did anyone there manage to resist having sex? Weren’t you all religious when you got there? If it was possible to resist, don’t you think someone would have?”

I hadn’t thought about it like that. But Candlewick doesn’t understand.

“We were all grieving the loss of our families. Once you get taken to the pits, you can never return to the compound. You’re excommunicated. Forsaken. When we woke up in that horrible place, we knew we had lost everything.”

More memories come flooding back. There was gauze in my mouth when I woke up. My gums were numb, but I felt the gauze with my cheeks. When I stuck my finger in there, it was bloody because of what they’d taken from me.

We didn’t just lose our homes. We lost our ability to bond to our mates. The rest of the guys got dental implants through a nonprofit organization after we were rescued. Anne paid for very good dentures for me instead.

The dental implants made it impossible for Timber and the others to take their wolf forms. My wolf form is necessary for our missions.

Tears well in Candlewick’s eyes. “The psychological part of the abuse doesn’t make you responsible. It makes what they did to you even more insidious. They knew your religion. They knew what sex outside the sacred rituals of a bond would mean to you and how difficult it would be to get you to do it, and theyplannedfor that. They gave you so many drugs, you wouldn’t be able to resist. What happened in the pits was not your fault.”

Maybe everything Candlewick is saying should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. It just makes me feel raw and upset.

“You’re saying I mounted all those omegas against my will? How does that make sense? Are we just not responsible for our actions if we’re on medication? There are a lot of people who take medication, Candlewick.”

He squeezes my hand. “You’re right. But if you had somehow managed to resist having sex, even after the medication, what do you think would have happened?”

“I… don’t know.”

“I think they would have given you more meds or maybe even killed you. It was never a choice, Manny. It wasn’t meant to be. They would have done whatever it took to force you to have sex.”

If it wasn’t Candlewick telling me all this, I’d tell him this was none of his business and that he was wrong.

But it is his business. That’s the horrible thing. What happened to me in the pits is affecting my interaction with Candlewick right now.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be sorry. This isn’t your fault.”

I wish he would stop saying that. “If it isn’t my fault, then what part of my life is my fault? Am I just the product of whatever experiences I’ve had? I understand that the pits were bad. Believe me, I do. I just don’t want to be defined by that time in my life. I’m stronger than that.”

He gives me a sad smile. “You mean you aren’t weak?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I’ve never met a survivor of abuse who was.”

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