Page 59 of Ravaged Wolf
Still, I ask, very quietly, “When you did it, did youknowyou were doing it?”
He tenses, and his lungs catch. For a second, neither of us breathes. Then he exhales slowly. Intentionally.
“Yes and no. Afterward, I remembered everything I did. In the moment, I wasn’t there.” His voice has dropped a register, but he speaks very deliberately. “My wolf wasn’t there, either.”
“Was it like something took over you?”
“You could put it that way. It wasn’t like I had it in me to do that, and the rut let it out. I swear, that…it isn’t in me.” His jaw tightens. He stares at the rock wall across from us, stricken, but clearly determined to answer my questions. “If I were there at all, I would have found a way to stop. I swear to you.”
His shame is so heavy, I can feel its weight. Not through the bond. In the air. It’s unbearable, but my instinct isn’t to look away or change the subject or comfort him. I want to slice into it. Tear into it with my teeth.
“I was aware the whole time,” I say. “I felt everything.”
His hands curl into fists. The veins in his neck pop, pulsing, but he remains very, very still, and he listens.
“My face was in the dirt. I couldn’t breathe. You broke my wrist, and then my arm got trapped under me. The bones rolled together. I couldfeelit.” I swipe my nose with my sleeve. “You dug your claws in me. Why did you do that? I couldn’t move. You were so much stronger. You didn’t need your claws.”
Tears stream down his face. “I don’t know,” he says.
“You bit me.” I yank down the collar of my sleep tee. I’m crying, too.
He looks at the angry red marks on my shoulder, at the dents they make because so much flesh was too mangled to heal. He doesn’t want to. It kills him. But he looks and doesn’t look away.
“They had to bring in a human doctor to reconstruct the muscle. I had stitches. Like a human.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” Like a litany.
“And then you left me,” I go on, my voice breaking. “You left me on the ground for other males to deal with. Like I was ruined. Youleft me.” Now my voice is shaking with rage. I didn’t know I was angry. I had to protect myself for so long from my parents’ story—that I fucked up by leaving the apartment. If I had only listened tothem, none of this would have happened.Idid this to myself.
I spent all my energy protecting myself from their blame that I never even considered that I might befurious. “Why didn’t you come back for me? Send me a letter?Something?”
“I was ashamed.”
“I washurt. I wasalone.”
“I didn’t want to remind you.”
“Do you think I was ever able to forget?”
I’m hissing at him. He rumbles his replies, his pain roughening the words. There is so much rage coursing through my veins, I can’t believe I’m still sitting here, but I am, pressing even tighter to his side, our heads tilted even closer.
“No,” he answers, his head high, ravaged eyes meeting mine. “I know that.”
“I never, ever hated you. Do you know that?”
His brow creases. He gazes at me for a long moment. I keep my head high, too.
“I missed you every second of every day,” he says. “I—” He pauses. Whatever he was going to say, he thinks better of it. “I thought about you all the time.”
“I wouldn’t let myself think about you.” I say it to hurt him, but my rage is burning itself out, and my heart aches when he flinches. I shrink into myself, tucking my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. “Everyone stared at me, so I didn’t go out. They pitied me for being so stupid. They thought I brought it on myself. I thought so, too.”
“No—”
I don’t let him finish what he’s saying. “All my life, I always thought what I was told to think, and then after that night, it was like I was a broken puppet, and everyone dropped my strings, so I just lay there because all I wasreally made of was other people’s expectations.” I scrub the last of my tears from my eyes. “I’m not a puppet anymore.Ipicked myself up.Icame here. You can feel sorry, but that’s not what I need from you. I want a mate.”
I can’t look at him. I’ve never spoken like this to anyone before, let alone a male, one who I know can hurt me.
But he won’t. I know that, too.
