3
TALIS
Ilose track of how much time I spend spewing my guts out.
And even though the lingering smell of stew makes me swallow, I finally stop working out how I'm going to sleep in the bathroom without fearing I'll wake up with my head in the toilet bowl.
This is mainly because once I finished tossing my cookies, I took the fastest shower of my life, terrified Uncle Glynn would come back while I was in there since my tiny bathroom has no lock to speak of.
Then after brushing my teeth twice, I plugged my nose and left the stew in the shower and closed the bathroom door.
Now and again, I can still catch the faint scent, but it's manageable.
Barely.
With only a skylight high above me and nothing else to do in my room, I spend the next five minutes lying in my bed and staring up at the cloudy sky.
I don't even know what time it is.
Since Uncle Glynn served up the stew, I'm guessing it's afternoon. But ask me to tell you the time, and I'd be pulling a number from out of my ass.
For the first time since I woke up back in my room, I let myself reflect on how I feel. Not about being pregnant, I don't think I'm even close to being ready to consider the implications of that. Not while I'm here.
But rather of being back in my old room. The room that I slept in since I was eight.
It's strange.
When I left, or when Dayne took me away, I thought that was it. I would never be back here again. And the sheer relief that went through me was like nothing else I'd ever experienced.
Because it wasn't home.
Dawley hasn't felt like home since my parents were alive.
The room still smells like me though-or rather, the pre-pregnant version of me. That and Uncle Glynn, but over time his scent will fade. If he doesn't return, that is.
God, I hope he doesn't come back.
It doesn't feel like my room anymore, I decide, as I roll onto my side, slipping one hand under my pillow as my gaze sweeps over the small but perfectly ordered room.
Even the clothes I pulled on from the dresser, the jeans and black t-shirt, clothes I've worn so many times there are places with dirt so ingrained no amount of washing could get them out, don't feel like mine either.
The fabric feels rough and scratchy against my skin, and I'm sure that has everything to do with the high-end wardrobe I've gotten used to back in Dayne's pack.
I pause.
No.
Not Dayne's pack. Mine. Because now that I'm away from it, it feels like home in a way this place-this circus of horror never has.
But do they think of me as pack? Was I there long enough for them to view me as one of them?
Will Dayne come after me once he finds me gone?
I feel a flare of panic as a thought hits me right between the eyes and I sit up so quickly my stomach rocks, and I clamp a hand over my mouth.
But, no, it's okay. I don't need to throw up again.
Dayne. What if he's dead? What if Uncle killed him?
I remember him going down to confront the stranger in the house, and then my sense of him just… disappeared.
And that's when I hear it, the whispers coming from not too far away.
If I had to guess, I'd say from the small alcove near the top of the stairs.
When the pack are looking for somewhere to go bitch about uncle or talk about things they shouldn't know, they'll go to the alcove.
Since I was careful to never mention how it's close enough to the attic stairs for me to overhear their conversations, they kept on doing it year after year.
It's how I found out I was getting mated to Dayne in the first place, and it's the only way I've ever been able to learn anything about what goes on in the pack since no one's ever thought to tell me anything-both minor and major.
Their hushed murmurs are low enough I guess what they're talking about must be particularly juicy since they're trying super hard to keep their voices down, so I strain to hear more.
All I make out is the situation is desperate. That and it involves Dayne. Though what the situation is and what Dayne has to do with it, I can't tell you.
After several seconds of cursing the heavy attic door which is far too good at muffling sound, I work out if getting up is going to make me throw up again.
But just as I decide to force myself to get up and tiptoe to the door so I can hear better, even though everything in me wants nothing more than to stay lying down, they go quiet, and I hear the soft tread of footsteps moving away.
Oh, well. I guess all I can do is hope they come back and finish their conversation some other time.
Although none of what they said makes any sense, I can't help but feel my heart un-clenching-just a touch. Because if they're talking about Dayne, then surely that means he's alive? And maybe Uncle only knocked him unconscious or drugged him like he did me.
I flop back onto the bed and wait for my stomach to settle before rolling onto my side.
It's my fault, of course. If I hadn't shut my wolf side down, then I wouldn't have tried to kill Savannah, and Dayne wouldn't have had to send the pack away for their safety.
Then it hits me.
My wolf.
Why is my wolf being this silent when for days, weeks, months even, she's been so vocal it's been close to impossible to ignore her?
And why is it, now I'm back here, that my urgent need to shift all the time has evaporated?
Is it because I'm pregnant?
And if it is, then why does her silence fill me with more anxiety than relief that I'm not having to fight to stop her from trying to kill Uncle Glynn again?
At the sound of heavier, determined footsteps hurrying up the stairs, I forget about my unsettled stomach to sit up and swing my feet off the bed.
I know that step.
When I hear that same someone unlocking the padlock with a key he would have gotten from Uncle Glynn, I brace myself, even as I try to slow my breathing and silence my fear.
There are three kinds of people in the Merrick pack.
The first are those who pretend not to see the cruelty and keep their head down, hoping to make themselves less of a target.
The second, are those who will fall in with the rest and get involved because being like everyone else is more important than having a backbone.
Then, there's the third.
That's the type that has me bracing for his entrance, because the pack member shoving open the door is the third. Like Uncle Glynn.
Those are the predators.
They are the ones who not only take a sick pleasure in causing pain, but if the others won't fall in line, then they leave themselves open to be the next target.
And Abel? Uncle Glynn's beta? There have been times he's treated me worse than Uncle Glynn has, hoping to impress his alpha by showing off how strong he must be to beat on someone he knows won't fight back.
The door swings open with a long-drawn-out creak, and despite my stomach cramping, I rise to my feet and move away from my bed.
I woke once in the night with the knowledge someone was watching me, and when I opened my eyes, I saw him, Abel.
His blue eyes glinted at me from the open doorway.
As if he'd been waiting for me to wake, he took a step inside. And then another, while all the while I lay frozen in my bed, too terrified to move.
"Abel!" Uncle Glynn suddenly shouted from somewhere downstairs as I watched Abel creep closer, a dark smile twisting his lips. "You'd better not be doing what I think you're doing, otherwise the alpha I have in mind won't want her."
After one last stare, as if he were promising he'd be back, Abel turned and retreated back downstairs.
I didn't sleep one wink the rest of the night. And the next day I was in a strange daze, knowing what had nearly happened, struggling to figure out which alpha Uncle had meant, and desperately afraid he'd be just as sick, just as cruel as Uncle Glynn. Or even worse, no alpha would want me, and he'd give me to Abel.
Once I'd done all the cleaning in preparation for an important guest Uncle Glynn said would be arriving, I slunk outside into the forest.
I found a tree stump and sat, my mind returning to the night before, knowing it would have broken me if Uncle Glynn hadn't stopped Abel.
If he'd done what he'd wanted, I would have killed him, and if I hadn't been able to, then I'd have killed myself because there was no way I could live with it.
And then I was conscious it was getting darker, and hours had passed without me even aware of it.
Someone could have called me, and I doubt I would have heard them. That's how lost I'd been to my dark thoughts.
When the door swings open, I'm standing against the wall near my tiny bathroom, as far away from the door as I can get.
For a second, Abel does nothing but stare at me, and as I take in the cruelty in his eyes, I find myself regretting how I treated Savannah.
She would have seen Abel when he'd been sneaking around, and looking into his eyes, she had good reason to be so afraid she moved into the farmhouse instead of staying in her cabin alone.
Because if Abel had managed to get his hands on her…
I try not to think of all the ways he would have hurt her.
When I don't speak, Abel flashes me a grin, and I fight the need to recoil.
The worst thing is that he's not unattractive with his ash-blond hair and his blue eyes with long lashes, and then there's his rippling tanned muscles.
Some women might even find him attractive. If they didn't look too closely into his eyes, that is.
I can remember a time when I was younger before the meanness turned into straight-up torture, I thought his petty cruelties were just a sign he liked me.
Since he was only a couple of years older than me, I think I might have even fantasised about us being mated one day.
God was I a fucking naïve kid.
"You're wanted," he growls at me, his eyes sliding down my body in a way that makes me want to snatch up the comforter from the bed and wrap myself in it.
I don't say a word. And I don't move.
His sudden grin makes me even more wary, because this must mean something bad is coming.
Then when he moves to one side of the open door and makes an elaborate mocking bow, I still don't move.
"Alpha wants you," he repeats, with his hand still outstretched toward the door, leaving the narrowest space possible for me to walk past him to get to the stairs.
I'm going to have to brush against him. Maybe even walk down the stairs while he follows behind me.
Oh God.
"And if I were you," Abel says with another one of his pretty smiles out of his dead eyes, "I wouldn't keep him waiting."
Fuck.