Chapter 74 AURORA

“No!” I leaped up from my desk so fast I knocked the heavy wooden chair over.

“Yes,” the clone of me hissed. She rose and folded her arms across her chest in a superior way, then tilted her chin up so she was looking down her nose at me. “You’ve forgotten yourself. Who you were made to be. Raised to be.”

I took a step back, and the wicked version of myself answered by stepping around my desk. “Don’t run from it, Ann. You are a monster years in the making.”

I opened my mouth to argue that I was no monster, but nothing came out. The other me picked my journal up off my desk and weighed it in her hand. “Read this. You’ll see.”

She offered it to me. I shook my head, refusing to take it. Her smile turned into an evil grimace.

“You won’t go willingly? Fine. Go by force.”

She lunged forward. The book fell open with her movement, and she shoved it into my face.

I braced for the impact, but there was no impact. Instead, when the pages hit me, the world went dark. My office was gone. The safe, cozy sights and scents of the Blue Ridge pack house were gone.

Instead, there was the old, musty scent of basement and damp stone.

I looked around.

I was in the Broken Forest pack house, where I’d found the pages.

I looked down at myself. Unlike my usual pastels or light neutrals, I wore black. It made my skin look white as printer paper in comparison.

I touched my hair. It was long and pulled into a thick French braid that hung straight down my back.

In the first instant, it was as alien to me as if I’d been shoved into a new body.

Then, like a door opening inside my mind, I realized it was familiar.

All of this was familiar.

This was me. It was the life I’d lived for years.

I was in a memory.

I wasn’t in my room this time but walking down a long hall.

Someone moved at my side. I didn’t have to look to know it was Esther Reed. She looked tall, and that meant I had to be young. How old?

“Your latest mission was a failure,” she snapped.

Fear welled up in my belly. I knew what failure meant. I’d be whipped, bled. When you served it, nothing could atone for failure except suffering.

“Mother, no!” I cried. My voice also sounded young. Was I 12? 13? No one seemed to know when my birthday was.

This felt so wrong. I wanted to be a good servant. I wanted my mother to love me. But when I tried to do the evil things they made me do…

Inside, my wolf whimpered. She didn’t like this either. She had always been so weak and stunted, because I was weak and stunted. We weren’t enough.

Esther interrupted my thoughts. “Take her away. When her throat is raw from screaming, she’ll be allowed to try again. Burn the guilt from her.”

“NO!”

But Esther wouldn’t listen. She turned aside and muttered something as hands grabbed me and started to drag me away, but I thought she said, “Nameless help me, this one has been the hardest of all to break.”

The memory flashed, bouncing through scenes of torture that made me weep with remembered agony.

Everything faded to darkness again–the darkness of nightmares. Slowly, my heart started to turn cold.

The next time I was aware, I stood outside with Esther and my Alpha, Waylon. They didn’t look so tall, and when I looked down at my body, I could tell I was older. I felt… colder inside. Numb.

My wolf was a weak, starving thing inside me. I tried to never shift because I was so ashamed.

“Let me see your hands,” Esther snapped.

I held them up. They were covered in blood. “I ambushed one of the Blue Ridge scouts. She was old. Easy to kill.”

“Good,” said Waylon. My father almost never spoke, and his praise warmed me like a fire on a cold night. “But I won’t allow you to sleep, not until you kill two more. No food, either.”

It had been days since I’d eaten, days since I slept. My mind slipped from me, from that place. Nothing felt clear, nothing but my burning desire to serve them and their master.

“Yes, Alpha,” I said.

Waylon stepped forward and grabbed my chin. He looked down at my body, and a leer crossed his wrinkled face. “Do well, and I’ll teach you other things.”

I swallowed, fear prickling in me. I crushed it. If I didn’t seem eager to serve in every way, they would punish me. There would be pain, then less food, less sleep. “Yes, Alpha.”

“You can’t use her like you do the others,” Esther snapped as the scene started to fade. “Remember, I have other plans for her…”

Everything faded again except the darkness, and pain.

I was nothing and nowhere. All around was black. As forever passed, someone cried.

I think it was me.

What do you desire?

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, as if it was asked by the darkness itself.

To be good, I answered without thought.

Wrong. I know you, Ann Reed. Tell me, what do you desire?

It dug into my brain with cold claws, as if rummaging around for the answer it wanted. Then it showed the answer to me.

I shuddered and answered as if the words were pulled from my throat, “Power, so that I can never be hurt again.”

That’s right, the darkness whispered. And I have it…Would you like to see?