“Stay. Let’s talk about this,” Giant tried, catching up to me, clasping my elbow with remarkable care.
“I’m not a fucking dog,” I snarled in his face, canines bared, a growl crackling through my voice. I snarled at this man who’d been kind and considerate and shown me nothing but care.
“I know,” he said patiently, watching me with no judgement, just sadness.
“I don’t need you to fucking pity me,” I said, my skin crawling, body itching. I didn’t want it anymore—this body that betrayed me again and again, that had broken under repeated assault, that had taken the one light from my future that would have made all this survival worth it.
“I donotpity you,” he said very clearly, trying to catch my gaze and failing. “And I can’t know what you’re feeling, but I do know you need to talk about it. I’ve seen PTSD, Lynn. I’ve watched it reduce the strongest alphas to ruins. I’ve seen my brothers become strangers. And that’s without a hysterectomy.”
The darkness shoved into every wound, every cut, every orifice in my body until I choked and drowned. Hysterectomy. I wasn’t an expert but even I knew what that meant. No womb, no babies, no family ever.
I shoved Giant in a surge of adrenaline and rage and explosive pain, and only the fact that he was decent andgoodallowed me to make it to the door and through the doctor’s office on the other side. He could have barked me into obedience if he was dominant enough, could have grabbed me and trapped me in the room.
“Let me walk you back to your room,” he offered instead, keeping pace with me easily because I was hobbling and he was six-foot-something with legs like tree trunks.
“I don’t want to go to that room,” I hissed, trying to curl my hands into fists and hampered by the splints. Only the painkillers allowed me to get from the small medical building to the clubhouse, but where was I going? The idea of being back in that peaceful, comfortable room where I should have died was—unappealing. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted the rage and darkness and screamsout.
“Is there a gym in this place?” I asked impulsively. I needed to hit something, over and over.
“Your fingers arefarfrom healed,” Giant said without answering my question.
I stumbled into the clubhouse, picked a hallway at random, and limped down it. “That’s my problem.”
“Lynn, you really can’t—Cobra!”he blurted, desperately relieved when our paths crossed with the tattooed asshole. I would have laughed if I wasn’t drowning. “Hey.”
Cobra slowed, but didn’t stop, narrowing his eyes on Giant. “Hey,” he said suspiciously. “What do you want?”
“Want? Nothing. Just—saying hey.”
“Is there a gym in this place?” I demanded, locking eyes with Cobra as I limped down the corridor.
“Yeah, that way,” he answered, then stepped into my path with a snort. “Aren’t you injured to shit?” he asked, scanning my body, marking the bandages, the awkward way I held my weight, probably smelling it on me—how close I’d come to death.
I tried to step around him but he flowed into my path. “Get out of my fucking way.”
“Hilarious,” he said with a little smirk.
“What?” My teeth were on show, but I didn’t feel guilty for it unlike with Giant.
“How you think you can fight even a butterfly in your condition.”
“Butterflies haven’t done shit to me; why would I fight them?”
“A fly then.”
“A fly would be less of an irritation than you.”
He grinned, wide and unsettling, something about him making my instincts tug at me, telling me to run.
“Lynn,” Giant tried again, his voice that soft tone that abraded me. “The gym is a bad idea. Areallybad idea. I know you—you’re struggling—”
“It’s either the gym, or I find where you’re torturing the filth from the farm, and I help murder them.” I tried not to glare so hard at him. “Dealer’s choice.”
“You wanna kill someone, asshole, I can arrange that,” Cobra offered.
I turned, slowly because it was difficult to move, and narrowed my eyes. “Out of the goodness of your heart?”
“The what of my what? Not sure I’ve got either of those.”
