He squatted in front of me, his eyes full of his power and he leaned in, without explanation. “Did he bark at you?”
Lawson’s bark surprised me. I shouldn’t really be surprised because one of the tactics of overcoming an Alpha’s bark is a stronger Alpha trying to crack the foundation of the first compulsion.
As quick as he barked, I responded, showing him my teeth. An obvious sign of my trust in him but also a pretty good indicator of my frustration at not being able to talk yet.
I wish I knew why Brody’s bark carried similar credence to Lawson’s. Given that my father is a stronger Alpha, it didn’t make sense. But when I think of Brody, my heart fills with fear, and my thoughts slow down.
“I’m fixing you up, Simona, and then I am going to sort this out once and for all.”
I opened my mouth, but this time Lawson silenced me with a look before giving me one of his smiles.
“Dad, you don’t need to go around and fix anything. He’s the only person besides us to know I have an issue with sensitivity. I’ll simply avoid him until I can’t. In the meantime, I think we should up the training, and try harder to fix the stupid, broken part of me.”
“No. This ends now. I will not let that monster do this to you. Your sensitivity to barks is something we’ll keep working on. But letting him spin that into a weakness—into something that makes you believe you’re broken? That kills me. You are absolutely perfect the way you are, Simona. And anyone who makes you feel otherwise will meet the same fate as Brody. I don’t care if it tears our families apart; you are not going to be his. It will be over my dead body.”
“That was already decided years ago,” I whispered, even as hope raced through me, so strong it made me want to scream.
“And I’m about to change everything in a five-minute conversation that we all should have had a long time ago. It’s preposterous, pushing our children together like this! Your mother and I argue constantly about it.”
“Mom and I had a fight today about Brody. She said I have to accept the alliance.”
“Wren is scared of the unknown. The other members of our family are worried we would lose everything. Together we’d make it though, I know we would.”
“I believe that.”
He gave me a quick cuddle and spoke against my ear. “You are the best part of us. You are also too good a person to be ‘owned’. Brody’s even said out loud on a few occasions that he doesn’t like you!”
And that part was also true. Brody absolutely hates me. I have no idea why, but he goes out of his way to remind meany time he sees me, which is how he also discovered I am bark sensitive. I tried to turn and leave one day, and he snapped at me to stop. I ended up in tears not just from the level of vitriol he spewed, but how I couldn’t move an inch to escape him.
“I will deal with your situation, and Brody, but it has to stay between us. Do you understand? You don’t mention to anyone, that includes our family, that I will be doing everything to get you free.”
“What will you be doing?”
“Anything.”
He cupped my face, already seeing my struggle to hold back tears. It was overwhelming—having the ending I’d hoped for finally within reach.
“I mean it, Simona, don’t mention this conversation to anyone. You stay quiet.”
He was considerate when he spoke. His volume and presence were barely there. But I’d always been besotted by my father. He was the only person who listened and saw me properly.
It only took a drop of influence for his word to wind deep into my submission, locking me forever under his command.
In my memories, parts of that afternoon stretch out, filled with tender times—jokes shared, plans for the future made. Lawson never wavered in his belief that I could, and would, master control of my bark sensitivity. But more than that, he constantly reminded me I could do anything I wanted.
It was only after that I remembered the sweat beading on his brow. And the way he kept rubbing his chest every few minutes. I thought he was trying to keep his own monsters at bay, while he tended my wounds.
I listened in horror at the hospital at the diagnosis. Weeks and months later, I never stopped wondering if I could have done something to prevent what happened.
Lawson suffered a massive heart attack. And since I was upstairs and the rest of the family was out, by the time I found him collapsed in his office, he had suffered irreversible damage.
The founding families were all told, because that’s what was part of the ethos of relying on our ‘community’.
Brody was one of the first to offer his condolences at the hospital. When he asked to speak privately, for one selfish moment I thought he was going to apologise for his part in the day, but all he did was laugh when he said, ‘This is all your fault’.
Now, months later, Lawson continues to get stronger physically and some of the sadness in my soul has started to shift. After endless hours of expensive therapy, he is able to walk and talk unaided. Lawson is now a different person; he also has no memory of that day or of the promises he made.
He remembers us having breakfast together, but his next memory is seeing the panic on my mother’s face. Sadly, that was days later when the doctors slowly woke him from his drug-induced coma.
