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No, Camden is relentless in his torture as he flips me over and yanks my panties down my thighs, shoving them wide open with his knees as he settles himself there.

“No,” I mumble, my voice muffled and faint as my head lolls from side to side. “No, please.”

With one hard thrust, Camden slams into me, his penis ripping me to shreds as he forces it inside me almost completely dry, knot and all.

I gasp in pain, a sob breaking free from my chest as he pulls all the way out before he repeats the action, the sound of him spitting my only warning before he does it again.

“Yes, Magnolia,” he snarls above me as I feel his hands close around my throat.

“I’m going to make you pay for your sins, starting with covering up the putrid scent coming from your cunt.

” Camden starts to squeeze my throat, applying pressure as he slowly begins cutting off my air.

“That and those lepperous marks marring your skin.”

He resumes his punishment, Camden raping me while he chokes me until I almost pass out, then letting go long enough for me to cough and gasp for air.

He does it for so long, takes me to the edge of consciousness so many times I can’t keep count but when my vision goes black and I claw at his hands on instinct, he shows no sign of stopping.

Camden chokes me until I’m walking a line he didn’t intend to draw, and as he continues to force himself inside my body, I can’t help but think this might really be the end.

ISAAK

Checking my phone for the umpteenth time, I blow out a sigh of frustration when I still don’t have a reply from Maggie.

After hearing that her father and Camden showed up Friday and the two rather aggressively escorted her from the ward, I thought it might be best if I wait until she contacted me first in order to grill her over their interaction.

I didn’t want to create more issues by blowing her up all day in case she was with them.

I wanted to.

My fingers itched to rapid fire text messages, to hit redial on her number until my omega finally picked up.

By dinner, I was half tempted to find a way to contact Eve to see if she knew what was going on and by Saturday morning, it took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to go to her apartment and demand answers.

But goddamnit, I wanted to.

Unfortunately, all of the reactions to those actions would have been negative, and I didn’t want to add the weight of that stress to my precious flower’s load.

Come Sunday, I compromised with myself by sending no less than seventy very panicked text messages, each more frantic than the last over her lack of response.

That led to more out of character behavior for me when I broke several rules just as quickly as I sent those texts.

I waited until sundown before I left my apartment, taking the back stairwell to the emergency exit on the rec hall, and entering Ward C outside of not only doctor hours but treatment hours as well.

The residents have very recently gained the Saturday and Sunday privilege of independence from their programs and that sure as hell meant I shouldn’t have been there.

Since I was close to having a panic attack and on a roll breaking rules I’d normally be terrified not to follow, I continued on my erratic way, right into Des’s apartment and demanded he wake Korvin and Calix and bring them to me.

Which he did.

He was confused and rather groggy, but my alpha retrieved the rest of our pack and once I was staring at the three of them, I unceremoniously blurted out every worst case scenario I could think of that had even the most minuscule probability of happening to our girl.

Without context, and almost too quickly to make sense of. Especially in the middle of the night.

It shouldn’t have been surprising when the three of them immediately went into protective mode, hackles raised and ready to storm the castle.

I was flustered by it though, and since I’d been driving myself mad over why I hadn’t heard from Magnolia for two days, I did something I’ve never done before.

I cried.

Like a big, needy baby wearing a set of pajamas with stethoscopes all over them, I cried and had the worst panic attack I’ve had to date.

As the member of our pack with the most life experience, sitting at the ripe old age of thirty eight, I was a little embarrassed by my behavior but only for a moment because it didn’t phase my alphas and beta.

They listened, they soothed. They talked me through and eventually out of my panic attack, and they were extremely patient with me afterward while I explained what was going on.

We went through all the possibilities, discussed each conclusion we came to and though we were all tense and a little worried, being together made a massive difference.

Needless to say, the four of us slept on the floor of Desmond’s apartment last night, purely for comfort’s sake.

I went to my place early enough to beat any unexpected visitors on the ward, got myself together the best I could, and I’ve been sitting at my desk waiting for Magnolia to walk through my office door at any moment.

That was two hours ago.

I planted my ass in this chair two hours ago and I haven’t moved an inch while waiting for her to arrive.

Unless you count the incessant bouncing of my knee or clicking of the button on my pen. If that’s moving an inch, I’ve been sitting here breaking land speed records all morning.

With a sigh, I drop back against the cushioned leather and scrub my hands over my face, pushing my glasses up when I rub my eyes.

This is the scary part of bonding.

Bonding without directly living together in particular.

Every second apart feels like decades, and it allows for too much creativity when it comes to wondering what goes on during those same seconds.

“I’m being ridiculous,” I say out loud as I get to my feet. “Magnolia is perfectly fine, she’s just running behind because she forgot to set her alarm.”

While not out of the realm of possibility, it’s not likely. She’s just as eager to get to work as I am, for the very same reasons that happen to be of both the professional and personal variety.

I’m not going to dwell, though.

If I do, Des and Korvin will feel it, Calix might, too, and then we’ll have a repeat of last night when the three of them were ready to conduct a search and rescue, illegal or not.

So, I try to keep myself busy instead.

I stand from my desk and walk to the middle of my office, spinning in a slow circle while I search for something to do.

Only to find there’s not shit.

Everything is clean and in its place. My notes have been transcribed up to now. Because I run my one-on-one sessions here, I don’t have a TV or anything else like it in order to prevent distractions and shift focus during them.

Wonderful.

I’m so boring and needy I can’t even entertain myself when I have to.

Annoyed and growing anxious, I let out a frustrated huff as I do another lap but this time, something catches my eye.

With a frown, I make my way to the bookshelves, my gaze locked on the shiny almost glittery pieces of something scattered on the floor in front of them.

I crouch down to get a closer look, lightly fingering the shards and realizing they’re bits of tempered glass.

How bizarre.

None of my decorative pieces are missing, the knickknacks all accounted for when I do a quick scan and even if they weren’t, I’d know this isn’t from something I own. Most of my things are ceramic or whatever, a thicker, sturdier material that wouldn’t splinter like this.

I scratch my chin as I pick up the largest piece, looking it over carefully for a moment before I begin searching for its point of origin.

Crawling on hands and knees, I look under my furniture; the coffee table and wingbacks, the end tables and grandfather clock.

I pull my phone from my pocket and turn on the flashlight as I peer under the couches, the light reflecting off of something just out of reach.

So, I get to my feet, brush off my slacks then push the couch toward the middle of the room, exposing the treasure I’ve been hunting for but when I realize what it is, my stomach drops to my fucking balls.

It’s Magnolia’s phone.

I’d know it anywhere.

It’s a purple iPhone with a sticker of a middle finger over the logo.

She doesn’t have it in a case despite being clumsy and dropping it constantly. I don’t think she would have considered a screen protector until I put one on the device myself, and that explains the tempered glass.

It’s the only thing that’s explained though, because Maggie hasn’t been here since Friday so I don’t know why her phone is here and broken at that, and learning why I haven’t been able to reach her does nothing for my nerves.

Neither does the knock at my office door because I almost jump out of my skin the second I hear it.

“Sorry to bother you,” Eve, Maggie’s best friend, says as she pushes it open. “Do you have a minute?”

I nod slowly as she enters, unable to form words over the way I can hear my pulse pounding in my ears.

This is no coincidence.

Finding Magnolia’s phone here after forty eight hours of no contact, only to have her best friend and roommate show up at my office first thing Monday morning?

No one could convince me that these things aren’t extremely, unnervingly connected.

“I’m not sure how you want to do this.” Eve closes my door then walks toward me before motioning toward the couch I just moved. “But I am sure you’re going to need to sit down for what I’m about to tell you.”

Slowly and with more fear than I have ever felt, I sink down onto the leather and wait for my world to get flipped upside down.

“Maggie was attacked.”

“What?” I jump to my feet as my ears start to ring and I feel my chest go tight. “Attacked? How? When? Is she okay? Can I?—“

“She’s at our apartment resting.” Eve gently pushes me back down on the couch. “ Finally resting but to be honest, she’s really not okay.”

“Tell me what happened.”

She nods her head and fiddles with her sleeves, twisting the cuffs between her fingers, which is when I notice Eve is wearing baggy sweats and fuzzy boots. She works on the ward below ours and while I’ve seen her there only once, that was enough to know this is not how she normally dresses.

“You aren’t working.”

Eve shakes her head as tears form along her lower lashes. “I’m taking care of her.” She sniffles and I reach out, taking her hand and guiding her onto the couch beside me. “We’re both on medical leave. After what I came home to, I’m not letting anyone near her. Not unless it’s me or one of you.”

Well, that answers a question I don’t have to ask.

This isn’t a professional courtesy. Eve is here to tell Magnolia’s mates what happened to her because Maggie told her about us. Most likely in great detail if I know our girl.

“What did you come home to, Eve?” My chest tightens again and I lift my hand, my fingers digging into the wool of my vest right over my thundering heart.

Eve takes a deep breath and pushes her hair behind her ears.

“Maggie was unconscious on the bathroom floor, and everything around her was straight out of a true crime documentary.” She uses her sleeve to wipe away her tears, stealing herself before she continues.

“From what I could gather, she was pushed or thrown through the shower door, she was severely beaten, strangled repeatedly until she blacked out, and…” Eve’s eyes wander to somewhere over my shoulder before she whispers, “She was raped.”

Trying as hard as humanly possible to keep my composure for both myself and Eve, I speak slowly when I ask, “Do you know who did it?”

“Yes.” She turns to face me fully, hesitantly taking my hand in hers.

“Before I tell you, I need you to understand that who he is, is why I didn’t call the police or report what happened.

It’s why I called my cousins and we took her to a hospital three counties over, and it’s why I’m taking care of her at our apartment now. ”

“Okay…” I already know where this is going and I don’t like it one fucking bit. I can’t behave like that, though. No, I have to keep my shit in check and remain calm because when I tell our pack what happened, all hell will break loose if I can’t get a handle on my own emotions.

“It was Camden,” Eve says as she swallows down a sob. “That bastard hurt Maggie, he almost killed my best friend, and there’s not one goddamn thing anyone can do about it because my dad and Dean Reynolds will cover it up so fucking fast it’ll be like it never even happened.”

I open my mouth, unsure of the words I was about to say but Eve falls apart and starts crying before I have it figured out.

I comfort her the best I can as my omega’s friend blames herself for what happened, as she apologizes for it as if she had any say in the matter.

Eve explains Magnolia’s injuries more specifically; the fractured jaw and dislocated shoulder, the hundreds of stitches that litter the right side of her body and the bruises on her throat that were clearly made by hands.

Further still, she explains that Camden has been tampering with Magnolia’s medications, targeting her heat suppressants and the IV drip to get her through when it hits, then attempting to put a stop to the prescriptions entirely.

And while Eve was able to intervene the first time, she’s afraid he went through a back door to make sure she couldn’t do it again.

A wave of nausea rolls through me as Eve tells me about the fire in the bathroom, how her brother torched our clothes that he found in Maggie’s nest before he completely destroyed it.

How he let them burn while he hurt our girl, seemingly tempting fate and winning when it managed to extinguish on its own just as the flames started reaching up the walls.

Camden didn’t just attack her, he truly did try to kill Magnolia, twice in one night, and I am beyond grateful that he didn’t succeed.

He should thank his lucky fucking stars he didn’t succeed, too.

He’s been a walking target ever since we witnessed their first interaction and once they find out what happened to our girl, our pack will label him a dead man walking.

But had he actually murdered our omega and successfully taken her from us?

I can say with full confidence, Camden Blackhurst would be nothing but a blood stain on the concrete and no one would ever find his body.