CH.5

MAYA

Pain was the first thing that found me.

It started low in my right side, sharp, and spread until even breathing felt like a negotiation. 

I tried to sit up anyway but my body refused, and I dropped back on the mattress with a strangled gasp.

Light poured through tall windows, stabbing at my eyes. 

The air smelled like dark wood and vanilla, with something cool and clean underneath it, like rain on glass. 

I knew that scent. It had been wrapped around me since my rescue from Kyle’s men.

Future wife.

I pressed my palm to my side. 

The bandage was damp and warm.

For one second, I let myself pretend everything that had happened was a bad dream. 

The operating table, the glass, Harper's smile, Kyle's voice calling me a spare part. Then the pain dragged me back to the truth, and the truth sat on my chest like a boulder.

I'd said I do to that man. I'd cried happy tears in a white dress. I'd even picked out curtains for a house he bought with my kidney.

My throat tightened but I swallowed it down. Crying wouldn't stitch anything closed.

I reached inward for my wolf, the way I'd done a hundred times in the car. However, there was still nothing. 

It felt like knocking on a door in an empty building and listening to the echo come back.

Where do you even start when you've lost this much?

I thought of Susie. She'd have been up all night calling every hospital in the city, pacing and chewing her nails down to nothing. 

She was the only person alive who'd notice I was missing, and I couldn't even tell her I was breathing.

"I need a phone." The words scraped out of me to an empty room, the sound of my own cracked voice making me flinch.

The drapes suddenly tore open with a screech of metal rings.

Sunlight hit my face like a slap.

"Time to wake up, trash." The girl at the foot of the bed let the curtain go and turned around, smiling like she'd been waiting all morning for this.

I squinted through the glare. 

She wore a spotless white dress, balancing a tray of gauze and antiseptic on one hip. 

She was pretty in a sharp way, with high cheekbones, a mouth that looked happiest when it was sneering. 

She smelled like an Omega, yet she held herself like she owned the house.

"Do you know how many sheets you've ruined?" She dropped the tray on the nightstand hard enough to rattle every bottle on it. 

Her gaze crawled over me as if I were something she'd found on her shoe. "There are Omegas in this pack with real bloodlines. Girls like me. And he drags home a bleeding stray."

I didn't answer. 

My mouth was too dry, and I didn't trust what would come out of it.

"Sit up!" She planted both hands on her hips and tapped her foot on the marble. "I'm not asking twice."

I tried. I really did. But I wasn't fast enough, so she grabbed my shoulder to yank me upright.

Fire ripped across my abdomen, and a cry slipped out before I could catch it.

"Oh, did that hurt?" Her eyes lit up with a bright, nasty pleasure as she leaned over me. "Sorry. You're just so fragile."

She reached for the edge of my bandage.

I expected her to unwind it like any nurse would. Instead, she dug her fingernails in right over the stitches and tore.

The world went white.

I felt the thread strain, then pop. 

Warmth rushed down my hip, soaking the sheets beneath me. 

The girl bent close enough that I could smell the spearmint on her breath.

"Maybe if these split open, the Alpha will finally throw your carcass in the gutter where it belongs." She hissed right beside my ear, soft and sweet, like she was sharing a secret.

She isn't clumsy. She's trying to finish what the surgeon started.

The thought landed slowly, yet it didn't bring fear. It brought something quiet and cold, the way the air goes still before a storm. 

Kyle had smiled while he planned my death. Harper had smiled while she watched. Now a maid with clean hands and a pretty face was smiling too.

Everyone smiled right before they hurt me.

The old Maya would've cried, apologized… even thanked her for the trouble. That Maya had died on a steel table, and I could feel the empty place she'd left behind. 

Something harder was growing there.

When the girl reached for the gauze again, my hand shot out and caught her wrist.

I didn't plan it. 

My fingers just knew where to press, right under the joint where the nerves ran close to the skin, and I squeezed until I felt the bones shift. 

She gasped, tried to jerk free, but I twisted. 

Her knees buckled.

"Let go!" Her voice cracked as she clawed at my fingers. "Let go, you crazy bitch!"

I held on, watching the arrogance drain out of her face, replaced by something raw and cornered. 

It should've felt cruel. Instead, it felt like breathing for the first time in a week.

"Touch my wound again." My voice came out scraped but steady.

 I tightened my grip until she whimpered. 

"I'll snap this wrist in half!" With that, I shoved her away. 

She stumbled back, clutching her arm to her chest, staring as if I'd grown fangs.

"You're insane." She retreated toward the door, her good hand fumbling behind her. "You're completely out of your mind."

The door swung wide open before she reached it and the temperature plummeted so fast I felt the chill prickle my bare skin.