Page 176 of Hard Knot

"So it's fun to be raped, right?" Elizabeth's whisper carries in the frozen silence.

My mind stutters to a halt.

What? Raped... when...

Elizabeth's laugh sends chills down my spine – it's hollow, filled with a pain I've never heard from her before. She points at Marissa's face, making her flinch backward.

The realizations hit me like physical blows, each one stealing my breath.

She was raped.

She went into Heat...

She ran away...

She hid...

Only to be found by the wrong people...

They...

They raped her?

Touched my Eli.

My woman...

Suddenly, all the pieces fall into place with devastating clarity. The reason she abandoned everything, why she never set foot on Harvard soil again. How could anyone return to a place where academic dreams turned into nightmares?

My girl endured all that alone.

Elizabeth's voice cuts through my thoughts, raw with five years of suppressed agony.

"Your douche of a man and his friends enjoyed restraining me while I was in fucking Heat!" The words pour out of her like poison from a wound. "They fucked me until I couldn't even walk, blood running down my legs. I had to wait until pitch black to crawl and hide like some whimpering animal because they couldn't control their Alpha pheromones – but I'm the slut? I'm the bitch? I'm the one who doesn't deserve a pack?"

Her scream reverberates through the room, years of pain finally breaking free. She turns on Marissa, rage and hurt radiating from every pore.

"Okay Marissa, let me be the problem then and think what you want, but if I ever come back here for any holiday dinner and you're here, trust me, I'll do something you'll most definitely regret, and yes. It's a threat, so don't you fucking dare tempt me."

She spins on her heel and storms out. I'm moving before I can process the decision, my only thought is to reach her, to somehow help her carry this burden she's been shouldering alone.

A hand grabs my arm, and I turn to find Marissa clutching at me.

The mere touch of her makes my skin crawl, and I fix her with a glare that makes her flinch.

"Wait," she starts, "maybe I can work this?—"

The crack of a gunshot splits the air.

A thin line of red appears on Marissa's cheek, blood welling up from the precise graze of a bullet. She releases me instantly, and we both turn toward the source.

Holmes stands with his weapon drawn, but what catches my attention is his injured eye – now open and revealed to be prosthetic. The artificial eye gives him an otherworldly appearance, especially combined with the cold precision of his stance.

"Stop him again," he says with deadly calm, "and I won't miss."

Our eyes meet briefly, and I understand the message in his nod.

He'll handle things here – I need to get to Elizabeth.

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