Chapter 7: The first wound

AVIONNA’S POV

Pain.

It was the kind I’d never felt before, unimaginable and anguishing, the kind that felt like a thousand ants gnawing on my heart.

I thought Lucien's rejection was the most painful experience of my life but this one far outweighed it.

When Alpha Fabian instructed the woman to begin, I didn’t know this was what he meant. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next and now, I found myself wishing I had never stepped into this room.

At first, I had simply watched in confusion as the woman stepped over him, dropping herself into his laps. Her arms came around his neck then trailed a path down the hard, ridged plane of his chest before coming down to rest on his abdomen.

Her hands snagged around his waist as she brought herself closer, close enough to press a kiss to his neck.

He angled his head further to the side, giving her more room to slither her tongue over his skin.

My wolf howled angrily at the sight, making a sudden, maddening attempt to surge forward. Her unexpected reaction made my vision blur and it took everything I had to keep her restrained.

Nevertheless, her fury left a splitting headache in its wake, making me grab my head.

The woman didn't stop. She went on, working her way around his body with incredibly skilled motions. My wolf lost it when she reached for his belt.

She howled. My peripheral vision narrowed into absolute tunnel vision, and my pulse roared, mutating into meaningless, irritating background static and all I could think was getting him away from her. I wanted to rip her to shreds.

The snarl that ripped out of me was animalistic.

I froze at the sound, unwilling to believe it had come from me but it had.

The woman paused her movement, looking over her shoulder with skepticism.

Through it all, Alpha Fabian’s gaze didn't leave me. He knew what was happening, the kind of effect it was having on me, on my wolf and he relished it.

The faint curve of his lips told me everything I needed to know. He’d planned this. He had set this up deliberately, knowing it would make my wolf go crazy.

His eyes never left me, even when he firmly ordered, “Continue.”

The woman withdrew her gaze and turned around, facing him once more. She grabbed his belt again, beginning to unbuckle it.

My wolf roared again. It became a battle of will between the both of us, a ruthless fight for control which I won, but at a cost.

Sweat trickled down my back. My clothes clung to my skin. My chest heaved and my hands curled into fists, my nails digging hard into my palm.

I lifted my head, staring straight at him. “If you really intend to hurt me, then you’ll have to do better than this.”

Frankly, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt. My body felt like it was on fire and my chest hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe but this kind of physical pain could never compare to what I had endured over the years.

My Pack’s scorn, my Father’s hatred, my stepmother’s disgust, her daughter’s ridicule and even my mate’s rejection. This couldn’t compare to the humiliation and torture I had gone through in Crescent Pack.

There, I had forgotten what it felt like to simply breathe.

“Enough.” His voice cut through the air frigidly.

The woman scrambled off him, moving to stand in the corner.

We didn’t take our eyes off each other, and unspoken words thrummed between us.

“What did you say?” He bit out after a couple seconds of suffocating silence.

I curled my hands tighter, tipping my chin upwards.

“I said it will take much more to hurt me. You have to do better than simply putting on this ridiculous erotic performance.”

The words tumbled out of me in a single breath. Once I was finished, I kept my jaw gritted, making sure I wasn’t showing the slightest sign of fear.

For a long while, he was silent. Then he chortled. It was a low laugh at first, which soon rose to a loud cackle that reverberated around the room. He laughed until he wheezed.

My brows pulled together in bewilderment.

What the hell did he find so amusing?

Before I could make sense of his actions, he jammed his palms together, applauding.

“Wow,” he chuckled, lips curving higher. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

As abruptly as he began, he stopped clapping then rose to his feet and stalked towards me.

I couldn’t help taking a few steps back to avoid him.

He halted a step away from me, his smile dropping.

“I’ve been waiting to see this,” he said emotionlessly. “You were acting too weak for a murderer’s daughter.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“She’s not a murderer.”

It was fruitless. I had been through this conversation too many times to know it was and eventually, I had given up on defending my mom everytime someone called her a murderer. My own father believed it to be true, so why wouldn’t everyone else?

I knew that, yet hearing him say it hit differently. I had no idea why, but I felt like it was something I had to prove to him. That my mom wasn’t a killer, that she loved me too much to hurt anyone.

His expression however told me that he cared no whit for what I had to say. To him, there was only a single, absolute truth.

My mom had killed his family, and as her daughter, I had to pay for it.

Silence stretched between us again, but this time, it carried a tension that made every second feel unbearable.

He breached the space between us, lowering his face slightly so he was staring into my core.

“You say that didn’t hurt, right?” His lips tugged backwards, into what I could only describe as a deranged smile.

“Then, I’ll show you what it’s like to truly hurt.”

Author’s Note:

Hi my lovely Readers! If you’re enjoying Avionna’s story so far, please follow the book, leave a comment, and tell me what you think!

And now that Fabian has promised to show Avionna what real pain feels like…

What do you think he’s going to do next?

Drop your theories in the comments—I want to hear ALL of them!

See you in the next chapter!