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“Because you use magic to shift,” I say to clarify what I gleaned from Archer.
“Right.” Trystan nods, a grin touching his lips. “We’re using something that belongs to them—that they believe should only belong to them. So in their minds, we’re something wrong or worthless that shouldn’t exist.”
His words hit me harder than I was prepared for, and I freeze, playing them over in my head.
We’re something wrong or worthless that shouldn’t exist.
I realize with heart-wrenching clarity that this kind of belief—viewing someone as inherently worthless—was exactly what my uncle did to me.
My heart clutches, and it feels like my whole chest has seized up. I can’t breathe. I can’t speak.
As if a cold hand has reached out from my past and dragged me back, I feel myself falling away from the small, comfortable kitchen, hurtling into dark memories of a place I know all too well.
Clint’s house.
My childhood house.
The house of my nightmares.
Uncle Clint stands over me, a cigarette in his hand and a sneer on his ugly, twisted face. I’m cowering against the wall, a glass of water spilled on the floor at my feet. He kicked me in the back as I passed him. I was carrying a glass of water, and I spilled it, and he backhanded me into the wall.
Clint puts his cigarette to his lips and sucks in a lungful of smoke that won’t kill him nearly fast enough to save my life. Then his hand darts out and he puts the butt out on my neck. Hot, searing pain lashes over my nerve-endings, and I think I smell burning flesh. On top of the throbbing in my back and head.
“You’re a waste of fucking space. A waste of the goddamn food I feed you,” he growls, tossing the spent cigarette in my face. “Stupid, worthless girl.”
I flinch backward, and as I do, I fall into another memory.
Uncle Clint slips his pocketknife from his jeans and flicks the blade open in a practiced snick. He’s holding a short glass of straight whiskey in his other hand, and his eyes have the shiny, distanced look I recognize as the early stages of drunkenness.
I came into the living room to fill his glass because he told me to. Now I’m standing here beside his recliner, staring at the glint of steel in the flickering blue light of the television.
He slashes out at me, the blade cutting into my arm. I recoil, my heart hammering against my rib cage as blood wells on my skin.
“Fucking waste of oxygen,” he mutters. “You’ll never amount to shit.”
The memories keep coming like a bad movie playing in my head, an overwhelming, never-ending horror story that I lived day in and day out for far too long. If my uncle hated me this much, and the witches hate shifters enough to systematically annihilate their kind… what other kinds of hate exist in the world?
Is there anything good at all?
Is anything worth saving?
Warm hands gently press against mine, and I fall out of the panic-induced flashbacks. Suddenly, I’m back in the cabin, only I’m on the floor now. I must have slipped from the chair during my attack.
Archer kneels in front of me, concern touching his green eyes and his face smooth with kindness. “Sable? Can you hear me?”
I nod, but I keep nodding. Nodding like a crazy person. I can’t stop the damn nodding, like the bones holding my head in place have given up.
Archer’s hands move from my fists to my face. His fingers are strong but gentle as he slows the frantic nodding. Reaching up, I cling to his wrists, my weight resting almost entirely against his hold on my head. He grounds me, an anchor in the storm.
Our eyes lock together as he says, “Breathe with me.” He makes an exaggerated O with his lips, pulling in air loudly.
I mimic his movements, exaggerated and all. Keeping my eyes on his face, I follow his deep breaths in and out while the warmth in his hands soothes the ice flooding through my veins. It’s only me and Archer, and there’s no room left for the panic. A soothing calm rolls over me, grounding me.
I feel like I could fall into the depths of his eyes.
Like I could fall and keep falling.
And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
