Scarlet’s POV
“Then why did you hurt me?”
I looked into his eyes, my voice trembling with the burden of everything I had never dared to say.
“Because I wanted to live,” I confessed. “Dante, you didn’t have the power to save me. Not then. But I did. I had to. I did everything I could, everything I had to do, to survive.”
My throat tightened, but I forced the words out anyway.
“The people I thought were my family… they weren’t. They never were. I used to think they hated me because I was wolfless, but the truth is worse. I was never one of them. I was just a burden. Something to control. Something to break.”
I swallowed hard, my chest aching as the memories crashed down on me.
“They hurt me. Constantly. In ways that don’t fade. They belittled me, tormented me. I have more scars from them than from anyone else in my life.”
I reached for him as I need the grounding presence of his arms as I spoke the most painful truth of all, “I gave my virginity to you, Dante, because I couldn’t bear t
