The tears I'd been holding back started to fall, tracking hot down my cheeks. My composure was crumbling; the careful walls I'd built around these memories were cracking and splintering.
“Jasmine,” Theo said softly, and when I looked at him, his dark eyes were full of an aching gentleness that made my chest hurt. “You can tell us. Whatever happened, however bad it was, you can tell us.”
I wanted to. God, I wanted to so badly, wanted to finally put words to the things I'd carried alone for so long. But the fear was still there, the terror that speaking it out loud would somehow make it real again, would bring it all back.
The three Alphas waited, their presence solid and patient around me, creating a space that felt safe enough to maybe, possibly, try.
I took a shaking breath, tasted salt from my tears, and opened my mouth to tell them everything.
Chapter Nineteen
Jasmine
“They started hitting me within the first month,” I heard myself say, and my voice sounded absurd to my own ears, distant and hollow like it was coming from somewhere outside my body. “Little things at first. A slap when I spoke out of turn. A shove when I didn't move fast enough. They called it discipline; said it was for my own good.”
The words came easier than I'd expected, like they'd been waiting just beneath the surface all this time. I kept my eyes fixed on my hands, watching them twist the blanket into knots, unable to look at the three Alphas surrounding me.
“It got worse,” I continued, my voice shaking. “Everything I did was wrong. If I cooked dinner, it was either too hot or too cold or not seasoned properly. If I cleaned, I missed spots. If I spoke, I was too loud. If I stayed quiet, I was being sullen.” A bitter laugh escaped me, sharp and painful. “I couldn't win. There was no way to be... enough.”
I could feel their attention on me, heavy and focused, but none of them interrupted. They just let me talk, let the poison drain out in broken sentences and fractured memories.
“Bane was the worst,” I whispered, and saying his name out loud made me flinch. “He had these rules, so many rules, and I could never remember them all. And when I broke them, eventhe ones I didn't know existed, he'd...” My voice cracked, the sentence dying.
“Take your time,” Lucian said softly. “We're not going anywhere.”
I nodded, swallowed hard, and forced myself to continue. “He'd hit me. Or he'd have one of the others do it while he watched. Sometimes he'd lock me in a room without food for days. Once, he broke my wrist because I'd forgotten to address him properly in front of visiting Alphas.”
My chest heaved with the effort of breathing through the memories. Tears streamed down my face unchecked now, and I didn't bother wiping them away.
“I'm sorry,” I choked out, my free hand coming up to cover my face. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't be crying like this, I just—”
“No.” Theo's voice cut through my apology, firm, and absolute. The bed shifted as he moved, and then his arms were around me, pulling me against his chest before I could process what was happening. “You should never apologize for your tears. Never.”
I stiffened instinctively, my body responding to being grabbed even though my mind knew this was different. But Theo's embrace wasn't confining. His arms were strong and solid around me, but not tight, not trapping. I could pull away if I wanted to. He was offering comfort, not control.
Slowly, incrementally, my muscles relaxed. I let my weight settle against his chest, felt the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my ear, and smelled the leathery scent of him mixed with something warmer, more personal. His hand came up to cradle the back of my head; fingers gentle in my tangled hair.
“Keep going,” he murmured against my hair. “We're listening.”
The safety of his embrace, the solid presence of Kade and Lucian on either side, gave me the courage to speak the worst ofit. The part I'd told no one, the secret I'd carried like a stone in my chest for nearly a year.
“I got pregnant,” I whispered, and felt Theo's entire body go rigid beneath me. “Four months in. I didn't even realize at first, didn't know the signs. By the time I figured it out, I was already three months along.”
The room had gone utterly silent except for my ragged breathing and the sound of my tears hitting the fabric of Theo's shirt.
“I thought...” My voice broke completely, dissolved into something raw and bleeding. “I thought maybe it would change things. That they'd be gentler, that Bane would see me as valuable now that I was carrying their child. But it just made him angrier.”
I felt more than heard Lucian's sharp intake of breath. Kade shifted in his chair, and when I glanced at him through my tears, I saw his hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles had gone white.
“He said I was trying to trap him,” I continued, the words tumbling out faster now, desperate to get them all out before I lost my nerve. “That I'd gotten pregnant on purpose to secure my place in the pack. It wasn't true. I never wanted—” A sob cut off the sentence.
Theo's arms tightened around me, not crushing but secure, like he was trying to hold all my broken pieces together. “It's okay,” he murmured. “Let it all out. We've got you.”
“He beat me,” I whispered, and the words came out strangled, barely audible. “For being manipulative. For trying to trap him. He hit me in the stomach, over and over, and I couldn't move. I tried to protect my baby, but I couldn't—”
My entire body was shaking now, violent tremors that I couldn't control. The memory was so vivid I could feel it, the impact of fists against my abdomen, the way I'd curled aroundmyself trying to shield what was inside me, the helplessness of being too weak to stop it.
“They hurt me so much,” I gasped out between sobs, “that I lost my baby.”
