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Luna
Ideserved a medal for holding my shit together the whole way across the city and now through the clubhouse. The red room was as crimson as its moniker suggested, the sheets silken, heavy curtains currently pulled open to flood the room with sunlight. Those were the only details I saw before I shut the door and the tears I'd been holding back burst, flooding down my cheeks.
My breathing shattered, and I covered my face as I shook with jerky, halting sobs. I could still smell Anatoly all over me, could stillfeelhim forcing his way into me. The bruises across my body, around my neck, and inside me throbbed a discordant, cruel symphony. Never letting me forget.
I stumbled blindly across the floor, the only sounds in the room my struggling breaths, and threw myself onto the bed, curling into a tight ball. I needed to scrub the top layer of my skin off, needed to clean inside myself, get rid of every trace thatmonster had left and I—I needed to—needed to acknowledge that I—that he—
I gritted my teeth against the keening cry, and buried my face in a soft pillow. I shook so hard my teeth nicked my tongue and copper filled my mouth.
I'd tasted blood when he—whenthathappened too, and the metallic taste threw me back into memories until the alpha was bearing down on me, his sweaty chest flush to my back, coating me in his vile burnt meat smell.
My hand shot down my body, and I patted at my sore pussy, assuring myself I wasempty, that there was no cock stretching me ruthlessly open, ignoring my begging whimpers to stop.
"Enough," I rasped at myself, at my memories, at the world.
Enough, it was fuckingenough.
Knuckles rapped gently on my door, and I stiffened. Priest—he'd come back.
I wanted to be left alone, to deal with this in peace. I needed to bury the memories without being watched and judged, without that purr. God, that purr… It was nothing like Anatoly's; it swept me up with comfort, made everything feel okay for a little while. But even as I relaxed, I remembered the way the alpha purred to force me to accept him in me.
"Friendly neighbourhood busy-bodies," a female voice called through the door.
"We can smell your tears, sweetheart," someone said, both creepy and caring.
"If you don't let us in, these fuckers will break down the door," someone drawled.
"Go away," I groaned, drying my face with the sleeve of my coat even as more tears poured from my eyes.
"Come in?" the drawling voice said. "Thanks; I will."
"ChaCha!" someone cried, but my door was already opening, and then a bright purple head poked through the opening,followed by a pretty brown face, big chocolate eyes, and a mouth pressed thin.
"Anyone order a gang of girlfriends?" she asked, widening the gap in the door and walking into my room. Not that it was reallymyroom. But still, the invasion made my hackles rise.
"No," I growled, my eyes narrowing. "I want to be left alone."
"First of all, you're crying, so there's no way these two goody-two-shoes will leave you to suffer alone," the purple-haired woman said, stalking closer. She was around my age, in her late twenties, but where I preferred to move slowly through the world to appreciate its details, she blasted through it like a sandstorm.
"What about me?" a dark-haired woman in a leather jacket demanded, entering my room after a diminutive blonde woman in a pretty dress and a curvy woman with golden brown hair who met my eyes with sympathy that made me want to growl.
I startled when I realised the brunette in the leather jacket carried a knife. The handle was steel and carved with peonies.
The purple-haired woman—ChaCha, had someone called her?—made a thoughtful face. "You're too stabby to be a goody-two-shoes, Lynn."
Lynn rolled her eyes, her hair slapping her shoulders as she stormed across the room. I realised the distraction had stopped me crying, so my vision was no longer tear-blurred.
"This is for you," Lynn said and—and offered me the dagger. "Everyone here's decent, but I know what it's like."
She didn't elaborate.
I reached out slowly and took the knife, thinking of the way Astrid had stolen Giant's knife and carried it around the whole day afterward. I felt weirdly better with the warm metal in my hand, and I gave the previous owner a nod of gratitude.
"We brought supplies," the small, blonde woman said, perching on the end of my bed a good distance away. "I knowyou don't know any of us, but we're like a huge support network here."
"A family," the warm, brunette woman agreed.
"So you don't have to be alone," she finished.
