“Malachi, we can stop.”
“No.” He summoned his will and his strength. Alpha will. Alpha strength. “I was no longer ‘Malachi’ in that home. Not for the next eight years. I was ‘Werewolf.’ All day, every day. ‘Dirty Werewolf’ if I disappointed them in any way, or if one of them had a bad day. A few years later, they began withholding food. I wasn’t starved outright; I was allowed to eat once a day. But that’s not nearly enough sustenance for a growing seventeen-percent wolf pup.”
“But…why, why did they do it? To punish you?”
“They were afraid of my growing too strong for them to handle. They thought less food would slow it down.”
“That’s criminal,” she said.
“Yes, it is. They were terrified of their child, but it doesn’t excuse them. When I turned nine, they began locking me in a closet each night the moon came full. They wanted to know I’d be confined when I did begin changing, and they said one night a month in that room wouldn’t hurt me. And if it did, well, better that than the possible alternative. I used to…” His throat closed for a moment. “I used to knock on the inside of the door to prove my hands hadn’t become paws. To prove I was still a person, safe to be let out.”
“Did it ever work?” she said, in a tone that knew the answer.
“No.”
“Malachi, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. You were just a child.”
“Yes.”
He’d come to understand that, but it had taken a long time. First he had to see for himself Jeremy and Lucy’s joy at the birth of their first pup, Zane; see them foster his growth every way they could. Malachi had to watch Zane at the age of three to understand how deeply hurt even a toddler could be if he lost his name to a slur. Malachi had to watch Zane at the age of seven to understand how emotionally defenseless he had been when Helena told the story of the woman online finally identifying his “hideous, frightening” eyes, and to understand that no pup so small should be denied meals when he moaned with hunger pains. Zane would be eight next year, and by now Malachi also understood that if Jeremy and Lucy locked their pup in a dark room overnight, shouted curses at him when he knocked to be let out, when he called out promises…then they would be cruel people.
Until Zane, he had never understood any of these things. The memories of rejection, wracking hunger, the dark closet—all had simply been his life, and he had been strong enough to stand it. Of course Jeremy and Lucy didn’t know their first pup’s birth had impacted him so deeply. They had no way to know and no reason to ask.
April’s fingers combed the hair on top of his head. Her touch brought more comfort to his wolf heart than she could possibly know.
“You said you came to the Lane at eleven,” she said. “So you spent two years being locked up every month.”
“Unsurprisingly, my body didn’t wait until I was thirteen to begin changing.”
“Are you claustrophobic now?”
“No.” He’d never been asked such perceptive questions about himself. Not even by Rebecca or Ann, whom he considered his surrogate mothers in the pack. “But wolves react badly to close confinement. There’s intense, almost uncontrollable rage. Each month, when Helena opened the closet door, I left the house for a few hours and wandered the neighborhood to calm myself.”
“And this went on for two years.”
“Yes. I wasn’t told, but in the meantime my parents researched. They followed all sorts of online gossip and finally found Harmony Ridge and the wolf pack rumored to live here.”
“They abandoned you to strangers?”
He growled low and deep, a reassurance. Her scent had just spiked with fresh rage, though at this point the anger in her was becoming a static scent in the room, burning like faulty electricity. “Thank fate they did, April. When my father dropped me here and drove away, I walked the full length of the road and knocked on Arlo and Rebecca’s door. I was alarmingly thin and didn’t speak for two weeks. They worried, called William for help—”
“William?”
“The alpha before me. Over time Robert and Ann stepped in too. Every one of them stayed patient when I pushed back or shut down. I vexed the pack often that first year, yet they all treasured me. It’s the only word great enough for what they gave me. Even as a very small pup, I could smell lies. I knew when Arlo and Rebecca told me I was safe, told me they were glad I had come to them—they meant every word. And that gave me the security to begin growing as a pup should be allowed to grow.”
April began to cry, soft tears that found the old scars in his wolf heart he hardly thought of anymore. “I’m grateful to them. But I wish I could go back and hold Little Malachi. Let him know he isn’t anything dirty; he’s a precious pup who’ll grow into a strong, beautiful wolf.”
Beautiful.The word hit his heart like a blow, as did the image of his mate holding a small, amber-eyed, confused and lonely pup on her lap and speaking such words to him. His breath caught in his chest as though she’d kicked him.
“Did I say the wrong thing?” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “But I’ve never…”
She cupped his face again, tears glistening in her kind eyes. “I mean it. You’re beautiful, Malachi. Your good heart, your strength for your pack, and…and the physical traits you were gifted as a wolf, including these eyes.” She brushed her thumbs over his brows. “All of you is beautiful to me.”
“April.”
“If I can’t become your bonded mate, it will be because of me. Because Drew stole too much of…of what I would want to give. To you.”
