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But that anger, it burned.
“Spare me,” Hannah said, her voice caustic, despite the faint tremor.
Zee knew why the woman’s voice shook. She told herself to dial it back, that enraged, dark energy roiling within and spilling out.
Shut it down, Zee...
The ghost of the past tugged at her, a memory she’d suppressed from rising in the back of her mind as she stared into Hannah’s wide blue eyes.
“Shut it down, Zee.” Phoenix, his voice tight, face grim as he crouched over her, his big body a protective barrier between her and anybody who might stumble into them in the thick, heavy growth of trees. She’d run so very far, but they’d catch her soon. And make her go back—no! The wolf inside roused, raged—
“Zee, stop it! Shut it down! I can’t fight all of them, not by myself and we’ll both end up dead if you attack any of them.”
“They’ll punish me—they’ll beat me because I didn’t do what they said, and because I bit that fathead Brandon, and for running when Neil told me to stay,” she whispered, glaring at her big brother in defiance. “I saw what they did to Joey. He’s Royal’s little brother! But they beat him, all of them, Royal too, and I wanted to kill them! They’ll beat me for seeing them!”
“No, little sister, I won’t let them.” He tugged her closer, ignoring the dirt, the scratches on her raw, scraped skin from her headlong rush into the wilds north of Greylock. “But you can’t have that look on your face when they reach us. Lock it down, Zee. Lock it down. You can’t let them see you like this.”
“Why not?” Tears burned her eyes as she glared at him, drawing her knees up to her body, hiding her small, naked, fragile body. “I hate them. All of them.”
“Because they’ll see that. And because you’re too strong. They can’t see that strength, little sister. They’ll destroy it. So hide it until you’re even stronger than they are—that way, they’ll never realize it and they can’t break you.”
She’d been so scared that night, so angry. Yet those emotions were eclipsed mere months later when she stood next to her father along with the rest of the pack and they all watched as Joey was systematically beaten to death, bones broken, ribs snapped. Beaten, because he hadn’t given in to the brutal leadership of his brother.
“Broken?” Hannah said, voice steadying somewhat as her own anger sent adrenaline surging through her, giving her a false sense of strength... complacency. “You weren’t broken when you came here. You led the Prime around by the nose when he was too young to realize what you were doing—the same way you did with the young wolves up in Greylock.”
Boone stiffened but before he could react, Zee flowed forward.
“Young wolves?” Zee snarled, grabbing Hannah by the front of her shirt and spinning, the movements blurring into one. Before even a heartbeat passed, Zee had Hannah by the throat and slammed her into the nearest wall. It was built sturdy, but plaster and paneling cracked under the impact. “What young wolves?”
The defiance Hannah had showed melted, crumpling as raw fury and pain exploded out of Zee.
“What young wolves, Hannah? Nobody stayed young in Greylock—not with Royal Graves as the Alpha. Royal’s little brother stopped being young when he was fourteen—he got tired of being beaten by his brother and friends and finally fought back. They retaliated by beating him to death in front of the entire pack—including the kids. I was nine. But that wasn’t the first time I saw them beat Joey. I can’t even remember how many times that happened. My brothers stopped being young when my father dragged them out of the house to go on hunts when they were four, five years old, so they’d be tough enough to deal with bigger and stronger wolves—or at least know how to hide. I don’t know if Phoenix ever had a chance to be young—Saint might have had a bit of a chance. Etan? Not much. Royal started getting even crazier about the time Etan was five or six from what I’ve heard—Etan mentioned he’d seen Royal and one of his lieutenants try to accost a female lieutenant from another pack when he was out with our father in another region. They were traveling on pack business when it happened. She ripped the lieutenant’s throat open before severing his dick from his body. She almost did the same to Royal before her friend showed up and tore the two apart—more’s the pity. The world would have been better off. That’s when Greylock stopped interacting with other packs.”
Hannah barely breathed.
But Zee was far from done.
“I stopped being young before I was even five, when my father made it his mission to break me so I’d never show my real self to that sick monster who led the pack. In his eyes, of course, he did it to save me—he knew I’d be a dominant even though he’d been trying to crush it out of me since I was a small baby. But after I smashed an older boy in the head with a glass bottle because he was beating a friend of mine, my dad knew he hadn’t been hard enough on me—so he broke me. Eyes on the floor, little wolf. Don’t look at me like that, wolf... learn to crawl, little wolf. Submit or you’ll end up dead.”
Hannah’s eyes were so big, the whites of her eyes shown all around.
“Do you know what it’s like to have everybody in your life try to break you, Hannah?” Under her hand, Zee felt the other woman’s pulse, even the rush of her blood, protected by the fragile shield of skin. Hannah clung to the hand Zee had wrapped around her throat, but otherwise, she hung limp, not even trying to break free. “To stand by and see them break all the others around you? To throw yourself between the bigger, stronger wolves and the ones your age, to know that if you don’t, nobody else will? Not the lieutenants, not the soldiers... not even their own fucking parents!”
“Stop,” Hannah wheezed, her voice pleading. “Please... ”
“You’re begging.” Zee had never been cruel. She’d seen too much of it. But she was so enraged, so overwhelmed by this woman who knew nothing that Zee lost sight of everything. “We begged too. I hated to even speak to anybody save, even the few friends I had or my brothers. I hated to even speak to my father, because his fucking tunnel vision blinded him to anything but deposing of Royal Graves. But I had to, sometimes—and I had to beg him to listen. And sometimes, I wasn’t fast enough to get away from the adults. Those times, they made me beg. When they managed to corner me because I wasn’t fast enough, or when I let them catch me so the others could get away.”
She laughed bitterly. “They always knew when I let them catch me. I was fast... so fast for such a small, young wolf.” She mocked Royal’s deep, rough voice, one she heard in her ears even now. “When I let them catch me, they’d drag me back to the pack’s compound, throw me in front of Royal. I’d stay wolf most of the time because none of them cared that a young girl might be uncomfortable naked in front of grown men. But Royal really liked it when I stayed wolf. He made a game of forcing me back to my human skin. Sometimes, he’d get me right to the edge... ” She slowed her voice, the madness of her rage deafening her to everything else. “Right to the edge. Then he’d back off, laugh and tell me I’d learned my lesson, he’d send me on home... and sometimes, he’d even let me leave. Other times, he’d have the lieutenants throw me into one of the cages.”
She stopped then, shaking her head in befuddlement while Hannah stared at her in terrified silence.
“Cages, Hannah. He caged his wolves like we were nothing more than animals.” Her voice was raw, eyes stinging as she stared at the woman in front of her. “Who does that to his own people? To children?”
“Zee.”
It wasn’t Hannah who spoke now. Through her rage, Zee barely recognized the deeper, gentler tones and she closed her eyes, sucking in a breath to clear her head.
“Zee.” Boone touched her arm gently. “You’re going to rip out her throat if you keep it up.”
