68. Pain of Secrets
“I don’t know! I swear I don’t know!” I sobbed.
Mr. Callahan pressed the tip of the knife deeper into my neck, making me scream in agony. I didn’t even know this level of pain existed.
He was cutting into the bump near my throat—the one he referred to as my “mating gland”—pushing in deeper and deeper, drawing blood, each jab causing a horrible, burning fire to race down my body.
Getting cut by a knife was supposed to hurt, but there was something about being cut in this specific spot that felt more like he was pressing a hot branding iron into my skin.
After nodding off earlier that day, I was awoken a few hours later by Robert and Mr. Callahan descending the stairs of the basement with unnerving expressions on their faces.
They told me it was my last opportunity to tell them the truth and started firing questions at me, each one more confusing than the last.
So far, I had learned that they were looking for a place called “Zaweth” which, according to them, was some sort of supernatural kingdom full of mythical creatures just like werewolves.
The entrance to this place was hidden by magic, and Robert wanted to know how to get inside.
I told them that I had never heard of Zaweth, but they said that was impossible because Ace had been there the day they kidnapped me.
“Then where the hell did Ace tell you he was going?” Robert demanded, crouched down in front of me.
“Croatia! He said he was going to Croatia!” I cried out.
I tried to pull away from Mr. Callahan, but he grabbed me by my hair and yanked me back.
The knife went deeper. A blood-curdling scream left my mouth. The room spun around me, darkness threatening to consume me if the pain didn’t stop soon.
“Stop it! Let her go!” Mitchell bellowed. “What the fuck are you doing to her?”
My birth father had awoken around the same time Robert and Callahan came back downstairs, so he had been forced to watch me being tortured for the last forty-five minutes.
With his hands still tied to the wooden post behind him, there was nothing he could do to help me.
He sure did do a lot of yelling though.
I wished he would be quiet. I was relieved when he woke up, especially after thinking he was dead, but Mr. Callahan’s face was starting to sour with every word that came out of Mitchell’s mouth.
He was going to get himself knocked out again if he wasn’t careful.
“Croatia?” Robert sounded skeptical.
I couldn’t blame him for doubting me—Croatia was such a random place to just blurt out. I would think I was making it up too.
I would’ve nodded if I had any control over my neck. “There was a family emergency. S-something to do with his cousin and father, but I don’t know for sure.
But it was definitely Croatia.”
With his hand still wrapped around my hair and his knife still pushed up against my throat, Mr.
Callahan forced me to tilt my head back. “What do you know about his cousin?”
“H-his name is G-Grayson Stoll,” I said.
I could tell I was on to something when Robert and Mr. Callahan exchanged looks. I racked my brain for any other information.
“Ace said that his father tried to, um, k-kill Grayson but didn’t explain why, only that it was for power.
That was why he had to go to Croatia.
“I know this all sounds ridiculous but I swear that’s all he told me. I had never even heard of Grayson before that.”
Was I giving away Ace’s personal information? Yes. Did I care? No. I had bigger fish to fry.
Mr. Callahan finally released me. Relief washed over me, and I scrambled back until my back was against the wall, putting a good several feet between me and my tormentors.
I cupped my pulsating neck, wincing when even that simple touch felt like someone was pouring boiling water over me.
There was blood on my trembling hand when I pulled away. I bit my lip and swallowed the ball of tears rising in my throat.
Cutting me there did more than just cause me pain. It felt wrong. Intimate for some reason. The little bump was much more sensitive than I’d realized, and evidently full of nerves.
I couldn’t help but feel violated.
What horrified me even more was that I got the sense that they knew that too. Mr. wn in front of me.
Callahan had called it my “mating gland” after all. Mating, as in something romantic or even sexual.
He knew it would cause me a great deal of pain to be cut there, but more importantly, he knew it would make me feel exposed and vulnerable. I think he even enjoyed it in some sadistic way.
I pressed my trembling body into the corner and curled my knees to my chest, making myself look as small as possible in an effort to escape the men’s leering eyes.
I wished I were wearing something other than my tiny pajama shorts and nearly see-through white T- shirt.
Robert and Mr. Callahan hadn’t tried to touch in a sexual way yet, but I wouldn’t put it past them. The more time I spent in this basement, the more they looked at me as if I were a piece of meat.
I wasn’t human to them anymore. I was an object for them to use in whatever way benefited them the
he was dead, but most.
Mr. Callahan rolled his eyes as if he thought I was being melodramatic. With a heavy sigh, he sat back on his haunches, his blade falling to his side.
“I think she’s telling the truth,” he said to Robert. “No omega can withstand getting her mating gland
out. I would think cut open.”
Robert’s eyebrow started to twitch. “You told me she knew about werewolves.”
“Without a wolf, I’m not a true member of the pack. I’m not privy to the same knowledge as everyone else. I only heard that they were a couple, and I thought that meant she knew about werewolves.”
“But you didn’t get confirmation?” Robert bit out. “We did all of this based on your word!”
“Humans go to our school. We can’t talk about werewolves or the pack on school property.
“I told Mitchell this”—Mr. Callahan thrusted a finger at my birth father—“when he asked me to help you all get on to pack land to take Dorothy.
“He was the one who insisted his daughter knew all about the werewolf world and would be willing to give up information.”
Robert narrowed his eyes at Mitchell across the room. “So, you lied to us.”it was for power.
My birth father shook his head, his eyes going wide. “She does know about werewolves. She’s known about them ever since she was little.
“I tried to save her when she was fifteen by putting a lock on her mind, but Ace Stoll figured out a way to remove it. He told her everything. I saw him shift in front of her. She knows.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I most definitely did not know about werewolves. There were signs—huge, ~monumental~ signs—but I’d somehow missed all of them.
Even in that basement, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the information. I mean, who just accepts people saying their boyfriend is a werewolf? Things like that don’t happen in real life.
I could’ve screamed. Screamed and cried and pulled my hair out. d the ball of tearsWhat the absolute living fuck is even going on anymore?
It felt like my life was an escalating, disastrous clusterfuck of confusion and paranoia that had all been leading to this moment. This explosion.
This was the result of all the secrets and all the lies kept from me. Something I had played absolutely no part in, knew nothing about, but was somehow getting blamed for.
I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t my mess.
But I have no way of proving it.
“Then why is she fucking lying?” Robert spat.he knew it would Resentment bubbled up in my chest. “I’m not—”
“She’s scared,” Mitchell cut in. “Those wolves have been controlling her all her life.
She’s terrified of what they’ll do to her if she tells the truth.”
I shook my head. “That’s not true,” I croaked. My voice was hoarse from screaming.
“I love Ace. Ace loves me.
“He may have kept things from me, but he would never hurt me intentionally. He would never even threaten to hurt me.”
“I knew he had some big secret in his life, but he said I couldn’t know what it was until I was eighteen or something bad would happen. Something about him losing me or being taken away.
“I swear, that’s all I know. That’s all he would tell me.”
My birth father looked over me as if he were seeing me clearly for the first time. A deep line appeared between his brow as he processed my words. Was he finally realizing I was telling the truth?
“Well?” Mr. Callahan asked Robert. “What do you want to do?”
Robert regarded me silently for several seconds. “She’s still an omega, correct? We know this for certain?”
It would have been really helpful if I knew what that word meant. What the hell was an “omega” and why did it matter so much that I was one?
igured out a way
who just accepts
yed absolutely no
