Mated To My Bullies

Chapter 18: "Broken Bonds"

Maya's POV

The pain hit me like lightning at three in the morning, jolting me awake from the first decent sleep I'd had in days. It wasn't the familiar ache of the serum slowly killing me, this was different. Sharper. Like someone was twisting knives inside my chest, targeting the invisible threads that connected me to the four brothers.

I gasped, clutching my ribs as another wave of agony rolled through me. Through the mate bond, I could feel their distress too. Stephen's wolf was whimpering somewhere in the castle above me, Nathan was tossing restlessly in his bed, Karl's breathing was labored and quick, and Elijah... Elijah felt like he was fighting not to scream.

But underneath their physical pain, I sensed something worse. Revulsion. They were disgusted by the connection, fighting against it, trying to sever the bonds that tied us together. And every time they pulled away, it felt like they were tearing pieces of my soul out with their bare hands.

"Stop," I whispered into the darkness of my cell, knowing they couldn't hear me but desperate anyway. "Please, just stop fighting it."

But they didn't stop. If anything, the rejection got stronger. I could feel them upstairs, probably gathered together, doing whatever they could to break free from what they now saw as an unnatural trap. The pain was so intense that I doubled over, retching onto the stone floor until there was nothing left but bile and blood.

By morning, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck. The servant who brought my breakfast a different girl than usual, one who couldn't even look at me, set the tray down just inside the bars and backed away quickly.

"Wait," I called out, my voice hoarse from the night of pain. "Please, I need to ask you something."

The girl shook her head vigorously. "I'm not supposed to talk to you. Miss Seraphina's orders."

Miss Seraphina's orders. Of course. Even the servants were taking direction from her now instead of their actual alphas.

"Just tell me," I pressed, "are the brothers okay? I felt them in pain last night and.."

"I wouldn't know anything about that," the girl said quickly, already backing toward the stairs. "And even if I did, I wouldn't be allowed to tell you."

She practically ran up the stone steps, leaving me alone with my cold breakfast and the growing certainty that I was completely isolated. Even the minimal human contact I'd been getting was being stripped away.

I picked at the food without much appetite. Everything tasted like ash lately, another side effect of whatever was happening to my body. But I forced myself to eat anyway, knowing I needed whatever strength I could get.

The bread was stale, the eggs were cold, and the water had a strange metallic taste that made me wrinkle my nose. I'd been noticing that taste for weeks now, but I'd assumed it was just another symptom of my deteriorating condition. The serum Marcus had given me was breaking down my system in so many ways that one more unpleasant side effect hadn't seemed worth worrying about.

Three days passed in similar fashion. The brothers' rejection of the mate bond continued to cause waves of agony that left me curled up on my narrow bed, gasping for breath. No one came to visit except the rotating cast of servants who delivered meals and took away chamber pots, all of them under strict orders not to speak to me.

I could hear life continuing above me, footsteps, voices, laughter. Sometimes I caught fragments of conversation from the main halls, and more often than not, I heard Seraphina's bell-like laugh mixing with deeper male voices. She was up there living the life that should have been mine, playing the perfect alpha female while I rotted away in the dungeons like some shameful secret.

It was on the fourth day that I finally figured out why the water tasted so strange.

I'd been feeling worse than usual, my hands shaking uncontrollably and my vision blurring at the edges. The metallic taste in my mouth was so strong that even breathing felt like swallowing coins. When the servant – a nervous boy who couldn't have been older than sixteen – brought my lunch, I watched him more carefully than usual.

He set the tray down and started to leave, but his hands were shaking. When he thought I wasn't looking, he wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced back at the food with an expression that looked almost guilty.

"Hey," I called out softly. "What's your name?"

He froze, looking terrified. "I'm not supposed to.."

"I know. I'm not asking you to break any rules. I just want to know what to call you."

He hesitated, then whispered, "Tommy."

"Tommy." I moved closer to the bars, noting how he instinctively stepped back. "Tommy, that water tastes funny. Is there something wrong with the well?"

His face went white. "I... I don't know what you mean."

But his reaction told me everything I needed to know. There was something in the water. Something that was making me sicker, weaker, more isolated from the mate bonds that were already causing me agony.

"What did she tell you to put in it?" I asked quietly.

Tommy's eyes filled with tears. "She said... she said it was medicine. To help with your condition. She said you were dangerous without it, that you might hurt someone if you got too strong."

"What kind of medicine, Tommy?"

"I don't know!" he burst out. "It's just powder! Silver powder that she gives me every morning! She said it would help you, but you look worse every day, and I don't understand why I have to lie about it!"

Silver powder. Silver dust mixed into my food and water, slowly poisoning me day by day. Silver was toxic to werewolves in large amounts, and it would explain the metallic taste, the increasing weakness, the way my enhanced abilities seemed to be failing me.

"Tommy," I said urgently, "you have to stop putting that in my food. Silver is poison to wolves. She's not trying to help me, she's trying to kill me."

He backed toward the stairs, shaking his head frantically. "No, no, she said you'd try to trick me. She said you'd lie and try to manipulate me like you did to the alphas. She said that's what dark magic users do."

"I'm not using dark magic!" I pressed my face against the bars, desperation making my voice crack. "Tommy, please, just look at me. Really look. Do I look like someone who's being helped by medicine, or someone who's being slowly poisoned?"

For a moment, I saw uncertainty flicker in his young eyes. I was thin, pale, constantly bleeding from my mouth and nose. My hands shook, my hair had started falling out in patches, and there were dark circles under my eyes that made me look like a corpse.

But then he shook his head again. "Miss Seraphina said you'd say that. She said the poison was already in your system from what that bad man did to you, and this medicine was the only thing keeping you alive long enough to say goodbye to the alphas."

"And have they come to say goodbye?" I asked desperately. "Have any of them been down here to see me?"

His silence was answer enough.

"That's because they can't," I continued. "Because every time they try to connect with the mate bond, it hurts them. Because the silver is making the bond toxic, turning something that should feel natural into something that feels like agony."

Tommy was crying now, but he was still backing away. "I can't... she'll punish me if I don't follow orders. She'll tell the alphas I was helping the dark magic user, and they'll throw me out of the pack."

"Tommy, please.."

But he was already running up the stairs, leaving me alone with the poisoned food and the crushing weight of my isolation.

I stared at the meal in front of me, bread, meat, vegetables, all of it dusted with silver that would continue to weaken me, continue to make the mate bond unbearable for the brothers, continue to push me toward death. I could refuse to eat, but I was already starving and weak. Without food, I'd die even faster.

Either way, Seraphina won.

I picked up the piece of bread with shaking hands, looking at the nearly invisible silver dust that coated its surface. Every bite would be another step toward death, but every bite refused would be two steps.

As I forced myself to take that first poisoned bite, I finally understood the true scope of my isolation. The brothers were actively fighting the mate bond, causing us all constant pain. The pack had turned against me completely, believing I was some kind of dark sorceress. The servants were under orders not to help me, and even the one who knew the truth was too afraid to act.

I had no allies left. No one to turn to. No one who would help me, believe me, or even speak to me.

I was going to die alone in this cell, slowly poisoned by the woman who had stolen my life, while the men who were supposed to be my mates celebrated their freedom from what they now saw as an unnatural curse.

The mate bond pulsed with fresh pain as another wave of rejection hit me from above, and I curled up on my bed, clutching the poisoned bread to my chest, too weak to cry and too broken to fight anymore."