“You didn’t feel that cut?” Weston demanded, in my space, his anger raw and wild.
I gulped. “No, honestly. I really do cut myself all the time.” I showed him my other hand. “I have the scars to show for it. Look.”
He did, turning my hand over and tracing one of the scars on my palm with his thumb. “You not feeling pain—is that because of what Granny has done to you?”
“Alexander gave me the beatings. You’ve already made it clear that you read about it in the journals.”
“This needs to be voiced in the present. You need to hear it and let it sink in. Granny ordered those beatings, right? The ones that took you to the brink?”
I knew anger swirled in my eyes as I stared at him mutely. Anguish swirled in my gut, his words poking at the brutal truth that my whole life had been a carefully constructed and maintained fabrication. I didn’t want to dissect this now. I couldn’t allow the reality of my past to disrupt my goals in the present, which were to escape, to claim my magic, and attempt to find safety in obscurity.
He nodded, knowing he was getting to me. “They beat you so often and so badly that you don’t feel pain, Aurelia.” He held up my hand. “This cut is deep. It should be throbbing. It should hurt badly. Hold onto Granny as family, fine, but beating someone within an inch of their life is not the action of someone who loves you.”
I ripped my hand away, breaking that little bit more. “What the fuck do you care? Worried I’ll spoil the goods for your dragons? That they won’t have an able body to punish?”
His jaw clenched. He didn’t respond.
“Yeah, you and your precious duty. Concerned about me as you march me toward death. That makes real sense.” I unwrapped the strip of fabric, already soaked through, and grabbed another. “Let’s not forget, my tolerance for pain enabled me to take your knot the first time,” I seethed, wrapping a “clean” strip around it. Who knew how long this shirt had been worn by a man who usually sweat over open fires. “You remember, when you were trying to punish me with it? You could help me cure this right now. Just pull out my animal and I’ll have access to faster healing.”
His eyes were the customary granite. He didn’t respond.
I issued a sardonic laugh, holding my hand out for Sylvester to tie the strip of fabric.
“Fuck off, why don’t you,” I spat at Weston. “Keep your fucking kill. I’ll eat vegetables and leftovers. Or nothing at all, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve gone without plenty of times. Doing it here or in my village makes no difference. It’s a cage all the same, just a different tyrant as my jailor.”
Pain—regret?—flashed in his eyes. He stared at me for another tense beat. It was to Sylvester he finally spoke. “Get someone to properly clean and sew up that finger.”
He strode away, parting the crowd that had gathered, everyone with bits of meat in their hands. They watched him silently, their gazes then swinging back to me, having heard all.
I didn’t care, but I needed to. In order to get out of here tonight, we had to follow the same routine we had the last few nights. I’d need to apologize to him and make it believable. He needed to drink his glass of wine as we chatted in the tent. Ifwe didn’t stick to that routine, there was no way I’d be able to escape.
I wanted to cry in frustration with the unfairness of it all. It didn’t matter, though. One final “good girl” act and I could go. Fuck him and his hypocrisy.
“I can deal with my finger later,” I said, taking up the knife again. “Your shirt is already ruined. There’s plenty of fabric in it.”
“But you’re bleeding pretty heavily.”
“I’m bleeding from a finger, Sylvester. Get ahold of yourself. I’m not going to bleed out from a cut in my finger.”
He didn’t argue and Weston didn’t come back to force the issue. In fact, he didn’t come back at all. Sylvester and I finished dinner, me ignoring absolutely everyone who told me I didn’t need to make them anything, that I should sit down, that someone should take a look at my finger. I sampled items as I prepared them and the person who told me to eat what the alpha had killed never opened his mouth to me again. It had just been alook, but that look promised plenty of violence. I was at my wits end—with this journey, with my life. All of it.
It was only when all the food was cooked that I allowed the pack to baby me, to sit me down and hand me water and look at my finger.
“Gross. Love, that’s deep,” Hadriel said, massaging my shoulders as he peered at my finger. He’d stayed right behind me all through dinner, watching me closely, helping with anything he could. He didn’t utter a word, not telling me to sit down or to stop, just supporting me in case I should need something.
To say my heart had swelled during all this would’ve been an understatement. I hoped someday, when I had a different identity and life, that maybe I could see some of them again. Maybe we could reunite and reforge the bond we were creating on this journey.
Or maybe I tended to make everyone into family whether that was their intention or not, even those who wanted to hurt me. It was a hard truth to face. A hard reality that constantly threatened to spill tears.
“You really didn’t feel it?” the woman doctoring me asked, bent over my finger as the blood welled up. It wasn’t bleeding nearly as much as before.
“She didn’t even know she’d done it.” Sylvester stood behind her, looking down on the proceedings.
The woman looked up at me, her gaze intense. “You need a few stitches. I don’t have anything to reduce the pain. We’ve used it all and we haven’t had a chance to get more.”
“Would any of your product work?” Hadriel asked, his fingers stilling on my shoulders.
“It’s fine, really. We don’t have anything to dull pain in the village. Granny thought we should endure the effects of our punishments from beginning to end.”
