“Let us free, and I shall carve his heart from his chest. That is all the healing I need,”she snapped. Theyignored her. She glared at Hudson.“You call yourself a mate? You sit here when vengeance is needed to prove you are worthy of us?”
He tensed but didn’t back off as she intended.
The house groaned, and the wall cracked.
Holy shit. I was about to reduce my home to rubble.
“Knock her out,” Dave advised. He sounded more disturbed than normal but was still the voice of calm in a crisis.
“We can’t keep doing that,” Rebecca snarled. “It’s adding to her injuries.”
“It’s that, or we take her memories,” Sophia muttered, breaking the chanting.
The room went silent before Hudson shook his head. “She will hate us. I still think no.”
“At least she will be alive to hate us,” Sebastian pointed out.
He stiffened at my side.
“I need an answer, Principal,” Sophia demanded.
Hudson tipped his head back. “Forgive me, Cora. I can’t live in a world without you. I promise we will make this right, but for now, I need you sane.”
“Stop,” I whispered.
“But you?—”
“I know, but I need a minute.”
Sebastian hit pause. My hands raked through my hair, and I tugged on the strands to feel the sting. Tears slid down my cheeks as the memories pushed against my mind, blocked by a wall that thinned every day. I wanted them out. I needed to experience and process them so I could finally put the nightmares to bed.
I dragged in a breath, then another, forcing the oxygen into my system and clamping down on the rising panic. “Continue,” I mumbled.
Sebastian hit play.
Hudson crawled up my body and held my face in his hands, staring into my eyes while I fought the bonds. My claws split his skin, and I roared as my aunts moved closer. The tone of their collective voices changed. I snapped my head around to glare at everyone before focusing on Hudson. “I will never forgive you.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Do it.”
My aunts wove a complex spell over my mind, replacing horror with healing and pain with peace. But it was fake, a Band-Aid at best and a botched therapy solution at worst.
My body relaxed inch by inch. The feral look bled from my eyes, becoming distant and glassy.
“It’s done,” Aunt Liz said before leaning to the side and passing out in Dave’s waiting arms.
Sebastian looked over his shoulder at the camera. “If you watch this back, Cora, it’s not to prove our actions, but to explain our reasoning. I know it’s an invasion. I know you will balk at the idea, but you have to know what you are facing when you let these memories in. Just know we’ve got you. All of us.”
The screen went dark, and I shot to my feet, stalking a path across my sitting room and back. I shook my head. I was a danger to everyone I loved. Their actions cost them as much as they cost me, but the betrayal still cut deep. You couldn’t just turn that feeling off because you accepted their logic.
“Cora?” Sebastian said.
I shook my head and held out my hand to ward him off. I needed space to think, to feel, to decide when I got the rest of these memories back. They’d taken not just the aftermath of my torture, but elements of it too. I thought the blacked-out points were my mind protecting me.
“I need you to leave.”
His shoulders dropped, and he nodded before standing. “I love you.”
A sob tore free from my tight throat. I spun to give him my back and wrapped my arms around myself. “And I love you, but right now, I need you to leave.” There was a whisper of movement. “And Sebastian?”
