Page 113 of Psycho Shifters

I focused on breathing and remaining the calm leader that I was known to be. I knocked on the bathroom door.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Ascher. Go fuck yourself.” The little alpha had such a way with words.

Then it clicked.

I grabbed the door frame for support.

Her voice.

It was so obvious: it was broken because of the goddamn abuse she had suffered.

My heart burst in my chest, and I had to stop myself from keeling over and puking. The little alpha had screamed so loud from the beatings that she had lost her voice. She had been tortured.

I was aware that Asher and Cobra were staring at me with confusion, but I didn’t care. She was all that mattered. Not their continual bullshit.

I cleared my throat and yelled through the door, “It’s Jax! Are you okay?”

There was a long, awkward silence, and I imagined she was gnawing on her lower lip like she usually did when she got anxious.

Of course she is not okay. She was just kidnapped and has been fucking abused her whole life. Dumb question.

“I’ve literally never been better.” Sadie laughed, and I heard bubbles splashing.

Even as my heart broke, I smiled uncontrollably.

I didn’t realize how abused Sadie was because the little alpha didn’t act like a victim. She acted like an alpha.

In the new light of her past, her droll wit and confrontational attitude seemed like a bloody miracle.

No one would fault her if she were emotional or needy. I didn’t know if I could have survived what had been done to her and acted so blasé. Plus she was a tiny wisp of a thing.

“Have you eaten, and has your body temperature returned to normal? Do you need anything from me?” She might say she was fine, but she had just fought three spider fae and been kidnapped.

“I swear I’m fine. The warm bath is doing wonders.” She splashed some more to get her point across.

Abruptly, I was imagining her delicate little body covered in soap. My gut pinched for a different reason, and I forced myself to think about her pain. Not how badly I wanted her. I was messed up to be thinking that when she’d just been attacked by John.

“Okay, I need to take care of something. I’ll be back in a little to check on you. Do not go anywhere by yourself.”

“Aye, aye, alpha.”

Turned out I was really into sassy women. However, it didn’t escape my notice that she hadn’t said whether she had eaten anything.

“I’ll be back,” I hollered as I ran out of the room.

Finally, a short while later, I knocked on the bathroom door, and Sadie emerged wearing my sweatshirt and sweatpants. I had left them in the bathroom, and she must have needed a change of clothes.

My sweatshirt hung past her knees, and she had the hood pulled up over her long white hair.

Big red eyes looked up at me with a small smile. The pretty rubies glinted in the firelight.

Holy shit. My brain short-circuited.

Her alpha scent was pungent, and the delicious smell of sweet cranberries mixed with warm chestnuts wafted off her.

My stomach actually growled with hunger, and my cheeks heated slightly. I wasn’t hungry for food.

“Eat this,” I said as I pushed the heaping plate into her small hands.