Chapter 308
I can see Axel is confused by what I’ve just said.
“How can Leah be the reason you were abducted? She was just a child,” Axel says, but his voice isn’t judgmental or critical, just
curious.
I think then he might actually listen to me and understand where I’m coming from.
“The Roberts Luna was killed,” I tell him, the memories of that time coming back to haunt me.
Really, those memories never left me. It’s not like I had much else to think about during those ten years I was locked up.
“And then both my parents were killed,” I continue, a lump rising in my throat. “The number of wolves who’d already died was getting higher and higher, and other packs were beginning to get pulled into the conflict. The Council decreed that peace needed to be reached. They decided in favor of the Rathborn pack and told the old Roberts Alpha he needed to hand Leah over to be Aaron’s future bride. Of course, it wasn’t like Rathborn pack came away from it much better off. My brother had to sacrifice his life and his true love, Jessica.”
“I still don’t see what that has to do with you,” Axel says, brow creasing in confusion.
glance away from him, trying not to let the memories overwhelm me.
I’d barely been old enough to be fighting in the war myself.
I’d only just turned seventeen, but after my parents were killed, I swore I would get my revenge.
Instead, the Old Roberts Alpha used me for his own revenge.
“Barely an hour after the ruling, I was out with other Rathborn pack members because we’d heard yet another group of Roberts wolves had trespassed on our territory. We got ambushed. The Roberts Alpha and what was left of his best fighting wolves slaughtered the other pack members I was with, and abducted me. It was a massacre. And all the bodies they burned. All so they could cover the fact that I was taken, not killed. Aaron and the rest of the pack assumed I was killed that day, just like the old Roberts Alpha hoped they would.”
“I’m so sorry you went through that, Emily,” Axel says in a low voice, and I can tell he means it, they’re not just empty words.
“The old Roberts Alpha, he told me from the moment he took me that the only reason I was there, the only reason I was alive, was because the Rathborn pack had his daughter. It was like some kind of twisted trade in his mind. Aaron had Leah, so the Alpha Roberts had me. He would come and see me all the time. Sometimes almost everyday, but then sometimes not for weeks. Somehow he was getting updates from within the Rathborn pack, so he’d tell me about her. What she was doing, and whenever the Rathborn pack treated her badly, he’d do the same
to me, but twice as bad-”
I have to stop then, because it’s starting to feel like I can’t breathe again, and I don’t want to go back there.
To the panic, to the feeling of helplessness.
To the torture.
That was only the beginning.
Those early days, when he’d withhold food, or beat me, or make me sleep in a cold dark closet with no bedding and no blankets.
I used to hope my pack was treating Leah as badly, because it was what she deserved..
The Roberts pack had brought nothing but death and misery to the Rathborn pack.
However, at the same time, I started wishing Aaron and the others would just leave her alone and forget about her, so maybe the old Roberts Alpha would do the same with me…
Of course, eventually Leah had grown up and then Aaron had actually married her.
When the Roberts Alpha had come to tell me–raging about it- I’d refused to believe it.
I’d been convinced that surely Aaron would find some way to get himself out of it.
Cars, alter all, to appeal to the Council and get the ruling reversed.
After that was when the old Roberts Alpha had really stepped things up.
When he’d started his research, and the experiments had begun…
I shudder, feeling my stomach churn, and can’t let my thoughts go any deeper into that darkness.
“It’s okay, Emily,” Axel says gently. “You don’t have to tell me anything else.”
I take a calming breath and look up at him, but then freeze as my gaze catches his.
We’re so close, less than an inch apart.
It would be so easy to close the distance between us.
I want to feel his mouth on mine more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
“Emily…” he whispers roughly, his eyes darkening as he stares.
at me.
I’m struck by the idea that maybe he wants me after all.
That the spark between us is undeniable.
alling to blaze into an inferno.
But then why did he reject me?
I’m tempted to lean forward, just to find out what might happen.
However, just then, the door opens and Aaron walks in, his expression grim as he glances from me and my bloody hands, to the broken shards of glass littering the carpet.
The doctor also bustles in and takes a clinical look over the situation.
“Get the sedative,” Aaron says in a cold voice.
