(Maria POV)
The forest was quiet, but Maria could still hear the echoes of Xavier’s words. All the words that he said to her in that torture cell. Every whip mark and every hit, and the way it burned her skin, was engraved in her mind. She was unable to sleep peacefully for even a single night because all the dark memories of that night came back to her in the form of nightmares every single night.
Those memories haunted her dreams, wrapped around her like smoke, even as she sat beneath the moonlight on the balcony of the Pack house. The stars overhead sparkled like cold diamonds, bearing witness to all that had happened. Her wounds had been stitched, her body was healing, but her soul—her spirit—still trembled beneath the weight of what she had borne. Another weight was present on her
