My tortured Luna

Chapter 4

Sages POV

Silence settled over the room after the door clicked shut. I kept staring at it, waiting for the handle to move again, waiting for him to come back and tell me I'd misunderstood, that I wasn't free to leave after all. Minutes passed. Nothing happened. The room suddenly felt too small, the white walls closing in around me until breathing became difficult. My eyes searched for another exit and landed on the open window. Cool air drifted inside, carrying the scent of rain and damp earth. My pulse quickened.

Run.

I didn't hesitate. Jack had taught me long ago that opportunities didn't wait for permission. If you saw one, you took it before someone stronger could take it away again. I crossed the room as fast as my battered body allowed, climbed onto the windowsill and looked down. The ground waited several floors below, far enough that any sane person would step back. I did the opposite. Better to hit the ground than spend another second in a cage.

Before fear could catch me, I jumped. The wind tore at my clothes as the earth rushed towards me. Instinct took over. I tucked my shoulder, twisted my body and let gravity do the rest exactly as Jack had drilled into me after every brutal training session. Never fight the fall. Use it.

My feet struck first. Pain exploded through my ankle before momentum threw me into a violent roll across the soaked grass. Shoulder. Hip. Back. Mud sprayed across my face as I completed the roll and came back onto one knee, already pushing myself upright.

A loud crack echoed beneath me. My left ankle folded sideways. I looked down once.

Dislocated. Without breaking stride, I grabbed it, twisted hard and forced it back into place. Another sickening crack shot through the forest as white-hot agony ripped up my leg. I barely acknowledged it. Pain didn't matter.

Pain had never mattered.

Pain keeps you alive.

Stopping got you killed.

By the time the throbbing reached my brain, my ankle was healed, and I was already sprinting towards the trees. Branches whipped across my arms and face as I disappeared into the forest, my feet barely slowing despite the uneven ground beneath them. Every step sent another sharp jolt through my ankle, but my body had long since learned that pain wasn't a reason to stop. Muscles complained. Lungs burned. Bones ached. Bodies always complain. They always claimed they had nothing left to give.

They lied. Jack had made sure I learned that lesson years ago.

Behind me, a door burst open. Voices echoed across the hospital grounds. Then came the footsteps. Heavy. Measured. Steady.

They weren't running. They didn't need to. They knew they would catch me eventually.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I pushed harder, forcing more speed from exhausted muscles. Wet leaves slipped beneath my feet, branches clawed at my hair, but I never slowed. Every fight Jack had thrown me into had ended the same way. Keep moving. Never let them corner you. The moment you stopped, you lost.

The footsteps grew closer. Close enough that I could almost feel someone reaching for my shoulder.

Almost.

Then...

They vanished.

Silence swallowed the forest. My stomach tightened. No. That wasn't right. Hunters didn't simply disappear.

I kept running anyway, expecting hands to grab me from behind at any second. My attention stayed fixed ahead, every instinct focused on the danger I knew would come from my back.

It never did.

A deep growl rumbled somewhere above me.

My head snapped upward.

A massive black wolf launched itself from the rocky slope beside the trail, its dark body cutting through the air before crashing into me with enough force to send us both tumbling across the forest floor.

The wolf's weight crushed me into the forest floor, forcing every last bit of air from my lungs. Wet leaves clung to my skin as I shoved against his chest with everything I had left, my muscles straining until they burned. He didn't move. It was like trying to push the earth itself. I clawed at the thick black fur beneath my fingers, kicked wildly beneath his weight and twisted hard enough to send fresh pain shooting through my battered body, but none of it mattered. He was stronger. Far stronger. Panic tightened around my chest as the realization settled over me. For the first time in years... I wasn't strong enough.

"No!" I shoved harder, my nails digging into his fur until they hurt. Nothing. My breathing became shallow, each frantic gasp caught beneath the crushing weight pinning me to the ground. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out the surrounding forest. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't get away. The trees disappeared. The rain disappeared. There was only an Alpha holding me down while every instinct inside me screamed the same command.

Run.

Escape.

Survive.

My body obeyed even when my mind couldn't. I bucked beneath him, fought against impossible strength and kept fighting long after I knew it was useless. Jack had beaten one lesson into me over seven endless years.

Never stop fighting, not until you're dead.

"Please..." The word escaped before I even realised I'd spoken.

"Please..." The wolf froze.

His crimson eyes remained locked on mine, no longer hard but searching, almost... uncertain. The pressure against my chest eased ever so slightly before disappearing altogether. I sucked in a ragged breath so fast it burned, instantly scrambling backwards across the wet forest floor until my back collided with the trunk of a tree. My hands shook violently as I pressed myself against the rough bark, every muscle ready to run again the second he moved.

The enormous wolf blurred before my eyes. Black fur receded, bones shifted and stretched, and within seconds Valens stood where the wolf had been. Completely naked.

My eyes did what they had always done. They scanned.

Hands.

Shoulders.

Chest.

Distance.

Weapons.

Then...

They dropped.

Heat exploded through my face. Oh. Oh, Goddess. I snapped my head away so quickly my neck protested.

"I wasn't..." My voice caught somewhere between horror and humiliation.

"I didn't mean to look."

You absolutely looked, Sia said, sounding far too pleased with herself.

Shut up.

You stared.

I did not.

You assessed the situation very... thoroughly.

I hate you.

If wolves could laugh, I was almost certain she was doing exactly that.

"I wasn't looking," I muttered again, refusing to lift my eyes from the forest floor.

"I know." His voice remained maddeningly calm. No laughter, no smug grin, nothing. Only that same controlled tone that revealed absolutely nothing. When I finally dared glance up, he hadn't taken a single step towards me. If anything, he stood farther away than before, his arms hanging loosely by his sides as though he wanted me to see they were empty.

"I'm not going to touch you again." The words should have eased the terror clawing at my chest. Instead, they made it worse. Again. My stomach twisted violently. I pressed myself harder against the tree, unable to drag my eyes away from him. He simply stood there, silent as ever, watching me with an expression I still couldn't read.

For the first time since waking up...

I realized I had absolutely no idea what this Alpha wanted from me.

"Can you walk?" The question caught me off guard. Not will you. Not you're coming with me. Can you. I didn't answer. If I said yes, he'd take me back. If I said no...

He'd carry me. Neither option belonged to me. His expression never changed. He simply waited. Slowly, I pushed myself away from the tree. Every muscle protested, my ankle throbbing beneath my weight, but it held. Barely. I took one cautious step, then another. The forest tilted for a moment before steadying again.

Valens watched silently. I hated that. I hated not knowing what he was thinking. When I nearly stumbled over an exposed root, he instinctively took half a step towards me. I flinched so violently that I almost fell. He stopped immediately. No hesitation. No frustration. He simply... stopped.

For several long seconds neither of us moved. Then he spoke.

"We'll walk." Valens held my gaze for another heartbeat before turning away as though nothing unusual had happened. He started through the forest without another word. I frowned, watching him disappear between the trees before my eyes slowly traveled down his back. It took my brain a second to realize what was wrong. He wasn't stopping. He wasn't looking for clothes. He wasn't even trying to cover himself. He was simply... walking.

"Wait." He stopped and glanced back at me, his expression as unreadable as ever.

"What?" I stared at him in disbelief before gesturing vaguely in his direction.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" A faint crease appeared between his brows.

"What?"

"Your clothes." For a moment he simply looked at me, then down at himself as though checking whether I was right.

"I'll put them on when we get back." My stomach tightened.

"When we get back?" I repeated.

"Yes."

"You can't just walk around like that." His head tilted almost imperceptibly.

"Why not?" The question stole every prepared answer from my mouth. Why not? Because people would stare. Because it was indecent. Because someone might think... I didn't even know anymore. Jack had made sure nudity was never accidental. It was punishment. Humiliation. Ownership. It belonged behind locked doors where no one else was allowed to look.

"People will see you."

"They've seen me before."

"Like... this?"

"I shift often." He answered so matter-of-factly that I almost believed I'd asked whether the sky was blue. There wasn't an ounce of embarrassment in his voice, not even the slightest hint that he understood why I was uncomfortable. To him, it genuinely didn't seem to matter.

He's right, Sia murmured quietly.

No, he isn't.

He's a werewolf.

So am I.

Not with Jack, you weren't.

Her words settled heavily inside my chest. Jack had never let me forget that my body belonged to him. Every bruise, every scar, every inch of exposed skin had been controlled by him. Looking. Touching. Covering. Nothing had ever been my choice. Standing here now, watching Valens treat his own nakedness as though it were no more remarkable than breathing, made me realize how twisted my understanding of the world had become.

He watched me in silence for another moment before changing direction without explanation. A few meters away, folded clothes rested neatly on the branch of a fallen tree. He picked them up, pulled on a pair of dark trousers and a black shirt with quick, practiced movements before looking back at me.

"Better?" I folded my arms.

"Marginally." For the briefest moment, I thought I saw amusement flicker across those cold cobalt eyes before it disappeared just as quickly.

I followed several paces behind, my body was still sore from the crash, but my thoughts remained fixed on the conversation we'd just had. For him, shifting and walking home naked had been completely ordinary. For me, it had felt almost... intimate. The more I thought about it, the more one uncomfortable question settled in the back of my mind.

Maybe it wasn't his world that was strange.

Maybe it was mine.