Page 268 of Alpha Mates

“My parents told me early on that alpha pups were targets,” I say, and Julian nods quickly in agreement. “In the case that someone got me, I was supposed to listen until I found a way out. If that wasn’t possible, then behave, wait, and they’d be there soon. But you know me.” My lips tug in asorrowful smile. “Of course, I didn’tbehave. The first time someone tried to touch me, I sank my teeth into their hand and locked down.” Red eyes flash in my mind. “That was the first time I saw any light—when the rogue got so mad his eyes glowed. I didn’t see much for long with the beating I got. They muzzled me after that.”

The bond between us ripples with anger as Julian’s hand slides over mine. His rage is pitch-black, like the poison creeping back up in my chest, and it helps. But I can’t look at him anymore.

I’m too deep in this to stop now, and I know that’s exactly what I’ll do if I look at him.

“The beginning wasn’t …” I struggle for the word. “It wasfine.” I was scared shitless, cried all night, prayed, but … “It was fine. Every day, they took my blood, checked my eyes in the morning and the evening, and then left. They fed me once every few days and didn’t bother to clean me until the smell of my shit and piss was too much for even them. Other than that, it was just me in that room, lying on that table. They never moved me from that fucking table.”

I shift just to make sure I still can.

“I—I lost track of time after the first week, and that’s when everything went to hell. They started … they …” I tell myself to breathe, but I can’t. I clench my eyes shut but force them open when the darkness returns to crawl over my skin and strap me back down. “They—”Fucking breathe.“They started b-breaking me, literally.”

Julian says something as his arm tightens around me, and I can’t help but wonder when that happened.

The world sways, spinning into some horror show between past and present. I fight the urge to close my eyes as I bury my fingers in my hair, tugging at the roots until the past fades back. When the darkness clears, I focus on the hand on my back, using that as my grounding point.

“They started with my toes,” I spit out while I focus all my attention on the hand. Julian’s hand. Julian’s here. Julian’s touching me. “They broke them. One by one. By the time one side healed, they … th-they’d break the toes on the other foot. I—” My own screams rise in my ears, ringing as loudly as they had then. “I screamed and begged them to stop. I said everything I could think of. I told them I was sorry, but it felt like I was screaming to no one. I couldn’t see them—the ones taking me apart.”

Darkness and pain. Darkness in pain. The two interwoven and unrelenting.

“All I could do wasfeel. They didn’t take breaks. They just took turns and kept going. They didn’t even breathe. I never heard them breathe. All I heardwere my bones cracking and the screaming.” The cries. The pleas. The agony. “At one point, I thought they were someone else’s … if it was, it would’ve been easier because then someone else was going through it.”

My breathing slows as that sinking feeling returns, dragging me back down under the weight of the short-lived hope that maybe if I was strong enough, I could make it through. Find the other wolf they were hurting, and we could escape together.

It almost hurt more to realise that just as my parents weren’t coming for me “soon,” there was no other wolf to escape with.

“I asked them why,” I remember that part clearly. “I remember asking them, why me? Why were they hurting me? Why wouldn’t they stop? I asked whenever I was lucid enough, but they never answered. They never spoke. They just kept hurting me—breakingme, over and over again. Then, after a while, I stopped screaming so much. My toes healed, and when they broke them, it didn’t hurt as much. I barely felt it, and then it became nothing but a sting, if that. I thought they’d stop there, but they just moved on to my fingers.”

Julian sucks in a short breath that I know he tries to stifle, but he can’t help that or the way his fingers tremble over mine.

“They did the same exact thing,” I bite out. “The same fucking thing. They broke my fingers over and over again until it didn’t hurt. Then they broke my hands themselves, then my feet, my wrists, my arms, my legs … my back.” Julian’s hand stills as if feeling the wound for himself. “That one took the longest to heal. They broke every bone in my body except for my neck, and when I became numb to it all, they just left me alone.”

A stillness slips over us, an echo of the one that had found me back then.

I remember thinking how, suddenly, the empty darkness wasn’t so bad anymore. It was better than the terrible one when they were there. Being alone was a gift. Living in my own head was sweet, and I liked feeling it fray because that meant there were more places to hide.

I smile as I remember the peace.The sweet, sweet peace.

“I thought they were done,” I admit quietly. “When they returned, it was only to take my blood and check my eyes. If they hurt me, they only broke a single toe every hour. I th-thought—Ithoughtthe Moon Goddess was on my side, y’know?” I chuckle behind my blurry eyes. “I thought it wasn’t so bad anymore—that I could survive it. I’d survived the worst of it, and if I could do that, then I could make it out.” Stupid. “Stupid.” Stupid. “So fucking stupid.”

“Aiden,” Julian breathes, trying to reach me, but it’s all coming out now and I can’t stop it.

“I didn’t realise that the time between breaking me was getting longer, and I didn’t think much of it when I winced a little when they broke the same toe again after two days of nothing. When I got back up to screaming and crying, they started on the other toes and kept going until I couldn’t feel it anymore … then they went to the fingers.”

“No,” Julian sobs as my tears fall, dripping from my chin one at a time.

“They started it all over,” I whisper, sounding as surprised as I’d felt realising it in the moment.

How could I still be surprised?

How could I still not understand that there was no reasoning? It was just how those animals were.

I blink the bafflement away as rage takes its place.

“They started it all over again,” I say, this time firmer. This time through clenched teeth. “And then they kept doing it again … and again … and again. Then they started b-burning me. Fucking burning me!” I shout, laughing on the edge of madness. This one is filled with humour, even if its origins are manic, and I can tell it scares Julian as much as it scares me. “They burnt every single inch of my body they could. They let it heal and then did it again. They kept burning me and when they were done with that, they moved on to cutting me. I think that was the worst one.”

It had to be. Those cuts were the ones that made me feel the most like a thing meant to be opened up—an experiment rather than a person.

“They went deeper each time. They … they just kept …” The words fall apart on my tongue as I stare at my skin. It’s all healed, not a scratch in sight, as if it’d never happened. ButIsee the scars beneath. I see the lines etched over each other, marking me—never letting me forget.