Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
I wanted to cry in frustration with the unfairness of it all. It didn’t matter, though. One final “good girl” act and I could go. Fuck him and his hypocrisy.
“I can deal with my finger later,” I said, taking up the knife again. “Your shirt is already ruined. There’s plenty of fabric in it.”
“But you’re bleeding pretty heavily.”
“I’m bleeding from a finger, Sylvester. Get ahold of yourself. I’m not going to bleed out from a cut in my finger.”
He didn’t argue and Weston didn’t come back to force the issue. In fact, he didn’t come back at all. Sylvester and I finished dinner, me ignoring absolutely everyone who told me I didn’t need to make them anything, that I should sit down, that someone should take a look at my finger. I sampled items as I prepared them and the person who told me to eat what the alpha had killed never opened his mouth to me again. It had just been a look, but that look promised plenty of violence. I was at my wits end—with this journey, with my life. All of it.
It was only when all the food was cooked that I allowed the pack to baby me, to sit me down and hand me water and look at my finger.
“Gross. Love, that’s deep,” Hadriel said, massaging my shoulders as he peered at my finger. He’d stayed right behind me all through dinner, watching me closely, helping with anything he could. He didn’t utter a word, not telling me to sit down or to stop, just supporting me in case I should need something.
To say my heart had swelled during all this would’ve been an understatement. I hoped someday, when I had a different identity and life, that maybe I could see some of them again. Maybe we could reunite and reforge the bond we were creating on this journey.
Or maybe I tended to make everyone into family whether that was their intention or not, even those who wanted to hurt me. It was a hard truth to face. A hard reality that constantly threatened to spill tears.
“You really didn’t feel it?” the woman doctoring me asked, bent over my finger as the blood welled up. It wasn’t bleeding nearly as much as before.
“She didn’t even know she’d done it.” Sylvester stood behind her, looking down on the proceedings.
The woman looked up at me, her gaze intense. “You need a few stitches. I don’t have anything to reduce the pain. We’ve used it all and we haven’t had a chance to get more.”
“Would any of your product work?” Hadriel asked, his fingers stilling on my shoulders.
“It’s fine, really. We don’t have anything to dull pain in the village. Granny thought we should endure the effects of our punishments from beginning to end.”
“Fuck that place,” someone murmured.
The woman doctoring me just shook her head. “Do we need to hold you down? Do you want a leather strip for your teeth?”
I laughed. “Just get it done, will you? This is taking forever.”
She did, and while I felt the gouge of the needle, I never flinched or pulled away. I hadn’t been lying—this was not a unique situation, and as someone who didn’t heal quickly, I’d had to have stitches from time to time.
After it was over and my finger was wrapped in gauze, the group around me sat back and collectively heaved a sigh of relief.
“How long will it take to heal?” someone asked.
“It’s clear you’ve never been suppressed. It’ll take ages,” Hadriel told him before sitting in beside me. “Now, darling, what will lighten your mood?”
“How about a couple stories, and then I think I’ll get some wine for me and the alpha and head to bed.”
Hadriel’s eyebrow arched but he didn’t comment. He launched into a raunchy tale, many people hanging around to listen and interject, the evenings apparently a lot more lively for him with me here. Looser, he’d said. He’d even gotten into the pants of someone he’d been pining after. He’d never dwelled on it long enough to really explain, though, and once he started a new story, I was swept up and forgot to ask.
Now I listened to him sadly. I would miss him. It had been such a short time, but I realized I’d liked him from the get-go.
The night waned and finally I knew it was time. I felt my eagerness to get going and finally claim a future for myself rising. I would still be running away like the last time I’d had to set out on my own, but this time I wasn’t scared. I was older now, more experienced. Better at lying. Besides, if I could survive at twelve, I had to be able to survive at twenty-seven.
“Let’s get you that wine.” Hadriel rose with me, not rushing me when I gave a few lingering goodnights. He reached under the cleaned-off table we used for food prep and grabbed the half-bottle left over from the night before. Everyone knew not to touch the alpha’s stash.