Born To Be Your Apocalypse

Their Voices

Sabrina’s POV

I heard the voices first.

They were muffled and distant, drifting through the fog in my head, but as consciousness slowly clawed its way back, the whispers sharpened until I could make out every cruel little word.

“I heard she’s a pole dancer in the human town and that she serves men in clubs,” a voice whispered.

“Someone told me that she seduced some old, bald human billionaire and has been living off his entire fortune like a leech,” another voice added.

“What?” Someone hissed.

“Oh, I heard she’s a vixen who sleeps with both married and unmarried men. Rumor has it that she’s a s*x addict.”

Another voice chimed in, louder and nastier than the rest. “I heard she’s got every disease under the sun. How could the Alpha bring her into the pack? What if she seduces our mates or contaminates the pack?”

Okay, that is enough.

I was done pretending that I was still unconscious.

I sat up so quickly the sheets slipped from my legs, and heat rushed into my face while a cold breeze swept over my bare skin, raising goosebumps along my arms. Instinctively, I wrapped them around myself, fingers digging into my skin as I tried to get my bearings.

Where the hell am I?

The room was unfamiliar, all dark wood and heavy curtains, with the faint scent of pine hanging in the air beneath something expensive and unfamiliar that made my stomach twist. My eyes moved around the room until they landed on a group of women standing near the far corner.

They were folding clothes or doing something else I didn’t give a damn about.

The moment my eyes landed on them, I realized where I was as the memories came rushing back so violently that my stomach dropped.

Anger and panic shot up my spine so sharply that my vision flickered white for a second. I shoved the blankets aside and climbed out of the bed, my bare feet meeting the cold wooden floor before I hurried toward the door.

“I can't be back here,” I whispered frantically, my voice trembling despite how hard I tried to steady it. “I cannot be back here. This is not happening.”

The words spilled from my mouth faster and faster, as though repeating them enough times might somehow tear open a doorway back into my own life. My heart was pounding so violently against my ribs that I could feel every beat in my throat.

I reached the door… Or at least I almost did.

Two women moved in front of it before I could get there.

They didn't touch me or make any attempt to. They simply stood shoulder to shoulder, watching me with the kind of disgust that made it obvious they had already decided exactly what I was.

One of them wrinkled her nose and took a small step backward, as if being too close to me might somehow make her dirty.

“Go back and stay where you belong, little curse,” the tallest one said, her voice coated in false sweetness. Her eyes flashed gold for half a second, her wolf peeking through. “Don't cause trouble for anyone here.”

My breathing changed and suddenly the room didn't feel big enough. The walls seemed to inch closer around me, the air becoming thick and difficult to pull into my lungs.

Something old and ugly stirred beneath my skin, dragging memories I had spent years trying to bury back into the light.

The whip.

The cell.

The laughter.

The way they used to surround me until there was nowhere left to run.

My chest tightened as my hands began to shake. “Get out of my way,” I said quietly but none of them moved.

Two more women stepped forward behind them, filling the space with their judgment glares and barely concealed hatred.

“Keep your w*****g ass down back where it belongs,” one of them spat. “Or we'll teach you a lesson for daring to set foot back here. You're nothing but a murderer's pup.”

Murderer's pup.

The words struck somewhere deeper than they should have even after all these years.

For one horrible second, I wasn't standing in this room anymore.

I was that girl again, staring at my mother’s lifeless body and suddenly it felt like I was reliving that torture. I could hear the c***k of the whip against my back now, feel the sting burning across my skin while their voices followed me through the pain.

I didn’t hesitate for a second as I moved.

Diego had spent years teaching me what to do when someone bigger tried to corner me. Never wait for the second hit. Never let them surround you. Use their weight against them. Hit where it counts, and keep moving.

I had trained until my knuckles split and healed over so many times I had stopped counting. I had trained until my lungs burned and my muscles trembled because I had promised myself that nobody would ever make me feel helpless or weak again.

And I meant it.

The first woman reached for my arm, probably expecting me to flinch but I ducked beneath her hand and drove my elbow into her ribs.

She gasped for air but before she could recover, I followed with an uppercut that snapped her head backward and sent her stumbling into the woman behind her.

The second woman lunged for my hair with a ridiculously offensive war cry.

I caught her wrist before she could grab it, twisted hard enough to make her cry out and drove my knee into her stomach. She folded forward, gasping as I shoved her aside.

Then the room erupted as they all charged.

Someone came at me from my left. I raised my arm just in time to block her strike before driving my fist into her jaw. She stumbled sideways and crashed against a table, knocking whatever had been sitting on it onto the floor.

“Grab her!”

“Hold her down!”

“She's f*****g crazy!”

The shouting only made something inside me burn hotter as they all tried to come at me together.

Another woman rushed me, but I stepped aside, caught her by the shoulder and used her own momentum to send her crashing into the wall.

Someone tried to shift right behind me. I heard her bones c***k as her eyes flashed gold and her face began to change.

I didn't give her the opportunity to finish.

I drove forward and slammed my fist into her stomach with everything I had.

The breath left her in a strangled gasp, and she stumbled backward through the open window.

Glass shattered and a scream came from somewhere outside.

For half a second, the women that were still conscious froze.

I didn't.

Another woman was already scrambling toward the door on her hands and knees, trying desperately to get away from me.

I grabbed her ankles and dragged her back across the floor.

“No!” She screamed, kicking wildly, clawing at the floorboards, but I hauled her upright by the front of her dress and slapped her hard across the face.

Her head snapped sideways but I didn’t stop.

“I am not a whore.”

Another slap.

“I am not a murderer's daughter.”

Another slap.

“I hate all of you.”

She sobbed and tried to shield her face, but I caught her wrist and shoved it away.

“You all think you can say whatever you want about me because you think I'm going to stand there and take it?”

My voice cracked, but I didn't care.

“You think because I dragged back here that I'm the same girl you used to corner in the square?”

I slapped her again.

“Newsflash animals! I'm not!”

The woman was crying now, her cheeks flushed from the slaps, but the tears only made the fury inside me rise higher.

I raised my hand again to hit her but a voice broke the tension.

“That is enough!”