Chapter 20 Hating Myself - Aleksandr’s POV
I watched her freeze beside me, the colour draining from her face as my question hung in the air between us. Her eyes—those striking heterochromatic eyes—darted to the garden exit, then back to my face, gauging the distance, calculating risks. I recognised the look—prey assessing escape routes. Her slender fingers curled into fists in her lap, knuckles whitening as she struggled with what to tell me and what the consequences might be. Skoll growled low in my mind, his hatred for whoever had conditioned her to such fear burning hot against my consciousness.
'She thinks we'll hurt her for speaking truth,' my wolf snarled, his rage pressing against the boundaries of my control.
"Take your time," I said, keeping my voice deliberately soft despite the fury building beneath my skin. "But I need to know."
Amelia drew a shaky breath, her gaze fixed on the table between us. "I... I didn't shift on my sixteenth birthday," she finally whispered. "Everyone was waiting. Alpha Marcus and Luna Elena had a celebration planned. They'd raised me since I was eight, treated me like their daughter."
She paused, swallowing hard. The memory clearly pained her.
"When midnight passed and nothing happened, they waited another day. Then another. After a week, Luna Elena said there must be something wrong with me." Her voice dropped even lower. "They kicked me out of the family quarters. Said I couldn't live with them anymore if I was... wolfless."
'They abandoned their own child for something beyond her control,' Skoll growled, contempt dripping from every word. 'Pathetic excuses for pack leaders.'
"They gave me a room in the basement," Amelia continued, her words coming faster now, as if she needed to get them out before courage failed her. "Made me work as a servant. Said I had to earn my keep since I couldn't contribute to the pack. I was... locked in at night. Sometimes during the day too, if they didn't need me."
I studied her face as she spoke, noting the careful blankness she tried to maintain—a mask worn to hide deeper pain. Her shoulders had drawn inward, making herself smaller, less noticeable. A survival tactic.
"And your back?" I asked, the question gentle despite the rage building inside me. "Who cut you with silver?"
Amelia's head jerked up, eyes widening in panic. She shook her head rapidly, lips pressed together as if physically preventing herself from answering.
"They can't reach you here, Amelia," I said, leaning forward slightly. "Not with you under my protection. No one from the Frozen Mountain Pack will ever touch you again."
She studied my face with surprising intensity, looking for deception, for the trap she clearly expected. Whatever she saw made her shoulders drop slightly.
"Beta Dominic," she said, so quietly I might have missed it if not for my enhanced hearing. "He was the worst. Alpha Marcus hit me a couple times, but it was Beta Dominic that had the silver knife."
She shivered visibly, drawing her knees up against her chest in a defensive posture, her food forgotten.
"He kept it blunt on purpose," she continued, her voice hollow. "He called it 'my knife.' Said I deserved it for not having a wolf."
Each word fed the inferno building inside me. Skoll's fury blended with my own until I could barely distinguish between us. I kept my face carefully neutral, not wanting to frighten her into silence.
"How often?" I asked, the words emerging surprisingly steady.
"Whenever I made mistakes. Or when he was angry. Sometimes when he was bored." Her voice had gone flat, disconnected from the horror of what she described. "The last time was the night before Alpha Marcus brought me here. I... I tried to help another servant who had spilled something. Beta Dominic didn't like that."
'We will tear him apart,' Skoll promised darkly. 'We will make him suffer as she has suffered.'
"Did anyone else hurt you?" I continued, needing to know the full extent, needing names for my mental list of those who would pay.
"Most of the ranked wolves hit me at one point or another," Amelia said, still in that detached voice. "But the silver was always Beta Dominic. It was him that tried to strangle me too. And he broke my rib once when I didn't clean his boots properly."
My fingers tightened around my coffee cup, the fine china cracking slightly under the pressure. I set it down carefully before I shattered it completely.
"And the cigarette burns?" I prompted, remembering the marks Sylvia had noted on her arms and legs.
Something in Amelia seemed to crack at this question. A shudder ran through her thin frame. "Beta Dominic," she whispered. "He liked to watch me heal, so he rubbed wolfsbane into them to slow it down. Said it was... fascinating... to see how long it would take."
The word "fascinating" in this context pushed me to my limit. Skoll surged forward, his rage overwhelming my careful control. I felt my fingers elongating, nails hardening into claws that dug into the wooden table. My canines extended painfully against my lower lip, and I knew without seeing that my eyes had flared brilliant purple—Skoll looking out directly at the world.
'Let me kill them,' my wolf demanded, his voice thundering in my head. 'Let me tear them apart for what they've done to her.'
Across the table, Amelia had gone completely still, the scent of her fear sharp and sudden in the morning air. She pressed herself back into her chair, as far from me as she could get without standing. Her pupils had dilated with terror, her breathing shallow and rapid.
She'd seen this reaction before, I realised. She'd seen wolves lose control and knew exactly what usually followed.
"Amelia," I managed, my voice rougher, deeper with Skoll so close to the surface. "I'm not angry at you."
But the damage was done. She'd backed herself into a corner of her chair, trembling visibly, the progress of the past day shattered by my loss of control. Fear rolled off her in waves, and behind it, resignation—the expectation of pain that had been conditioned into her over years of abuse.
In that moment, I hated myself almost as much as I hated the monsters who had hurt her.