The new arrival's name was Nora, and her story broke my heart in ways that felt both familiar and devastating.
She'd been mated at sixteen to an Alpha's son who'd seemed charming at first. By seventeen, she was pregnant and trapped. By eighteen, she'd lost the baby to a "fall down the stairs" that everyone knew wasn't an accident. By nineteen, she'd tried to run three times, and each time he'd found her, dragged her back, and made sure she understood what happened to mates who didn't know their place.
She was twenty now, and she'd finally made it far enough that he couldn't follow.
"He'll come," she kept saying as Dr. Sarah treated her injuries, two cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, burns on her arms from where he'd held her against a hot stove. "He always comes. He always finds me."
