Chapter 4: What They Did to Her
1212 Words
(Drake POV)
She looked like I'd just pointed a gun at her instead of a pen.
I write down her size — smaller than I guessed, and I'd already guessed small — and watch her face scrunch up the moment my hands had been at her waist. It wasn't the expression of someone who was uncomfortable being touched. It was pain. She was hurt somewhere under that oversized dress and doing a solid job of pretending otherwise.
"If you've got something to say, say it," I tell her. "Whatever Travis drilled into you about staying quiet — forget it. You're not in that house anymore. So I'll ask again: are you injured?"
"No."
The word came out too fast and too flat. She was lying. I've heard enough lies to know one on contact.
She shook her head like that would help her case, and a strand of dark hair slipped loose from the band holding it back. She tucked it away without thinking about it — a small, automatic gesture that told me she'd spent a long time trying to stay invisible.
Nova was going to take time. A life built around self-protection doesn't unwind in an afternoon. But I had time, and I
was patient when it mattered.
"You're going to have to talk to me eventually," I say. "When I mark you, I'll be able to sense what you're feeling. But until then, I need words."
She goes completely still.
"Mark me?"
"Yes."
Her lips part. Those blue eyes — already wide — go a little wider. She looked like the word had physically landed on
her.
I'd assumed she knew. My Beta Evan had questioned me more than once about this choice, and I'd shut him down
every time. Nova's scent was strange, her abilities were gone, and she had a reputation in her pack that made most wolves walk the other way. None of it changed what I knew. From the moment I'd seen her in that office, something had pulled at me — quiet and certain and not up for debate. Axel had felt it too. He'd been irritated with me all morning for not bringing her home the day before.
"You came here thinking you were going to be a servant," I say. Not a question.
She takes a step back and catches the kitchen island with her hip. A wince flickers across her face before she smooths
it over.
"If Travis had bothered reading the contract," I continue, "he'd have found out that you're not here as staff. You're here
as my bride. He'd also have found out that if he or Celeste so much as look at you wrong going forward, Crestfall becomes yours." I hold her gaze. "I didn't buy you, Nova. You were always supposed to be here."
She stares at me for a long moment.
"I'm a murderer," she says quietly. "Why would you want someone like me?"
Blood. Axel cuts in, sharp and urgent.
I glance down. A dark stain had seeped through the fabric of her dress, right at her side — exactly where my hands
had been a moment ago.
"You're bleeding." I step closer. "What happened?"
She moves her hand over it immediately. "It's nothing. Just a cut I keep bumping. It keeps reopening."
"You forget you have an open wound?"
"It's fine—"
"Stop saying that." I keep my voice level, but she hears the edge under it. "Show me, or I'm going to look myself."
Her heart rate jumped. I could hear it.
"Can we—" She glances toward the doorway. "Somewhere more private?"
I wasn't used to the request. Wolves didn't generally require privacy with each other. But something in the way she
asked it — careful, careful, like she was bracing for the answer to be no — made me nod.
"Office," I said, and led the way.
* * * * * * * *
I hit the remote and the blinds came down, cutting out the afternoon light. She hesitated in the doorway for just a
second, then came in and started unfastening the buttons along her side — only those, keeping everything else
covered. She pulled the fabric aside just enough.
The wound was about four inches long and already going bad at the edges. Infected. More than a few days old.
"See," she said softly. "It's fine."
"You need to stop using that word." I moved closer. She started re-fastening the buttons. "Don't."
I caught her hands. I'd seen another bruise — the edge of something darker beneath the neckline.
"Let me see the rest."
"It's really—"
"Nova." I said her name like it meant stop.
She went still. I didn't ask again. I worked the remaining buttons loose myself, as carefully as I could manage, and she
let me — standing with her arms slightly out, jaw tight, eyes fixed on a point above my shoulder.
What I found underneath made Axel go silent in my head.
Bruise layered over bruise, some fresh and livid, some yellowed at the edges from age. Scars that didn't come from
accidents — the thin raised lines that whips leave behind. Her ribs were visible. Her hip bones were sharp enough to cast shadows.
I turned her around, slowly, and her back was the same.
But here was the thing that made something cold settle in my chest: nothing above the collar. Nothing below the hem.
No marks on her arms, nothing on her hands. Every wound was hidden precisely where clothing would cover it.
They'd been careful. They'd been doing this for a long time and they'd been careful.
She pulled the dress back around herself and held it closed, fingers white at the lapels.
"You need a doctor," I said.
"It always heals eventually." She stopped herself when she saw my face. "It just takes longer than it should. Because
of the binding."
I'd known her abilities were suppressed. It hadn't occurred to me until that moment that healing was part of it — that
she'd been taking hits that any other wolf would shrug off in hours, and instead carrying them for days, weeks, longer.
I was going to find whoever performed that binding. That was a new item on my list.
"Did Travis do this?" I asked, keeping my voice flat because the alternative was worse.
She looked down.
"Celeste?"
Nothing.
"Cole?"
Still nothing. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"All three of them?"
Another nod. She brought her hand up and pressed it to her cheek, catching a tear she hadn't meant to let go.
"Anyone else?"
The pause before she answered was long enough to tell me everything.
"The pack," she whispered.
Axel didn't say a word. He didn't need to.
"Because of your parents," I said. "Because of what they decided you did."
She nodded again, small and tired.
"I don't think you did it."
That got her attention. Her head came up slowly, and for the first time since I'd met her, she looked at me directly —
really looked, not the careful sideways glances she'd been rationing out. Her brow pulled together like she was trying
to figure out whether I meant it.
"Because of Blood of Wolfsbane?" she asked.
- Writer
