Chapter Five

Scars They Were Not Supposed to See

Lucas POV

Something was wrong with her back.

I noticed it at dinner, the way she sat slightly forward in the chair, careful, avoiding the full press of the backrest. Most people would have missed it. But I had spent years reading bodies in battle, watching for the small signs of injury that men tried to hide when they were too proud to step back from the line.

She had not touched her food.

The dining hall was full. My pack ate together every evening, it was one of the few rules I held firm to. Community, presence, and a deep understanding of the people around you. Emily sat at the far end near Adam's mate, Lyra, who had tried twice to start a conversation and had been met with one-word answers.

Not rude. Just unused to it.

"She needs time," Adam said quietly beside me, reading my expression. "She has been talked to and ordered around for sixteen years. A warm room and a plate of food is not going to fix that in one evening."

"I know that," I said.

"Then stop watching her like you are trying to solve a problem."

I looked down at my own food. He was right. I always was better at fixing things than waiting for them to fix themselves. And Emily was not a problem to be solved.

I found her in the hall after dinner, standing in front of the large window that looked out onto the grounds. The moon was rising, she had her arms wrapped around herself and her face turned up toward the glass.

"The hills are different at night," I said. She did not startle, she had heard me coming, which was interesting, given her wolf was bound.

"They are beautiful," she said softly. Then, like she had surprised herself by saying it, she looked down. "Sorry. I did not mean to just say that."

"Why are you apologising for saying something is beautiful?"

She did not answer. But I caught the brief flicker of confusion on her face like the question itself did not quite make sense to her. I had a feeling that she had been punished for speaking freely for so long that the habit of silence had become completely natural to her.

"Come with me," I said. "I want the pack doctor to take a look at you."

She stiffened. "I am fine."

"You have not eaten. You have been sitting forward all evening. And you winced when Lyra touched your shoulder during dinner, even though she barely made contact." I held her gaze. "So no. You are not fine. And I would rather know now than find out later that something is infected."

She went very still. Then, quietly, "You notice a lot."

"I notice everything." I gestured toward the corridor. "Come."

The pack doctor was a woman named Yoana, short and sharp-eyed and completely unintimidated by rank. She had been with Ironblood for twelve years and I trusted her completely. She took one look at Emily's face when we walked in and turned to me with a calm that meant she was already reading the situation.

"Give us a few minutes," she said.

I waited outside.

Eleven minutes. That was how long it took. Long enough that I had walked the corridor twice over by the time Yoana opened the door.

"She needs you to come in," Yoana said. Her voice was even and controlled. But her eyes told me to be careful.

Emily was sitting on the examination table. She had pulled her dress back into place, but not before I had seen enough. The marks on Yoana's notepad, the careful, clinical record of what she had found, told the rest of the story. Lash marks across the back and shoulders. An infected cut along the left side, several days old. Bruising in layers, the kind that did not come from a single incident but from many, built up over time.

I looked at Emily. She was watching me with her chin low and her hands pressed flat against her thighs, braced. I recognised that posture. Waiting for the anger to land on her.

"Emily." I kept my voice very quiet. "Did your brother do this?"

"Some of it."

"Jayden?"

"Yes."

"Others?"

A long pause. "The pack. When I was younger mostly. But sometimes still." She swallowed. "It was allowed. Because of what I did."

"What you allegedly did," I said. "When you were six years old."

Her eyes lifted. There was something careful in them. Like she wanted to believe what I was saying but had been let down too many times to risk it.

"I am going to find out what really happened that night," I told her. "I am going to find out who set you up and why. And I will not stop until I have every name." I held her gaze. "You were not responsible. I know it. And I think, somewhere deep down, you know it too."

She did not speak. But her hands, flat against her thighs, slowly uncurled.

Yoana moved in quietly to finish her work, ointment for the infection, a wrap for the worst of the bruising. I stayed by the wall. Present not leaving.

When Yoana was done, Emily slid off the table and straightened carefully. She looked at me for a moment with those too old eyes and said, very quietly,

"Why do you care?"

It was the most direct thing she had said to me since we met.

I could have told her the easy answer. Protection of a pack member, yerms of the transfer, simple duty.

But Caius pushed deeper inside me, heavy and certain, and I looked at her, really looked at her and I knew the real answer was going to change everything.

For both of us.

"Because you are mine," I said. "And I do not let what is mine suffer."

The colour left her face.

And the faint growl I heard next low, startled, and unmistakably real did not come from me or from Caius.

It came from her.

The growl stopped me cold.

It did not come from Caius. It came from her.

Yoana looked at me with wide eyes. I held up a hand, stay calm, and turned back to Emily. She had both hands up to her chest, breathing fast, looking just as shocked as we were.

Caius rammed forward inside me so hard I nearly took a step back.

She is waking up, he growled. Someone triggered her. Something in this territory is pulling her wolf loose.

I crouched in front of her, keeping my voice low and steady.

"Emily. Listen to me carefully." I held her gaze. "Has anyone outside of your brother's pack ever contacted you before today?"

Her face went pale.

The answer was already in her eyes before she opened her mouth.

And whatever she was about to tell me was going to change everything I thought I knew about why she had been kept silent for sixteen years.