Chapter 27: Chapter 27: FREAK

VALORIA WILDEROSE

“Y-You’re c-craz-y.” I chuckle nervously, realizing what she’s asking of me.

It’s impossible to take down everyone in her path—that many women? Before I could even move to the second, I’d be figured out and executed—if at all I’m crazy enough to agree to her offer.

“Am I? It’s the perfect plan, and you’d die either way. I have a perfect reputation to maintain, and yours is already shit and pitiful. You’re already close to Calliope; you need only feed her something poisoned and she’d be gone.”

“I-If I’d d-die eith-ther way, I’d m-much ra-rather take m-my chances.”

“You still don’t realize what this is.” Her smile slowly fades as she draws closer.

Her heels click against the brick floors, echoing through the empty space around us. Each step feels like a countdown to something terrible.

“You don’t have a choice.”

I back away, only one step, watching her with my trepidation rising. There’s a dark shift in her eyes—freakishly terrifying—forcing me to do her will through sheer domination.

A trick used on me before back home.

I always cowered away without fighting back, trained not to talk back. But I’m not the weak girl locked up in that house right now. I refuse to be her anymore.

“I-I do-don’t underst-stand. W-Why are y-you d-esperate to w-win his af-fection?” I stand my ground, refusing to let her intimidate me.

She scoffs again.

“Don’t act like you don’t know, that you aren’t doing the same thing. His Majesty is everything a woman desires in a man—strong, powerful, sexy, amazing in bed. Werewolves might hate him, but that’s only because they all want that power for themselves, like every other woman fighting for him. They’re selfish and greedy, seeking to use him for their own desires. But I’m different, and he knows that.”

She places her hand on her chest as if declaring it to me and to the whole world with her whole heart.

“I love him. I desire him. And I’ve already done more than they could ever have to prove it.”

Right in front of me, she stuffs her hand into her bra, fishing out a small folded picture and unwrapping it to show me a little boy—adorable, with a close likeness to her.

Her lips twitch amidst her smile.

“Did you know I was mated and married with a child? This is Edward, my son. I had him with my mate, but I threw him and everything else away because he desired me.” She refers to Azrael with obvious demented obsession in her eyes. “He wanted me despite my baggage, so I had to drop it all for him. How couldn’t I? We were in love. But you wouldn’t understand. You’re filth; you don’t belong anywhere near him.”

My heart twists at the sight of the little boy in the picture. Innocent. Unaware that his mother abandoned him for a man who probably doesn’t even remember her name.

This is what Azrael does to people. He breaks them without even trying.

I draw closer, holding her by both shoulders—out of desperation for her to understand, and from understanding what it means to keep yourself in delusion for years out of a desire to be loved.

“A-Az-rael… t-that man… he can-not love. H-he’s dece-deceiving you.”

“Shut up!” She smacks my hands off her shoulders, coming undone mentally in front of me while shoving her precious picture back in.

Her smile slowly returns.

“You’re right about one thing. I was foolish to think you were worth using. All of this was a waste of time. So I’m not letting you waste my time anymore.”

With an exaggerated hair flip, she goes for my neck with one hand, strangling me with the brunt of her strength, cutting off my oxygen.

I begin to choke and gag, fighting her off—barely.

She chuckles, watching me with amusement. The look in her eyes is hollow, empty of anything human. Just obsession and rage swirling together into something monstrous.

“I also heard a funny rumor that you were born deformed and weak, unable to express a full transformation,” she mocks before throwing me against a wall. “Won’t you show me just a little of that, so I can confirm it with my eyes?”

My back slams into it painfully, tearing open my wounds again as if I haven’t been battered enough. The pain shoots through my entire body, and once I hit the floor I’m gasping for air, trying to move toward the door before she blocks my path.

“Shift!” she commands, picking me up by my hair.

I groan in agony before I’m bitch-slapped across the face and then tossed into another adjacent wall like a flimsy rag doll.

I cough up blood, staggering to get on my feet, but my blurring vision hinders me.

Then I notice the slight rumbling around us—the dust and crumbles falling off the ceiling downward. This building was already a hazard, slated to be torn down, probably if it didn’t come down on its own.

One more hit against these walls and we’d both be buried alive.

“C’mon, shift… I want to see it,” she taunts me, laughing as she draws closer.

“I-I-vana… ple-ase, this b-build-ing can’t ta-take m-uch m-ore,” I plead with my eyes as she hovers over me.

“There you go again, speaking to me, holding my gaze as though you and I are on the same level.” She grabs ahold of my hair again, holding my face up. “Shift.”

I sob and cower, hating how easily my body cowers before her.

I promised myself never to do it again—to bury the desire of my wolf part for the rest of my life if it meant never revealing this part of myself.

I swore never to show anyone, ever again.

The memories flood back—every time I tried to shift as a child, every time my sisters laughed at me, every time my father looked at me with disgust and called me a disgrace to our bloodline.

I am broken. I have always been broken.

And now she wants me to prove it.

“Shift, Valoria, and I might stop,” she urges me, getting impatient again.

I feel her ready for another hit, so I give in—letting the transformation, or rather the partial shift, happen.

It’s the furthest my body has ever allowed itself to go.

My ears shift to pointed, furry wolf ears, and some of my teeth—my nose included—turning me into a hideous half-creature.

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