Chapter 113: Lost Control

​He dragged her all the way to her bedroom, shoved the door open, and flung her inside. The heavy oak door slammed shut behind them with a bang that shook the walls.

​”What were you doing with Jeremy outside?” Alaric roared, his chest heaving. His eyes weren’t green anymore; they were a shimmering, predatory silver that made the air in the room vibrate.

​”I was just getting air!” Sofia yelled back, rubbing her bruised wrist, her own temper flaring through her fear. “I didn’t even know he was there! You have no right to treat me like a prisoner!”

​”He was touching you, Sofia! I saw his hand on you!” Alaric stepped into her space, his towering frame casting a dark shadow over her. “Do you have any idea what he is? What he’s capable of? He wants to take everything I have! He wants to destroy what is mine!”

​”I am not yours!” Sofia screamed, jabbing a finger into his chest. “I am a person. I belong to no one.”

That was the moment Alaric lost control.

​A low, guttural growl rose from deep in his throat as he lunged forward. He grabbed her by the waist and slammed her back against the closed door. Before she could react, his mouth crashed onto hers.

The kiss was brutal and possessive.

Sofia struggled immediately, pushing against his shoulders, but he was like a wall of stone. His hands moved with frantic desperation, gripping the silk of her robe and tearing it open. The sound of ripping fabric echoed loudly in the room.

​He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her in like a man drowning, his hands moving lower, fumbling with his trousers as he tried to bring himself out, desperate to feel her skin against his.

​”You’re mine,” he whispered against her skin, his voice a ragged, broken mess. “I won’t let them take you. Not again. Never again.”

​The desperation in his voice was the final straw. As he tried to press his body closer, Sofia found an opening. She wound back and delivered a stinging slap across his face.

​The sound of the strike was like a gunshot.

​Alaric’s head snapped to the side. He went deathly still, his hand frozen on his belt. The silver in his eyes flickered, the Alpha wolf receding as the sting of her palm registered. He slowly turned his face back to her, a red mark blooming on his cheek.

​”Get out,” Sofia hissed, her voice trembling with a cold, sharp fury. She clutched the torn remains of her robe against her chest, her blue eyes blazing with pure hatred. “Get out of this room right now, Alaric. If you touch me again, I’ll make sure the whole pack knows their ’perfect’ Alpha is nothing but a rapist in a suit.”

​Alaric looked at her, his expression crumbling from rage into a deep, agonizing shame. He looked at his shaking hands, then at the torn silk on the floor. He realized in that moment that he had lost control.

​Without a word, he backed away, stumbling toward the door like he had been the one hit. He opened it, his head bowed, and vanished into the hallway, leaving Sofia alone in the wreckage of the room.

​Sofia slid down the door until she hit the floor, her legs unable to hold her up any longer. She clutched the torn pieces of her robe, her body shaking with a mix of leftover adrenaline and pure, raw terror. The room felt too big, too cold, and far too empty.

​Suddenly, a voice flickered in the back of her mind. It was faint at first, then sharp and urgent.

​”Sofia?”

​She gasped, her breath hitching. It was Damien. The bond she had tried so hard to ignore was suddenly wide open, vibrating with his presence.

​”Sofia, answer me! Are you okay? I felt your fear… I felt you in pain. What happened?”

​Sofia couldn’t hold it back anymore. A choked sob escaped her lips. She covered her mouth with her hand, but the tears were already streaming down her face. Hearing his voice—the voice of the man she had run away from—felt like a strange, painful lifeline.

​”Sofia, talk to me!” Damien’s voice was full of a worry she hadn’t heard in a long time. “What is going on in that house? Did he touch you?”

​”Damien…” she whispered aloud, her voice trembling. Through the mind link, she felt his anger flare at the sound of her crying.

​”Tell me what’s happening, Sofia. I’m coming to get you.”

​”Damien, wait,” she pulled herself together just enough to ask the question that was burning in her chest. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew Alaric’s late wife… you knew I look exactly like her.”

​There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the link.

​”Yes,” Damien finally admitted, his voice low. “I knew.”

​”Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried out in her mind. “Why did you let me walk into this? You let me think he was helping me!”

​”Would you have believed me?” Damien asked bitterly. “You hated me, Sofia. If I told you my uncle was obsessed with a ghost, you would have thought I was just lying to keep you as my mate. I thought… I thought maybe he would just protect you. I didn’t think he’d lose his mind.”

​His voice softened, sounding more like the boy she had once known before the cruelty took over. “Sofia, tell me. What did he do? Why are you so scared?”

​Sofia looked at her torn clothes on the floor. She thought about Alaric’s hands on her, his desperate, terrifying kiss, and the way he had tried to claim her as if she were a doll. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. She couldn’t tell Damien that, for a split second, she regretted leaving his hell for a different kind of nightmare.

​”I can’t…” she whispered. “I just can’t talk about it.”

​”It’s okay,” Damien said, his tone shifting to something steady and protective. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me right now.”

​”Damien?” Sofia asked, feeling small and exhausted. “Can you… can you just stay in the mind link? For a little while? Don’t leave me alone in here.”

​”I’m right here, Sofia,” he promised, and she could feel his warmth settling over her mind like a blanket. “I’m not going anywhere. Just breathe. I’m right here.”

​As she leaned her head against the door, listening to the silence of the mansion, she felt the strange, twisted irony of her life. She was hiding in a room from one monster while being comforted by another.

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