Page 1 of Unforgivable

Lyri

Crippling agony. My skin is on fire. Black bile churns in my stomach. I can't get away from it. I think I vomited; maybe I was sick, but it did nothing to lessen this acute pain knifing through me.

I force my eyes to blink. My eyelids are so heavy. Part of me knows to keep them shut tight. My reality is too vicious to see. I want to be blind, to never have to look at the truth again. At the same time, I have to know. Survival instinct forces me to open them.

Soft blue. Familiar, but not known. Not family, not a friend. Do I have friends anymore? A family? Anything?

My left hand twitches. It hurts, too, and my arm is too heavy to move, but I suddenly feel the need to touch my stomach. I may have a new family growing inside me.

"Shh, Lyri. Be still, sweetheart," blue eyes murmurs soothingly.

Unease is deepening. My wolf is silent, but her sharp eyes are watching him warily. He was there. That's why his eyes are familiar and not all at once. He was there, and I can remember those eyes on me. He saw everything, which means he's one of them.

"Don't cry, sweetheart. Just stay quiet. You," he swallows, those eyes looking uncomfortable. "You're going to need to heal."

Heal? Is it his baby that grows in me? Is that why he is concerned? How does he know? How would I ever know? I can't be a mother to a bastard child. Everything in me revolts at the thought. This pack, these wolves, they'll ruin my pup. They destroyed me and they'll destroy my innocent baby. They'll hate him like they hate me. I can't bring him here. I need to escape.

Whimpers and strange cries fill my ears. It's me, my wolf, I realize. Blue-eyes alternates between pinning my shoulders down and releasing me, all while murmuring comforting noises.

I smell. I smell of blood, sweat, tears, and them. All of them, all touching me, I can smell them and feel them. It hurts. I need to run. I need to leave. My wolf tries, she stands on wobbly legs, not even able to get all four underneath her body before she tumbles to the ground. We are growling helplessly at blue eyes. Futile. Our struggles are futile. He is so much stronger, so much larger. We don't stand a chance. We never did.

We never stood a chance. If only we knew...

A sting in my neck and my eyes dart back to blue eyes. I hear a command from far away. Blue eyes look worried as his face fades away into a pleasant white fog. Much better.

---

Voices, male, agitated, wake me up. My wolf watches, tail flickering madly. Males are bad. Males hurt us. So badly. I hurt. My body feels like I'm an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, sunk deep into muck but battered by the current just above. I can't escape the pain. I'm trapped.

"We agreed," a low growl.

"How the fuck do you think this is a good idea?" another voice snarls.

"What the fuck do you want to do, then?" Is that a third voice?

How many males are there? I remember... I remember counting up to ten, then stopping, because it was too awful to contemplate all those brutes. Are they still here? Where am I?

I whimper and the voices stop.

I open my eyes. The ceiling above me is soft yellow. Strange that it isn't white. Aren't ceilings white? At least it's daytime. The light from the window next to the bed is streaming in full force. That means my punishment is over. One night, from dusk till dawn, under the Moon's gaze so the goddess could judge me.

So it's over, but then where am I?

The door opens. I turn my head, just a few inches. My throat is raw. From screaming? Or... or the other things done to me?

"Hey, baby," a green-eyed male enters with a grin plastered on his face. He was there. That night, he was one of the males always by my head, his face close to mine. Him and blue-eyes. Blue-eyes was here earlier, wasn't he?

Green-eyes comes closer, a spring in his step. I examine his open, friendly expression, his light eyes twinkling. That night, his eyes were dark. Lust and something else, anger? I shiver, so much anger, all directed toward me, the whore, the betrayer. Nothing of that shows in his eyes right now.

Maybe this male is a different one?

He kneels next to my head. A fluffy pillow is underneath my head, and a soft blanket pulled up around me. I feel protected with the bed, the blanket. It's stupid to feel that way when this male could easily rip my scant cover from me.

"I'm Ezra, Lyri. You know me?" he says with that open, friendly smile. His green eyes twinkle a little, his face a bit too handsome for comfort, with a strong aquiline nose and eyelashes that I would have envied before these last few days of my life. He's a strong-looking male.

I examine him quietly, without even nodding my head to acknowledge that I do know him. Now that he's said his name, it rings a bell. Ezra. I only know of one Ezra in the pack. He's a MateLess male who lives out on the Genom compound. He lives with a few other males, but I can't remember all of them. I think that Blue-eyes must be one of them. They own over a hundred acres of land that they farm and hunt on. No females out there with them; just the males. They are like a pack within a pack.

Best of all, they live in almost complete isolation, rarely taking part in pack events.

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