At the word "pack," a fist closed around my throat, squeezing until black floated around the edges of my eyes. I clawed at the hand, but my own hands were weak as moths; I couldn't do anything but make a low, rattling noise.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured the stage. The applause. Kade, Theo, and Lucian waiting and watching, their faces proud, their hands always gentle. I tried to hold on to that, the knowledge that I’d once been something more than this. My chest ached with the effort, more than the bruises could account for.
The hand released. Air whooshed in, too little, too late. More laughter now, triumphant and ugly. Someone shoved me forward, and I fell, landing in a sodden gutter. My knees scraped, the tissue raw and exposed.
“Thought you could run, Jasmine? You can’t even walk without help.” He leaned in, his breath hot on my ear.
“Let’s see if your fancy new Alphas like you better once we’re through.”
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of crying. I wouldn’t give Bane that power ever again.
But when they pulled at me, my heels scraped across the pebbles. I heard laughter and distant voices from the main street, but nobody turned down this alley. Nobody heard or cared.
My lungs burned, the world refusing to stabilize. I tried to kick, but my body was too flimsy, each muscle too slow to obey. The panic was receding now, replaced by a cold clarity: I was going to die here, in a side alley, beaten until Bane was bored and then thrown away like the trash they thought I was.
Boots scraped against the pavement, and I flinched at the sound. Then Bane was crouching beside me, his face coming into view at my level. His brown eyes held satisfaction so complete itmade me want to vomit. This was what he'd wanted—me broken, on the ground, reminded of my place.
His hand shot out, grabbing my chin with fingers that dug into my jaw hard enough to leave marks. He forced my head up, made me look at him, his grip so tight I felt bone grinding against bone beneath my skin.
“You're worthless,” he said, and his voice carried the certainty of absolute truth. “You always were. A broken Omega who can't even carry a baby to term. What use are you to anyone?”
The words cut deeper than the physical pain, slicing into places that were already bleeding. Every insecurity I'd ever had, every fear about not being enough, came flooding back with visceral force.
“We own you,” he continued, his face close enough that his diesel scent was all I could smell. “Your body. Your voice. Every part of you belongs to this pack. You're marked property, even if we never bothered making it official. Did you really think singing pretty songs would change that?”
Tears were streaming down my broken face, hot and unstoppable. They mixed with dirt, running in muddy tracks down my cheeks. I tried to shake my head, to deny what he was saying, but his grip kept me immobile.
“You'll never live your life without us,” Bane finished. “Those Alphas in there? They'll see what you really are. They'll see the damage, the worthlessness, the fact that you're nothing but a broken toy. And when they do, they'll throw you away too. That's what happens to things like you.”
His words painted a future I'd feared in my darkest moments. The image of my Alphas' faces when they realized I was too broken to fix, too damaged to keep. The rejection I'd been waiting for since they'd first shown me kindness. Theinevitable abandonment that would prove Bane right about everything.
“Please,” I gasped out, the word barely audible. “Please don't—”
“Don't what?” Bane's laugh cut through my plea. “Don't remind you of reality? Don't show you what you really are?”
His other hand drew back, and I watched it rise. Watched his knuckles go white as he made a fist. Watched the muscles in his forearm tense to prepare for the blow. Time seemed to slow, everything moving through honey, giving me far too long to see what was coming and knowing I couldn't stop it.
The punch landed on my cheekbone with explosive force. Pain detonated across the right side of my face, radiating outward in waves that made my vision white out completely. I felt something crack—bone maybe, or just the sound of impact—and then my head was snapping to the side with momentum I couldn't control.
My skull hit the concrete with a sound that seemed impossibly loud in my ears. A second bloom of pain, this one at the back of my head, and the world tilted sideways. Everything blurred, shapes lost definition, sounds became distant and muffled.
Through the static filling my brain, I heard laughter. High and cackling, like a hyena finding something hilarious in the darkness. Bane's laughter, the sound that had haunted my nightmares for months. It echoed off the alley walls, multiplying, surrounding me from all directions until I couldn't tell where it originated.
My vision narrowed to a pinpoint of light, then went black completely. The last thing I registered was the laughter, still echoing, multiplying, still proving that some nightmares never really ended.
Then nothing.
Chapter Thirty-five
Jasmine
My body clawed its way to consciousness before my mind could catch up. A violent, desperate rise through suffocating darkness.
Sound crashed into me—distorted, thunderous, like being trapped in the belly of a bass drum. Then came the agony. A savage, searing pain exploded behind my eyes with each hammering pulse of blood.
Frigid air razored across my exposed flesh. I gasped for breath, but my lungs revolted, spasming violently before finally wrenching in a ragged, broken inhale. Something vicious and metallic flooded my mouth, and beneath it, the copper-penny taste of raw terror.
I pried my eyes open against crusted resistance. Light impaled me, white-hot and merciless.
