Growling under my breath, I stood, forcing Kyler to fall back while I glared at him. “Stay the fuck away from me,” I snapped. Without glancing at him again, I stalked towards my apartment while trembling with rage. I stopped in view of the camera Marcus put in front of my apartment and glared at it so furiously it surprised me that it didn’t burst into flames. “I’m not speaking to you,” I growled at it, turning away to stomp into my apartment. Char stopped Riff at the door, shaking his head and murmuring something too quiet for me to hear that turned the more dominant teen away.
“Care to share with the class?” Char asked once he locked the front door and turned the radio on. I glared at him too, and he backed up a step. Shaking his head, Char raised his eyes to meet mine with a slight smirk, crossing his arms and widening his stance. He appeared willing to stand there all day, and I growled under my breath, putting more fury into my glare. Char’s smirk faltered, but he did not back down. With a scoff, I tossed my sketchbook onto the counter, setting my iPod and headphones down more carefully before taking a deep breath to steady myself.
“You knew what that son of a bitch was putting me through, and you said nothing,” I accused coldly. My fury was a front to hide the hurt crushing my soul with cruel jaws. I was so worried, so scared because I didn’t know what was happening nor how to stop it. Turns out, all I needed to do was neuter Kyler. I assume that since we are mates, because he fucked around, I felt it. Why the hell was I punished for his indiscretion? In what world was that fair? To let the cheater enjoy themselves while putting their mate through hell was wrong. Why did the victim suffer, but the aggressor reaped the rewards?
The night we met, he bought condoms, and I bid him have a wonderful evening to which he responded by saying he would. And that I wouldn’t. I hadn’t understood, I couldn’t decide if his words were a statement of fact or a threat. They were both. He knowingly did this to me. Kyler intended for me to suffer the pain of him screwing everything he laid eyes on. My mind supplied an image of his smirk after he punched me in the gut the next day at school. How satisfied Kyler appeared to be because I was in pain. So, he knew hitting me there would hurt and burn and gloried in it. I might prefer my monster to him. At least I knew what to expect from that bastard.
My lip trembled, and my heart won. My head hung in defeat seconds before the first sob tore from my throat while my soul withered, and my heart cracked. Each sob tore at me until my heart shattered in my chest, and my soul became little more than a speck. Not only did Kyler do this, but they knew about it and did nothing to stop him. Nor did they warn me, or confide that I wasn’t insane or to blame. Instead, they let me suffer in silence while I feared each time that I somehow did this to myself, and it would be the death of me. How could I stop something happening within myself when I didn’t understand what I did to prompt it?
Wrapping my arms around myself while my soul radiated agony, I fell to my knees and hunched to soothe the ache within me. Every sob shook my body and caused my wounds to signal their pained state, but I was in no shape to move. It took all I had to keep from wailing or screaming my agony to the heavens. Only once my back ached so terribly that I knew I had to straighten or I wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow did I move. I sat, with rivers of tears streaming from my eyes, while the pieces of my heart radiated even more pain, and my soul tore itself into ribbons of agony.
Swallowing, I forced this fresh onslaught of pain down, and the bile rising in my throat. I had my moment of weakness. It was time to return to reality. While I forced myself to calm, I noticed Char kneeling mere inches from me and shuddered. When he reached towards me with a broken expression, I jerked away, swallowing most of my cry of pain when my spine sang its agony. Char’s eyes filled with alarm, but I scooted away when he tried to move closer. I didn’t want him touching me. I didn’t want any of them coming near me.
“Angel,” Char whispered in a voice laden with pain, “Angel, let me explain.” Explain? How do you explain this? In what world was this right? What words could make letting someone nearly die in ignorance while you stand by idly become okay? Bystanders side with the aggressor. I get that they left Kyler’s pack, abandoned him when he rejected and struck me. But did they really do anything to stop him? No. I believed they did what they could, but now I doubted that with everything I had left. I understood Marcus’s reluctance to start something with the son of the alpha of this town, but what kept him from warning me? Because I didn’t know about werewolves? Well, that was a straightforward thing to fix. Or, better yet, what kept him from bringing up that if I experienced any odd pain, I should tell him? He could have lied, said the town was cursed, and I would have at least known I wasn’t crazy. Sure, I would have laughed at first, but when it hit, I would have told him. I didn’t mention it to anyone because what would I have said? Um, yeah, there’s this magical pain
