“I haven’t told them much, Em. It’s not my story to tell,” Sofia whispers gently while pulling Emily into a hug. My heart is beating out of my rib cage, and I rub my knuckles against my sternum, trying to ease the ache in my chest.
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about it,” Emily mumbles, voice cracking. She shakes her head rapidly as she pulls back.
“That’s okay.” Sofia strokes her hair. “You don’t have to talk about it with anyone, honey.” Emily nods before swiping at her cheeks.
“I…I’m sorry, Beta Luca. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just where I come from… females would never get away with doing something like what Sofia did. If someone had done something similar to the Beta of Blood Moon.” She shivers at the memory. “Well… it would be expected he would put her in her place.”
“And what place is that?” I ask, trying desperately to keep my voice calm and collected despite the rage coursing through my veins. Emily shudders and looks down.
“Below the male, submitting to whatever he wants, being hurt and publicly humiliated until she does. The more public the infraction, the more public the punishment.” She sounds disconnected from her voice. Like she has floated out of her body and is blindly reciting something drilled into her without hearing what she is saying.
Emily flinches when Sofia rubs her arm, almost like she forgot she wasn’t alone. Sofia looks at me, a pleading expression in her eyes that makes me realize that this isn’t the first time that she’s seen something like this with Emily. That shakes me more than I’ll admit.
“How about we call it a day for today?” Sofia asks softly. Emily nods and allows Sofia to steer her out of the training arena. Luca and I are left behind watching their retreat.
“What the fuck was that?” Luca finally asks, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know. I told you her ex was an abusive piece of shit. But I had no idea this shit went on outside of her relationship, too.”
“This is nothing like Sarah,” Luca says while putting a hand on my shoulder, holding me back from following the girls. “She’s obviously been through a lot. You can’t fake that kind of fear and dissociation. She needs our help.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that.
“Have you seen anything like that before? It was like she wasn’t even here anymore.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. With you. When the fight was over and the adrenaline faded. You were like that, after we found your mom and the bond to Katie snapped.”
His words pierce through me. I remember that feeling. The emptiness. The numbness. The aching desire to disappear. Emily’s still in that place. She only escaped six weeks ago. And here I am, trying to get in her fucking pants. Like a selfish asshole.
I remember how intense everything was at the beginning. How I didn’t want to be here anymore and thought I could never get past my loss. But Luca and Ryan refused to accept that, and they pulled me out of it enough for me to throw myself into making sure nothing like that ever happened again.
Maybe I can return the favor for Emily.
“She needs our protection; I’m going to ask Ryan to let her stay,” I state, nodding firmly. Finally, sure how I feel. Finally able to admit, with certainty, there isn’t some nefarious ulterior motive for her being here. She’s a completely traumatized she-wolf who needs our help.
Myhelp.
“She’s going to need a lot of help to get past everything she has been through.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. Truth be told, I have no idea how to help her through the trauma she has experienced. But I know that I want to be a part of her healing in whatever way she will let me. And I can be patient. I can wait for her to be ready.
I’m choosing not to listen to that little voice asking,What if she’s never ready?
Because this isn’t about claiming her anymore.
It’s about being the one she’s safe with—even if she never chooses me back.
Chapter 18
Emily
It’s like I’m underwater.
The sounds and smells that usually bombard my senses are distant now, dulled like there's cotton stuffed in my ears and up my nose. Like I’m not really here. I can barely register that I’m sitting down on my bed and that Sofia is here. She’s talking to me, but I can’t take in what she’s saying. Her lips are moving, her eyes full of concern, but the words don’t land. I can’t take them in. Everything is lost to the muffled fog that’s descended over my brain
I just want to sleep. Or not sleep. Just… stop being awake. Stop being anything. I want to hibernate. So I do the only thing that makes sense. I lie down and close my eyes, grateful for the numbness that slides in like the tide.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I wake up, but it’s dark out now. My stomach rumbles as I come out of the numb state. This is what always happens. My body has been doing this for a while now—when things got particularly bad with Aidan. In the early days, when things turned physical, my wolf howled at me to fight back or run away, but my mind intervened to remind me that would only make things worse.
