Page 141 of Crystal Luna
“I know I was a dick to you back then, but I’m here to make amends.”
“Yet you’ve ignored what I’ve told you to do.”
“Vel,” Isaiah started, standing from his seat.
Her eyes shot to him, a growl lingering in her chest. “Stay out of this.”
Both twins plopped down in the seat and promptly shut their mouths.
“All they want is for you to be happy, you know,” Ely said. “And in response you treat them like shit.”
That was the Ely she knew: the one who struggled to contain his temper. Velora smacked the glass from his hand, sending it clattering into the sink where it shattered into pieces, amber liquid swirling down the drain. “This isn’t about them. What I’m doing to them is nothing compared to what I’ve dreamed of doing to you.”
He opened his mouth but her hand around his throat stopped anything he was about to say.
“You may have been too drunk to remember, but I wasn’t. I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night. I can still feel how my wrists burned from being restrained as you slammed me into the counter, and I smell the whisky from your breath.”
The memories from that night formed a clear picture in her mind. Tears burned a path down her cheeks as she relived the nightmare that still haunted her. With her nails digging into his skin, she forced him to open his mind to hers.
Asher and Isaiah’s worried minds pushed into hers, but she was far too focused to keep them out.
She let him feel the burn as her hair was yanked back, the pain shooting through her wrists as he slammed them onto the cold, granite countertop.
“I’m doing you a favour, don’t you think?”
“Hush, now. We don’t want anyone interrupting this special moment for you, do we?” he purred as he kicked her ankles apart.
His grunts in her ear churned her stomach. Bile crept up her oesophagus.
He guided her by the hair in his hand, shoving her to her knees. Before she could grasp what was happening, he pushed himself past her lips, a hot and salty slime filling her mouth.
The further her memories got, the sharper her nails became. Eventually they pierced his flesh, the physical pain beginning to match what she fed him. His mind trembled, his body weakening under her wolf’s strength.
“I hate you more than I can bear,” she growled. “You’ll never be able to make amends—I’ll never forgive you.”
He fell on his knees and looked to his luna with tear-filled eyes. His soul was shattered, sharing her pain as he realised what he’d done to his luna. He had hurt the mother of his pack, the woman he was supposed to protect and love like a sister.
“Don’t ever come near me again.”
Velora spun on her heel and left, the gnawing feeling in her stomach no longer one of hunger. As she rushed up the stairs, one of the twins grabbed Ely by the throat—she was too busy running to see which one.
As the door slammed behind her, she attempted to put those memories in the box they’d stayed in all those years. With one deep breath, furniture splintered. With the next, glass shattered. A threatening growl rumbled the floor at her feet.
With the bond still open, Velora could feel the twins’ rage as her own. She was overwhelmed as it was, so she quickly closed it off.
Seeking comfort, she went to the picture window that overlooked the village, trying to lose herself in people watching as they went about their everyday lives.
She forbade herself to cry. She refused to ever feel that kind of pain again. Instead, she smiled as she found a group of teens sneaking into the woods with a bottle of liquor.
“Vel?” Isaiah’s called softly from the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”
“Only if you have food.”
He pushed open the door holding a plate in his hand as an offering. “I do.”
Velora reached for it as he approached, too hungry to care what it actually was. Isaiah sat down next to her as she shifted her position to hold the plate in her lap.
“He won’t come near you again.”