Tears of humiliation and frustration burned my eyes and the back of my throat as I bit back a scream.
He managed to transfer both of my hands into one of his, crushing the delicate bones of my wrists in one meaty fist. With his free hand, he jerked my shirt up, clumsily grabbing my breast and squeezing so hard I did cry out then.
Preston knelt beside us with a laugh, that sick, maniacal glint in his eye. He reached into his back pocket and my blood ran cold when he pulled out a switchblade.
He flicked it open next to my cheek, the tip grazing my skin.
With a grin, he trailed the tip of the blade down my jaw, across my throat, between the valley of my breasts, and under my bra.
The sharp blade had no problem severing the threadbare lace of the too-small bra someone had cast off as used goods for the omega house.
Cassian’s eyes glowed as he looked at my exposed flesh, his nails scraping and abrading the tender flesh as he scratched and pulled at me, even going so far as to dip his head down and bite down.
I clamped my mouth shut, internally screaming again, but knowing any audible sounds from me would only spur them on.
Preston’s knife slid to my ribs, down until it reached the waistband of my jeans. He looked up at Cassian, who pulled back, my flesh slipping from his mouth with an audible pop.
“Undo her pants.”
Cassian grinned at him, his fingers already finding the safety pin that served as a button to hold my jeans closed.
“No!” I screamed, but Preston’s free hand slapped over my mouth painfully hard. My teeth cut into my upper lip, and I tasted blood.
Cassian started to jerk at my jeans, renewing my urge to fight again. His free hand stopped pulling down my pants long enough to slam a fist into my side, knocking all the wind from my body. My body went limp for a second and it was all he needed to finish pulling my jeans down. One of the other boys ripped them down my ankles, pulling them away and tossing them aside. The battered flip flops on my feet offered no resistance. My toes dug into the bare dirt as I squirmed and thrashed.
I could feel my wolf starting to stir deep inside of me, waking up, as I managed to drag in a lungful of hot air.
I would shift if I could. I didn’t care if these three could easily overpower me. Maybe I could summon my wolf enough to shift and surprise them enough so I could run.
“Marc, hold her legs!” Cassian snapped, as if reading my thoughts.
A second later, Marc’s hands locked around my ankles and held me still. He wrenched them as far apart as he could with Cassian’s weight on me.
Something sharp and painful flare hot low in my stomach. So much that I screamed against Preston’s hand. My vision blurred from the sudden pain.
“Jesus, dude,” Cassian said with a throaty chuckle. “What the actual fuck?”
“She’s ours,” Preston replied calmly. “I’m simply marking her as our property.”
Another flash of pain ripped through my hip, and I realized he was cutting me.
Carving into my body.
Branding me.
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, dripping down into the dirt to form a small puddle.
“What in the world is going on out here?”
A sharp voice made all four of us jump, but the tip of the knife went in deeper when I jerked. Within seconds, all the weight had lifted off of me and I rolled to my side, curling into a ball. I pressed a hand to my side, feeling it slick with blood.
“Oh, Cassian.”
I could have sobbed hearing the submission in the teacher’s voice. Because as third-in-line, Cassian was king of the school and could do whatever he wanted, even at fifteen years old.
“Did you need something, Mrs. Lewis?” Cassian was the picture of innocence despite the bloody, half-naked girl behind him.
She seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second. Long enough for me to feel the first moments of hope.
But she quickly smashed that.
“Not if you’re busy at the moment.” I could hear the tentative smile behind her words as she spoke to the alpha heir of our pack.
Preston chuckled under his breath, stepping backwards and kicking a cloud of dirt at me.
“We’re all done here,” Cassian told her nonchalantly. “How can we help?”
The three of them started for the side door they had drug me out of a few minutes earlier. Preston’s foot connected with the hip he had been carving into as he walked over me. They all headed back into the school.
The door closed with a heavy thunk that made me flinch.
I staggered to my feet, pulling my shirt down over my chest. The safety pin was somewhere in the dust. I didn’t bother looking for it as I pulled my jeans back on.
Holding the top of my jeans closed with one hand, I half-ran, half-stumbled back to the house. Amazingly, no one was home when I tumbled in, slamming the door shut.
There was no lock on the front door or any other door in the house. Why would there be? Omegas didn’t have rights to things like privacy. Or safety.
I made it into the downstairs powder room and leaned heavily against the door. After a second, I pushed away and looked in the mirror.
My top lip was split from when Preston’s hand had slapped over my mouth. My face was dirty and dusty, with tear tracks streaking it. With shaking hands, I lifted the hem of my shirt and pulled down the edge of my jeans.
A ‘P’ had been carved into the skin beside my hip. Wetting a cloth by the sink, I gently dabbed the area clean. When the teacher surprised us, Preston had jerked, the knife slipping and cutting a thin line down the ‘P’ that turned it into a crude, misshapen ‘R’ looking mark.
Pressing the cloth against my skin, I backed up until I hit the door. My knees gave out as I sank to the floor and sobbed.
When would it ever—
“Stop!” I whimpered, twisting against the hands that held me down, the body that had me immobile.
I couldn’t breathe. Panic swelled in my chest, the pressure unbearable.
“Stop!” I almost shouted the word, my eyes screwed tight as I fought against the person holding me captive.
Immediately I was released, the weight lifted off of me.
Rolling to the side, I tumbled off the bed and scuttled backwards until my back hit the wall. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I buried my head against my knees, my body shaking. I pulled the oversized shirt I had slept in over my knees, stretching it out as I struggled to cover my body.
I flinched, hearing movements around me and footsteps drawing closer.
“Skye? Baby, please look at me,” a warm, worried voice begged me. It cut through the fog of desperation.
I knew that voice. That voice was safe.
Safe.
I wasn’t sure if I thought that, or my wolf did, but I slowly opened my eyes and looked up.
Remy was kneeling a few feet in front of me, his eyes wide with worry. His hands shook as he fought the urge to pull me to his body and protect me from whatever my mind had conjured.
But he couldn’t.
I may have killed the monster, but the scars still ran deep.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, choking on the last word as a ragged sob tore through my chest.
His hands balled into fists against the floor, his body shaking with the need to fight whatever was haunting me.
“Tell me what to do,” he said desperately. “Did I hurt you? I want to touch you, but—”
Mate.
The word rang clearly in my head, calming me down a little more as my wolf reminded me Remy wasn’t a threat.
He was our protector, our mate, our love, our ...
He was just ours.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, as shame leeched in to replace the fear. It coiled deep inside my belly, oily and insidious, as I dropped my gaze. “I’m okay.”
Remy muttered a curse, but still didn’t move. “Babe—”
Something pounded once against our door. I jumped and Remy gl
ared at it before barking out a sharp, “What?”
“Just telling you two to wrap it up. Classes start soon, and there’s a whole pack downstairs who can hear the racket you two are making.”
I could picture Rhodes smiling on the other side of the door as he interrupted what he assumed to be some sort of sexy times between us.
It started off that way. It could have been that way.
It should have been that way.
If Remy wasn’t stuck with a mate who came with enough baggage to fill the cargo bay of an entire fleet of planes.
I shoved to my feet, my hands still uselessly pulling down the hem of the shirt. “Can I use the bathroom first?”
Remy stood slowly, still giving me a wide berth. His eyes were narrowed in thought as he watched me, but didn’t speak.
Scurrying past him with my head down, I went into the private attached bathroom and closed the door. After a second, I paused and turned the lock.
6
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Katy demanded, finally cornering me at my locker before the start of lunch.
I shoved my heavy pre-calculus text into the locker before shutting it and turning around to face her, Larkin, and Tate.
“Are you okay?” Larkin asked, reaching out to touch my arm.
Katy’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been like this since this morning. What gives?”
I leaned back against the bank of lockers, not exactly wanting to rehash why I had barely spoken all morning. Why I couldn’t look Remy in the eye, and why I turned and started a conversation with Ainsley, intentionally walking us to the main building while Remy was supposed to go the opposite direction for a meeting.
Tate clutched her books to her chest, her hazel eyes studying me with too much intensity. “Did you and Remy have a fight?”
Katy snorted, but smiled. “What did my idiot big brother do now?”
Sighing, I looked around, grateful the guarding didn’t extend to inside the school building during classes. Since it was lunchtime, the hallway was basically empty except for the four of us.
My stomach sank when I realized Remy would be waiting for me at the end of classes to walk me back to the cabin, and I was going to have to talk to him.
Or, worse yet, maybe he would send someone else to walk with me.
A babysitter for his damaged mate.
“Hey!” Katy said sharply, snapping her fingers in my face. “Skye, where’d you go?” Her brown eyes were wide with worry, and I realized I had completely spaced out.
Suddenly exhausted, my chin dropped to my chest. I couldn’t bear to see the looks of pity when I told them what had happened.
“Remy didn’t do anything,” I answered softly. “It’s me. I’m the one who messed up.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Larkin told me, moving to my side and nudging my shoulder with hers.
Scoffing under my breath, I shook my head. “It was. I had some kind of flashback to when I was living in Long Mesa, and lost it. Like, I turned into a total basket case.”
“What caused the flashback?” Tate asked curiously.
I glanced up at Katy, who made a face, but held her hands up in surrender.
“I’ll make an exception to the I-don’t-want-to-know-what-you-and-my-brother-do rule,” she quipped, a half smile deepening the dimples on her cheeks. “What happened?”
“We were … messing around,” I stumbled over the words, feeling my cheeks heat. “It was good. It was really good. And then, he was on top of me and kind of had me pinned down.” I shivered at the memory, and not from fear.
I loved the way it felt when Remy surrounded me, when he infiltrated every single one of my senses until my entire world became just him.
“Okay,” Katy said slowly, nodding her head. “So, you were having fun with your boyfriend.”
“Your mate,” Larkin added quickly. ”Which is totally fine.”
“Yeah, but suddenly it wasn’t me and Remy,” I explained, frustration lacing my tone. “It was me and Cassian and his friends. I was being held down while they ... They did stuff to me.”
“Fuck,” Katy whispered, her eyes narrowed with rage.
Larkin and Tate had gone pale.
“It didn’t go too far,” I said in a rush. “A teacher came out and saw.”
“And kicked their asses?” Katy demanded.
A bitter laugh escaped me. “No. When she saw it was Cassian, she didn’t care. He ran the school. Most of the adults in the pack feared him, especially when he was with Preston and Marc. The three of them were like some unholy trinity of hate, sadism, and brutality. No one messed with them, especially not over me.”
“So, she left you?” Tate’s expression was horrified.
I shrugged. “Cassian said they could finish with me later. They left me in the dirt and went inside, and I ran home.”
Larkin leaned her head against my shoulder. “I want to punch all of them for you.”
“Cassian is already dead,” Katy replied with a smirk, a glint of approval sparkling in her eyes. “But I wish we could resurrect him so I could kill him all over again for you.”
I exhaled, trying to be comforted by the fact that Cassian was gone and not a threat anymore. I would never have to see him again.
But still, there was a part of me that wished I had seen him. Or at least have seen his body. Maybe seeing him dead, not breathing and lifeless, would help with the nightmares. But Remy had told me that by the time they were done getting me to the infirmary and went back, Cassian’s body was gone.
He had planned on taking me back to Long Mesa with him, and even said he had a car on the way for us. It was why he had picked the spot he had; it was close to the road. They must have taken his body.
A chilling thought froze me in place.
Cassian was gone. Which meant someone would replace him. And I would put money on it being Preston.
Preston, whose brother and best friend I had killed.
I could feel myself starting to spiral, but I shoved the emotions down, swallowing the bile that rose up. Instead I refocused on my friends, on what was right in front of me.
“Did you tell Remy this?” Tate asked. Her brow was wrinkled with worry and concern as she watched me.
I shook my head so fast I got dizzy. “No. No way.”
“Why not?” Katy looked completely puzzled.
“Because,” I replied stubbornly. Because it was embarrassing and humiliating and made me feel like I needed a thousand showers to scrub myself clean.
And I didn’t want any of that dirt touching Remy in any way.
“Because you still feel ashamed it happened?” Larkin’s voice was soft and gentle.
I looked at her, knowing she was exactly right. “A little.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong!” Katy exclaimed, taking me by the shoulders all of the sudden and giving me a quick shake. “Skye, you’re a survivor. The fact that you’re not currently curled up in a ball in a padded room right now after surviving your former pack proves that.”
“Remy would never hold anything like that against you,” Tate added. “You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that,” I said, exasperated as I knocked Katy’s hands off of me. “Remy’s incredible. But sometimes I realize how much it must suck to be stuck with someone so damaged.”
Tate frowned. “You’re not damaged—”
“I can’t even make out with my boyfriend without having a panic attack,” I interrupted her, arching a brow. “He missed almost a month of classes last semester because I was in a coma after being kidnapped and almost dying.”
“Also not your fault,” Katy pointed out.
“But don’t you see? None of this would have happened if I wasn’t here,” I insisted. “I’m the problem in this relationship, and Remy is too good a guy to bring it up. He’s trying to deal with all sorts of stuff happening at school, and I’m making it worse. I can’t even be normal for a freaking day.”
“Wo
w, okay,” Katy started, shaking her head and holding up a hand to stop me, “let’s start with that. First of all, I have never seen my brother as happy as he’s been since you joined our pack. Even before you two bonded, he was different whenever you were around.”
“Yeah, because I was a mess,” I retorted. “And clearly I still am.”
Katy threw up her hands. “Skye, honey, I love you like a sister, but I’m about to literally slap some sense into you.”
Tate put a hand on Katy’s shoulder. “Calm down. That’s not exactly helping.”
“If the situation was reversed,” Larkin started quietly, looking at me with serious eyes, “if Remy had been abused and came from a horrible pack that left him scarred, would it change a thing about how you feel for him? Would it make you wish you had bonded to someone else?”
The idea of someone hurting Remy seemed impossible, but even more impossible was the idea that I wouldn’t love him for any reason. Remy was it for me, and not just because of the bond. It was all the little things I saw him do.
The way he took time to explain things to younger pack members instead of simply barking orders.
The way he united our pack when things got crazy, and how people respected and looked to him for leadership.
The way he protected every single member of his pack.
The way he never once judged me for a damn thing.
Even this morning when he could have demanded answers from me, he gave me space and time.
I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it. It would be like living without a heart; all life would cease without him. My lungs wouldn’t breathe, my brain wouldn’t think, my body wouldn’t move without him.
“Nothing would ever make me love him any less,” I whispered hoarsely. “He’s mine.”
Larkin gave me a small smile. “You have to know he feels the same way.”
She made it sound so simply, so easy. And maybe it was.
I sighed loudly. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Maybe?” She hip checked me with a grin. “Only maybe?”
Rolling my eyes, I started to laugh. “Okay, okay. You’re definitely right. You’re both right,” I added when I saw Katy open her mouth.
Prey (Blackwater Pack Book 2) Page 5
