I’m almost positive I’m being pulled out of the tank, but I can’t seem to open my eyes. Every time I try, they’re met with a burning sensation from the blood seeping into them.
As the seconds tick by, the oxygen in my lungs grows scarce. Every terrifying moment of the past three years replays in my mind, crippling me. I hear my name being called, but the voices are so faint, and my head is so dizzy. I’m not sure if I’m still being held or if I’m lying down. There’s a disconnect between my mind and body now. It feels like the moment right before falling asleep, but the memories of the Last War feel so real that part of me wonders if I’m already deep within a nightmare.
The incessant sound of steady beeps echo through my mind as I try to figure out what’s going on. It feels like my body is being pushed down, but my consciousness seems to be clawing its way to the surface. My eyes flutter open, fighting off the brightness of the fluorescent lights that seem hellbent onblinding me. In an attempt to get away from the direct hit of them, I turn my head toward the beeping.
A green light runs along the monitor, and it’s all I need to see to know that I’m in a hospital. I glance down, lifting my finger that is clamped between a pulse oximeter.
“She’s awake!” a male voice calls out.
I turn my head to the left and find Kole sitting next to the bed with a strained expression. He shoots up out of his chair and takes a step back just as Thane appears, looking down at me, no longer wearing the Phantom mask.
“Is she okay? Is everything normal?” Thane’s rough voice trembles slightly as the questions pour out of him.
“Yes, Alpha. She’s going to be just fine. It was probably just a panic attack,” an older woman in a white coat reassures before gliding away like some kind of angel.
Thane’s brows pinch as his eyes narrow on me. If I didn’t know him, I’d think it was the look of concern. But I do know him, so I’m assuming it’s the look of irritation from me messing up his plans to have me repeatedly dropped into the dunk tank of blood.
Blood.
The smell isn’t as strong, but it’s still all over me. Dried and cracked like a shell of death. I sit up, ripping the monitors off of me before jumping out of the bed. I’m still dressed in the slave costume, so I make sure to adjust the thin strips of fabric that make up the skirt as I move.
“Whoa. What are you doing?” Thane demands, grabbing a hold of my shoulders. I immediately roll them back, knocking his hands away.
“She just said I’m fine. It was a stupid panic attack.”
The dunk tank was meant to humiliate me, but my panic attack did that all on its own. Everyone got to see the humangirl fight for breath as she coughed up blood, drowning in the horrifying memories they left me with. Memories that I had tried to forget.
“Just let me take a look at you,” Thane snarls.
“Why?” I bite back. “So you can admire your work?” I throw my hands out and turn around, showing off the layer of dry blood coating my body. “Happy?”
His jaw ticks as his gaze falls. “No,” he answers with a grunt.
He reaches for my wrist and pulls me into him so tightly that I can’t push away. For a moment, I wonder if he’s going to toss me back into the hospital bed, but instead, he shoots off through the building. Before I know it, he’s buckling my seatbelt and slamming the car door in my face.
“Where are we going now?”
He skids onto the street like he’s fucking Dominic Toretto, and my grip on the door handle tightens when he immediately takes a sharp right.
“We’re going home so I can get that blood off of you,” he answers in a voice so deep I have to strain my ears to hear him.
“You mean the blood I almost drowned in? The blood that you forced me into, because of your obsession with getting revenge on humans, even though you’ve already killed them all!” The restraint on my anger vanishes as the words spew out of me with their own venom. “When will it be enough? When will you stop blaming me for a world I was never welcomed in either?”
The car jerks to a stop, and when his head snaps to me, I can see the wild animal within him, demanding to be let out. We stay stopped in the middle of the road for a long moment before he takes off again, not saying a damn thing. Maybe he finally realized just how insane his whole reasoningfor punishing me is, but I doubt it. A guy like Thane would rather double down than admit that he’s wrong.
Somehow, Kole beats us to the penthouse, where he’s waiting by the wall of windows with his hands clasped behind his back. There’s an anxiousness about him as he shifts from foot to foot, eyeing his brother like a hawk. He usually has a calm demeanor, so seeing him on edge makes me feel even more uneasy.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to go scrub my body until it’s raw,” I say over my shoulder with a hiss.
Thane darts in front of me, blocking the bedroom doorway, but Kole is already between us, holding his hand up against Thane’s chest.
“Careful, brother,” Kole warns, taking a small step closer to Thane.
The both of them are eye to eye. Two powerful beasts locked in some sort of standoff. I’m not sure what this is all about, but I know better than to get in the middle of it. Thane pushes Kole aside with enough ease to let me know Kole allowed it, and though the thought of that should make me feel a little more relaxed, it doesn’t.
“I’m in control,” Thane tells Kole with a nod before turning back to me.
What am I missing here?
