Chapter 6

Avery’s POV

“Mate.”

The voice was deep and familiar and yet so far away, like reaching through dark water—or perhaps like something from a past life, just out of reach beyond the tips of my fingers but right there.

No matter how far I stretched my hand, I couldn’t seem to touch it. The voice stayed just far enough to remain hidden. The face it was attached to never came into view.

“Mate,” it said again. Slow, deep, simple. The rasp of a low timbre that tickled the insides of my ears.

I knew that voice.

That was the voice of my mate. The man who had marked me in the forest, right there beneath the light of the Blue Moon.

I opened my mouth, tried to call for him, but it was no use. The words stuck in my throat. Right there. Glued to the same spot my body had been when he—

“Avery.”

Another voice this time. Lighter, softer, even more familiar.

“Avery, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Mama’s here.”

I blinked my eyes open, and the first thing I felt was pain.

The ceiling was dark above me, just a single bar of sunlight seeping through the crack in the door. The spider was gone.Something else was moving above me—mousey brown hair, soft eyes filled with tears.

My mother’s hands moved gently over my body, the silence in the small, hot shed occasionally punctuated by the sounds of her sniffles. She dipped a washcloth into a bowl of water, wrung it out, then gently dabbed at my forehead.

I hissed through my teeth as the cold water stung at a cut just above my brow.

“I’m sorry, love,” my mother’s voice whispered. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.”

As my vision came into focus, I saw my mother’s face beside me, her brows tight with worry. A pang went through me, and it had little to do with the pain I felt from my father’s beating.

“She called you here, didn’t she?” I croaked out. My voice felt raw and thick. “To make you see.”

My mother’s lips pressed into a line. She didn’t answer that, but she didn’t need to. This wasn’t the first time that my stepmother had called my mother here to tend to my wounds; she always dressed it up as some kind of mercy, as if having my mother by my side when the beatings were too painful would make me feel better.

It didn’t. Because I knew that my stepmother’s real motives had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with humiliation. She wanted my mother, who had already seen enough horrors in her life, to see her only daughter battered and bruised and on the brink of death.

She got a kick out of watching my mother have to tend to my wounds.

I pulled on the ropes binding my left wrist, trying to stop her, but my hand was stuck fast to the wall. My head lolled to the side as a low groan escaped me, and my mother’s eyes darted to the mark on my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I said through tears that hadn’t seemed to stop falling, even when I was unconscious, since the moment Ryan refused to listen to me. “I didn’t mean to let him mark me. I thought he was…”

I couldn’t finish saying it. It was still too raw, too painful.

My mother’s hands stilled over my wounds. There wasn’t an ounce of disappointment in her eyes, and that was what hurt the most. Because no matter what happened, no matter how much of a disgrace the pack saw me as, she never saw me that way.

“What was he like?” she asked softly. She helped me sit up against the wall, easing some of the tension in my shoulders. “Your mate.”

I swallowed. My throat was raw and the simple act of that alone was enough to make me wince.

“That’s the thing,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t remember.”

My mother’s brows lifted.

“Zara drugged me.” I shut my eyes for a moment and breathed. Each inhale sent a fresh pang shooting through my ribs from where my father had kicked me. If I’d had a wolf, then I could have begun the accelerated healing process already—but, as if adding insult to injury, my wolf hadn’t even emerged when I’d been marked.

Because apparently, I wasn’t even allowed to have that small mercy.

“I should have known something was up when she gave me a drink last night at the party,” I said. “But I was so nervous about meeting with Ryan, I didn’t think… I’m such an idiot.”

“No. No, Avery, sweetheart, you are not an idiot.” My mother’s hands cupped my face, her fingers small, the pads of them worn smooth from years of scrubbing the pack house floors with harsh cleaning chemicals.

“But I let a stranger…” I looked away, cheeks flushing, unable to say it.

My mother tilted her head. “Did you enjoy it? Was it consensual?"

I furrowed my brow, thinking for a moment. I didn’t recall much from last night. Just flashes of a figure moving above me, strong arms wrapped around me. Even now, the images were fading all too quickly.

But I knew the truth.

Despite the drugs turning my blood hot, I had wanted it. I’d wanted him. More than anything.

I nodded slowly, meeting my mom’s eyes.

Her face softened, her lips curving into a faint smile. “Then that’s all that matters,” she said. “I believe you should try to find him.”

“Find him?” I blurted out, nearly laughing at the absurdity of it. “Mom, I have to talk to Ryan. If I’m turned into a slave, I won’t be able to help you anymore. And then what will we do?” I shook my head. “No. Our survival, your survival, is far more important than any man. So I’ll go to Ryan. I’ll plead his forgiveness. If I can prove I was framed, then maybe I can turn this around.”

My mother made a small sound that could have been a laugh, although I couldn’t quite tell.

“Darling,” she said, tracing her thumb over my cheekbone, “is that what you really want? To let your mate go, your fated one, to appease a man who would let this—” She gestured to the ropes binding my wrists to the shed wall, the wounds scarring my body, my torn lingerie— “happen to you?”

I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, the door slammed open, making us both jump.

Zara stood in the doorway, her eyes flicking over the scene. “Selene,” she said, inclining her chin. “I didn’t know you were here. Good. You’ll both want to see this.”

Zara walked into the room and practically shoved my mother out of the way, making a growl rattle my throat. Her lips curved, and she crouched in front of me, reaching up to tug at her shirt collar.

“All this talk of winning Ryan over again,” she cooed, pulling the fabric aside, “and yet I bear his mark.”

She pulled the fabric out of the way, and my stomach dropped through the floorboards.

There, fresh on her skin, just as fresh as my own, was a large, arc-shaped scar.

A mark.

Zara leaned in and gave me a whiff, proving my suspicions.

The mark was scented just like Ryan.

His scent washed over me, familiar and heartbreaking. Wine and sweat and that distinct smell that only he had. The same smell that had lulled me to sleep on his chest so many times while we laid under the shade of a tree.

That scent was supposed to be mine one day. That mark was supposed to be on my neck, not Zara’s.

The look in my eyes made Zara’s smile stretch a little further, just like it always did when she knew she had won.

“You might as well know the truth,” she said, standing. “Ryan is my fated mate; he marked me last night, while you were out whoring around with old men and rogues.” She picked an invisible piece of lint off her shirt and flicked it at my mother without even looking her way. “Soon, I’ll be the Luna of Silvermoon. And you?” Zara tilted her head. “You’ll just be a slave.”

Reaching behind her, Zara pulled out a bundle of fabric; my dress from last night, torn and muddied, the careful embroidery I’d spent weeks on now half-ruined. She threw it on my lap, then walked over to the ropes and untied them. My mother gasped and rushed forward, catching me before I doubled over, her hands gently rubbing my sore wrists.

“Get dressed,” she said. “Alpha Gideon will be here in an hour, and the whole pack must be in attendance for his welcoming ceremony.” She turned, walking over to the door, then paused just before leaving.

“Remember your place,” she said over her shoulder. “Today, and every day from here on out, you will stand amongst the slaves.”